TORIES are letting British shipbuilding “die out in the name of the free market,” unions charged today as 150 job losses were announced at Babcock’s Rosyth shipyard.

The company said it had deemed “around 150 specific roles” as “no longer needed” after it had “assessed our current workload and medium-term opportunities.”

The yard, in the Firth of Forth in Fife, was known as the Royal Naval Dockyard Rosyth before its privatisation in the 1990s. It has lately served as the site of final assembly for new naval aircraft carriers but work on these is now winding down.

Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner said skills were “at risk of being lost for a generation” if job cuts go ahead.

He called on the Westminster government to guarantee new auxiliary ships are “block built in UK shipyards using British steel,” and warned: “It would be a gross betrayal of a skilled workforce and British manufacturing if the government continued with its obsession to award such work to overseas shipyards and deny manufacturing and communities in the UK the economic benefits that building the royal fleet auxiliary ships would bring.”

Shadow Scottish secretary Lesley Laird backed Mr Turner’s call, adding: “This government is hell-bent on pursuing bargain basement contracts abroad — no matter the cost to us. Other countries protect their shipbuilding industry and so should we.”

The yard currently employs around 1,200 workers, after two previous rounds of job losses in the past 18 months.

But GMB Scotland organiser Gary Cook argued that Rosyth “sustains over 3,800 jobs and generates over £100 million in wages” at its peak production levels.

“The wind-down of the aircraft carrier contract creates a vacuum at Rosyth with no significant manufacturing orders on the horizon,” he added.