Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 20 April 2022
For those who live and work on the mainland, it can be hard to understand how important functioning ferry routes are for island communities. Food and supply concerns were at the forefront of people’s minds on my recent visit to Benbecula and South Uist. At a time when the cost of living is soaring, the last thing that our island communities need is further price hikes due to goods being in limited supply.
I met people who are alive with innovative ideas to meet the needs of their communities but, as I visited the site for a future deepwater harbour in Lochboisdale, I could not help but sense that the lack of reliability in our ferry services chokes off that innovation. We need to move from our islands being full of potential to being able to deliver on what they have to offer.
To unlock that potential and reverse the on-going march of depopulation, Scotland needs a fully functioning, reliable, resilient and green ferry network that is seen as an essential part of our national public transport network. There has never been a better time to redesign Scotland’s ferry networks. Given the recent nationalisation of ScotRail, thanks to the Scottish Government and the Greens, the stage is set for further transformative changes to our transport systems.
Our island communities desperately need new vessels, not least to provide a buffer when another ship needs maintenance. That has been happening far too frequently and causes intolerable disruption to residents and, as we have heard, local businesses, such as in Lochboisdale where the ferry has been out of action for the best part of three months.
However, it is not just about procurement. To get our ferry services fully functioning, we need a comprehensive, long-term marine infrastructure plan that covers ports, harbours, vessels, offshore renewables and all components of Scotland’s marine infrastructure. As part of that plan, we could establish three standard sizes for new vessels, so that they can berth at more ports to make it easier for one ferry to substitute for another when it is offline.
We must go further to make our ferries a good green transport option for the 21st century. Significant investment into the sector must be future proofed by improving connections with public transport networks and making our ferries cleaner and greener to run. A constituent recently wrote to me to express her gratitude that there is a new Mull ferry but her disappointment that it runs on diesel while countries such as Norway are already moving towards zero emissions ferries.
It is also vital that we provide free travel on ferries for young people, just as we provide free bus travel for people under 22, as delivered by the Scottish Greens. I have heard many stories of how free bus travel has transformed young people’s lives. Let us do that for young people on islands, too.
Finally, we must ensure that decisions about our ferries best serve the people who use them most—there need to be more islanders on the CMAL and CalMac boards. I will work with colleagues in the Government to feed ideas such as those into the upcoming islands connectivity plan and the delivery plan for the strategic transport projects review 2, to make Scotland’s ferries an asset for the future of our island nation.