Meeting of the Parliament 25 November 2015
The member knows that it is not practice to share legal advice with others, but a useful exercise over the summer considered the legal advice, and I am afraid that that has not changed the position from that taken by the previous Administration. The matter is one of compliance.
I remarked that the tender process has not changed but, as the responsible minister, I have made changes of material significance to the quality requirements. For example, the quality ratio is much stronger than was the case under the previous tender exercise. I would not want the Labour Party to give people the impression that it handed the previous contract to CalMac when in fact it was an SNP minister under this SNP Administration that gave the award to CalMac. It was the Labour-Liberal Administration that put out to tender the services in the first place, setting the precedent of that being the road that we had to go down.
The maritime cabotage regulation says:
“Whenever a Member State concludes public service contracts or imposes public service obligations, it shall do so on a non-discriminatory basis in respect of all Community shipowners.”
We are compelled to undertake the process.
I have done my best, as I think is reflected in the trade unions’ comments, to safeguard the conditions and employment of staff that operate—