THE Government provoked anger last night after performing an apparent U-turn over the fate of four dilapidated US Navy ships berthed in the North-East.

Environment Minister Elliot Morley said the controversial "Ghost Ships" - unwanted craft from the US Naval Reserve - should be dismantled in Hartlepool.

But his comments were met with anger by green campaigners who want to see the vessels sent back across the Atlantic to be dealt with by US shipyards.

They accused the minister of speaking prematurely because the company involved, Able UK, does not yet have the necessary licences to do the work.

Yesterday, in the House of Commons, Mr Morley admitted a "weather window" would allow the return of the ships at the end of May.

But he said: "What we should be considering is the best environmental options, and in my view the best environmental option is to recycle them on site.

"To do that they will have to get the necessary legal and environmental permissions.

"If they can't be recycled on site, the next best option is to recycle within the UK or the EU. If, for whatever reason, that cannot be done, then they will have to be returned."

His comments were in stark contrast to what he said during an emergency Commons debate: "The Government's position is clear - that these ships should turn back."

Friends of the Earth campaigns director Mike Childs said: "Elliot Morley is jumping the gun when he knows that risk assessments into the best environmental option for dealing with these ships have yet to be completed."

Able UK managing director Peter Stephenson said: "The minister is much better informed than Friends of the Earth who, it seems, still prefer to indulge in scaremongering."

Meanwhile, a campaign to dismantle ships in the UK instead of in dangerous working conditions in the Third World was yesterday taken to the Government.

Hartlepool MP Peter Mandelson and representatives from the GMB union and Greenpeace met Minister for the Armed Forces Adam Ingram to argue for ships to be broken up in Britain.