Meeting of the Parliament 15 March 2016
In all honesty, minister, I am not in a position to answer that. I am not aware of any alternative proposals, but I do not have an encyclopaedic knowledge of everything that the Labour Party has proposed over the years.
The committee also explored with witnesses whether carrying out work on the truss end links, as originally proposed by FETA in 2010, might have avoided the failure. Barry Colford told the committee:
“As an engineer I do not want to answer hypothetical questions. All that I can say is that at that point we had intended to replace the truss end links.”
He also said:
“The capital programme ... included what we considered needed to be done on the Forth road bridge.”—[Official Report, Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee, 27 January 2016; c 17, 13.]
However, setting out the Scottish Government’s position, Scott Lees of Transport Scotland said:
“FETA’s indicative forward capital programme was considered and funding provided to meet its contractual requirements and deliver capital maintenance on a prioritised needs basis. Transport Scotland made grant offers in line with the outcome of discussions with FETA officials and those were accepted by the FETA board.”—[Official Report, Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee, 20 January 2016; c 3.]
The committee conclusions state:
“FETA’s decision in December 2011 to reprioritise projects within its capital plan ... was a direct consequence of a decision by the Scottish Government/Transport Scotland to reduce its capital grant allocation”.