SCOTLAND’S First Minister John Swinney welcomed a deal with the Spanish state to save shipbuilder Harland and Wolff (H&W) today.

But the Scottish TUC have issued a challenge: “If the Spanish state can do it, so can we.”

H&W was spared receivership in January when Spanish state-owned shipbuilder Navantia stepped in, saving 1,000 jobs across its sites in Belfast in Ireland, Appledore in Devon, Arnish on the Isle of Lewis, and Methil in Fife.

Visiting the Methil yard with Navantia chairman Ricardo Dominguez to mark the change, Mr Swinney told workers: “This yard has a really proud history, it has an incredibly strong workforce, it is a workforce that has deployed its skill over many, many years.

“I am determined to make sure it has got a very proud future.”

Joining them, Labour UK industry minister Sarah Jones told workers one of the first challenges the new government had faced was to stave off the “imminent collapse of Harland and Wolff” and broker a deal, “because the talent here, the potential here, is just too important to lose.”

The visit came one day after 500 skilled workers just 40 miles away in Grangemouth were made redundant despite widespread calls for government intervention.

STUC general secretary Roz Foyer said: “It is fundamentally welcome that these sites have been saved, with jobs, livelihoods and communities protected.

“This should, ultimately, act as a wake-up call for politicians across these isles to see the benefit in a proper, robust industrial strategy which places an emphasis on the state having key stakes within industry to ensure the protection of jobs and conditions.

“If the Spanish state can do it, so can we.

“We just need our own government and our own politicians to find the political will to step up for workers in need.”