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Ferguson's, the last commercial shipyard on the Clyde, had vowed to bid "aggressively" for the contract and had made it onto a shortlist of six bidders.

The order for Glen Sannox and another ship were placed with the Ferguson shipyard in Port Glasgow nearly a decade ago.

A Transport Scotland spokesperson said that shipyards across the world have been impacted by external supply chain and internal resourcing challenges.

The US has only four naval shipyards left; China has, by some estimates, more than 200 times the ship-building capacity of the US.

BAE is the main employer in Barrow, where it operates the largest shipyard in the UK.