Meeting of the Parliament 14 June 2023
Okay, I will carry on.
Mr Stewart was just minutes into the job when I asked him an urgent question about what the Government was doing to restore ferry services between Mallaig, Oban and Lochboisdale in South Uist, in light of the announcement that the services were to be withdrawn from 5 April to 13 May. He talked about recognising the challenges that were faced and said that the islands remained open for business. I then asked him whether he would look at a compensation scheme and reduced fares for islanders. He said that he would be speaking to CalMac that day and would “seek mitigations” and “solutions”.
Alasdair Allan had another go on the idea of a business resilience fund and did slightly better: the minister said that he would
“need to consider it further”—[Official Report, 30 March 2023; c 60.]
which is not quite a commitment.
Douglas Ross raised exactly the same issue last week because, three months on, things are no better. In fact, they are worse, with sailings of the MV Lord of the Isles between Mallaig and Lochboisdale cancelled until the end of June. As we have heard, locals who have protested in their hundreds have said that CalMac is ushering in “modern day Highland clearances”.
CalMac uses something that is called a matrix to decide which services to run when there are problems, which is quite a lot of the time. John Daniel Peteranna of the South Uist business ferry impact group, which organised the demonstration, said of the matrix that
“It is as vague and woolly as you can get and that is what they use to make decisions. It is hot air. We think it is commercially better for them to do this ... The matrix should look at the cultural and economic impact but I cannot make any sense of the rubbish that has been written. We need an explanation of what it means ... It is like the Highland Clearances again.”
Robbie Drummond, who is CalMac’s chief executive, has been meeting islanders this week. Mr Drummond had a taste of what they are going through when he reportedly could not get his car on the ferry and travelled a very long way round to get there—if it had been Lorna Slater, she would of course have just chartered a boat. Mr Drummond has promised a review of the matrix; we have heard today that the cabinet secretary will do the same.
The upshot is this: people on the islands are suffering because of mismanagement of our ferries under the SNP. The Government owns Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd, which buys the boats and owns them; it also owns CalMac, which runs the ferries. Sitting above them is Transport Scotland and whoever is minister of the day. The Government even owns the yard that is building two new ferries—eventually. There is no one else to blame; the Government is responsible. Therefore, when people are out of pocket because of it, it should compensate them—it really is that simple.
Right now, island life is being made a misery, so the Government’s amendment is quite shameful; it removes all mention of a compensation scheme. Any islander watching today will be furious; they are being let down and now, they are being ignored. I ask members to support my amendment and reject the Government’s.
I move amendment S6M-09463.1, to insert at end:
“; notes the anger expressed by islanders at repeated disruption, which is impacting on business and day-to-day life; calls on the Scottish Government to establish the fund, which should be permanent, without delay, and welcomes the commitment by CalMac to review its route scoring matrix.”
16:18Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.