Meeting of the Parliament 06 November 2019
I remind members that my wife works part time for CalMac.
I will touch on the Scottish Government amendment, part of the Labour amendment and the Conservative motion. It will come as no surprise that most of my comments will be focused on Ferguson Marine and the issue of shipbuilding. I support the Scottish Government’s actions in stepping in to save the yard. Make no mistake—the yard was going into administration. The Scottish Government needed to step in to save the jobs and to help my constituency and my community. It also needed to save shipbuilding for the future and to complete the two CMAL vessels, as well as the other three vessels that are under construction.
When I am out and about in my constituency, I get the same message from constituents, which is, “Thank you to the Scottish Government. Thank you for saving this shipyard.” The Tories are laughing—if they do not want to save jobs, that is entirely up to them. The yard was going to shut.
My constituents know that the Scottish Government stands up for them, in comparison with the heartless Tories, whose record on shipbuilding, including in Inverclyde, is there for all to see: yards were shut, thousands of people were paid off, and people were forced to get on their bikes to go and find employment. There was also depopulation—and the list goes on and on.
Jamie Greene should know better, as he is from Inverclyde. Some of his public comments have been quite bizarre, and they do not reflect the history of what his party has inflicted on the Inverclyde area. I will give members just a couple of Mr Greene’s quotes. On 10 August, on the back of the Ferguson situation, Mr Greene commented:
“The blame for this fiasco lies solely at the feet of the SNP government who have recklessly mismanaged this contract”—[Applause.]