Meeting of the Parliament 16 June 2015
It gives me great pleasure to stand up time and again in the chamber to accuse the Government of being the most centralising and authoritarian Government that Scotland has ever seen. It therefore surprises me all the more to find myself standing here to speak in a debate whose main subject is the Scottish Government and the minister giving up a power. It is doubly interesting to discover that the power that he is giving up is the power to require ports to put together proposals for privatisation. At the end of the debate today, I will support the minister.
Let me explain myself. Scotland’s trust ports, which are among Scotland’s biggest and most impressive businesses, particularly in the case of Aberdeen, are examples of businesses that, to all intents and purposes, already operate as private companies. They are sound businesses that make sound decisions based on charging and long-term investment, and, particularly in the case of my local port of Aberdeen, have shown a great aptitude for running successful businesses that are based on that model.
As a result of section 10 of the Ports Act 1991, ports are required to prepare a privatisation proposal once they have passed a certain level of turnover. That has been considered by the ONS, which believes that it puts ports in a position in which they must be reclassified as public bodies or public corporations.
That is an unfortunate consequence of the 1991 act, which can—and, in the case of Aberdeen, I believe will—undermine a port’s ability to borrow for its investment programme. With the investment programme in Aberdeen now very close to the point at which the construction process will begin, it is important that we take that hurdle out of the way.
I have no problem with the other provisions in the bill; I do not intend to address them as they speak for themselves. The key issue is that we are removing a specific obstacle for a specific purpose. At 5 o’clock, my Conservative colleagues and I will vote for the bill on the basis that it is part of a process that is designed to take away that unfortunate hurdle.
However, at this point we have no guarantee that the process will eventually end up with the ONS changing its position and guaranteeing the outcome that we desire. For that reason, although I am fully supportive of the general principles of the bill, I will reserve my judgment at stage 3 to ensure that what we vote for will deliver the outcome that we desire. If, at that stage, it is clear that it will not result in that outcome, it will be necessary for me to reconsider my position.
The bill is a good example of how the Parliament works effectively to deal with specific problems, and how the bill has been handled and processed so far is a good example of what is good about the Parliament. That is why I have no hesitation in offering my support at this stage, with the qualifications that I have stated.
15:16