UNION leaders have called on the Government to save North-East shipyard jobs by bringing forward contracts.

A plea for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to speed up future warship procurement was made at a rally in Newcastle yesterday, called to highlight the plight of the manufacturing industry.

The rally coincided with a warning from shipbuilding boss Jaap Kroese that he would have to mothball Swan Hunter and cut 1,500 jobs when work ran out in two years' time.

Swan Hunter's contract to build the Largs Bay and Lyme Bay sister ships for the MoD runs out in 2006 and the company expects to be idle until work begins on two aircraft carriers in 2008.

The yard was hoping for an order for a £30m Royal Navy hospital ship, but defence bosses have said the order will not be placed until after 2006.

Addressing more than 300 demonstrators who marched from Newcastle's Quayside to Grey's Monument, GMB northern secretary Tom Brennan said: "We are calling for the release of ship building contracts.

"There are aircraft carriers, hospital ships and type-42 frigates, but for some unknown reason the Ministry of Defence has decided they are almost certain to award the contracts at the same time on the same day.

"When we have (the threat of) redundancies at Swan Hunter, it is an ideal opportunity to drip feed and release some of the procurement programmes in the pipeline. We need to maintain the skills base."

In a further blow, the offshore engineering group Amec revealed that it is six weeks away from running out of work at its Wallsend yard, threatening 500 jobs.

Amicus general secretary Derek Simpson said yesterday's rally was one of a series to place manufacturing high on the political agenda.

He said: "There is no successful economy in the world that does not have a successful manufacturing base."

The rally was told there were 300 jobs losses in the manufacturing industry every working day - 12,000 nationwide in the first two months of this year and 1,200 in the North-East.

Union leaders are calling for legislation to provide stronger protection for workers and a rethink of the Government's procurement programme to ensure UK companies given work are obliged to place manufacturing contracts in this country.

They also want to see the introduction of a global workers charter and a dedicated minister for manufacturing.