In a speech to an emergency debate on the campaign against plans to transfer 3,000 dockyard workers to the private sector, Denney said: "I thought in the early days of May 1997 that privatisation would be a subject condemned to the Jurassic Park of Government policy.

"Sadly, nearly five years on, I have heard more references to privatisation issues at this Congress…than I would have dreamed possible on 2 May 1997, when I believed that the people had spoken and where I believed it had been made clear that the old way was finished – that a new dawn had arisen and that after 18 dreadful years of attacks on public services that ‘things could only get better’."

Urging support for the campaign against the privatisation of the naval bases, Denney highlighted how Defence Minister Geoff Hoon rejected a 93-page alternative union plan in a two-page reply that offered no arguments against the proposals.

And echoing earlier calls from Scotland’s First Minister, Jack McConnell, that public sector jobs should be at the core of Scottish civic society, Denney called on Mr Hoon to revisit the union proposals, enter into real dialogue with the MOD unions to keep public sector jobs at the core of the MOD and reverse the decision to privatise the naval bases.

Representatives from the T&G, Amicus and the Public and Commercial Services union also spoke in support of the anti-privatisation campaign.