Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 23 March 2022
I just said that. People are now thinking of giving up island life altogether. That is tragic.
I will end with a personal testimony from a lady on an island that I have not mentioned so far: Cumbrae. She told me:
“We are only an 8 minute journey from the mainland and this nearness, and our small size, results in a heavy reliability on the mainland. We do NOT have the infrastructure on the island that other islands have. Residents require to travel to the mainland for secondary schooling, work, medical, dental, optical and veterinary services, as well as supermarket food shopping and PETROL! The service in recent months has been the worst in living memory. I am aware of a lady who missed a mastectomy operation due to a sewage issue on the ferry and at least 2 other ladies that have had their Chemotherapy impacted. We need a solution now!”
I disagree with that lady. We needed a solution long before now.
I move,
That the Parliament believes that islanders, island economies and all those reliant on vital ferry links are being severely let down by the failure to deliver a resilient ferry fleet; calls on the Scottish Government to increase funding to build new ferries in the next five years and to commit to spending £1.4 billion in the next 10 years in order to bring down the average age of ferries and to upgrade ports; is deeply alarmed and disappointed with the late arrival of new operational vessels for the Clyde and Hebridean routes; understands that the construction of vessels 801 and 802, which were due to be delivered in May and July 2018 respectively, are severely delayed; notes with disappointment that the Scottish Government has yet to confirm a revised timetable for the completion of vessels 801 and 802, following the identification of issues with the cabling; believes that the Scottish Government has made insufficient progress on acting on the recommendations set out in the report by the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee, in Session 5, on ferry construction and procurement; calls upon the Scottish Government to publish an unredacted copy of the Project Neptune report compiled by Ernst and Young, and further calls for a full public inquiry into the Scottish Government’s failure to renew the ageing ferry network based on a workable ferries plan.