Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 11 May 2022
We wanted to call this debate “Ferries Fiasco”, but parliamentary staff told us that we could not. The debate might not be called “Ferries Fiasco” in the Business Bulletin, but that is what it is about.
The Scottish Conservatives used our previous debating time to talk about ferries. Had anything changed since then, we could have gone on to something else. However, we still do not know why the Scottish National Party Government awarded the contract to build vessels 801 and 802 to Ferguson Marine Engineering Ltd against the advice of its in-house experts and despite its posting hundreds of documents. We have had the very sad sight of the United Kingdom forces hero Keith Brown beating a hasty retreat from Her Majesty’s press the other week, sidestepping their battle lines to slink into the cover of the Scottish Parliament canteen.
Mr Brown later gave a less than satisfactory interview with Channel 4 news, in which he said:
“That document, the one that signed it off, if it ever existed, is not now available but it was quite clear from associated documents that it was approved and approved by the minister for transport.”
Work that one out: a document—“if it ever existed”—that signed off the decision. Perhaps the minister can tell us now whether the document that Mr Brown referred to existed.
The silence speaks volumes, Presiding Officer. Mr Brown remembered the script after that and again blamed Derek Mackay, who, at the time of the decision, was the lowly Minister for Transport and Islands, and Mr Brown was his boss. The idea that Derek would not to talk to Keith, who would not talk to John, who signed the cheques, who would not run it past Nicola, is preposterous, particularly when the SNP had an announcement to make at its conference. Derek, Keith, John and Nicola: the Ferries Four—a very dodgy group with no hits to its name.
There is a real and enduring stench of cover-up. The SNP’s secrecy is appalling and corrupt. We do not know why the yard got the contract, but it did. Nicola Sturgeon says that the Government saved the jobs at the yard. The yard could have continued if it had not been given that ill-fated contract. There is no reason to think otherwise.