A WAR of words over whether UK warships would be built in an independent Scotland has escalated.

Former defence secretary John Reid echoed the views of Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael and said "the only way to secure the future of Scotland's shipyards is to remain in the UK".

Defence giant BAE Systems announced last week that 1775 jobs would go across the UK.

Shipbuilding will end in Portsmouth and hundreds of jobs will be lost at the Govan and Scotstoun yards in Glasgow and at Rosyth in Fife.

But work on the new Type 26 vessels is earmarked for the Glasgow yards, giving workers there a vital lifeline.

UK Government ministers said this work could go elsewhere if people in Scotland voted Yes to independence next September, though Scotland's Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has insisted Clyde shipyards could still build the ships.

Mr Carmichael has called on Ms Sturgeon to "admit she is wrong" on her assertion that an independent Scotland could still build the vessels. He said: "Nicola Sturgeon is looking pretty isolated on this. The best thing she could do is admit that she is wrong.

"Is she really saying that everyone else is wrong and she is right? Is she telling us that the people who build the warships and the people who place the contracts know less about this than she does?"

He added: "The future of the Clyde yards is sustainable as part of a large and successful United Kingdom. Brilliant workers and the best complex warships in the world, it is a great combination and we should not break it."

Ms Sturgeon rebuffed the suggestions.

She said: "The decision to close Portsmouth will leave the Clyde as the only place on these shores with the capacity to build naval surface ships, and that decision is testament to the world-class skills of the workers at the Clyde yards.

"Our support for the Clyde is unconditional, whatever the people decide next year." Writing in a Sunday paper, Lord Reid added: "It is a fact that since the Second World War no UK Government of any political stripe has ever commissioned the building of a warship in a foreign country. It is a fact that for security, as well as economic and political, reasons we build these ships here at home in the UK."

He added: "We don't build warships abroad now - and what's left of the UK wouldn't do so if Scotland separated."