Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 11 May 2022
Let me make some progress, please.
If that had happened, one of the biggest failures in public procurement in the past 20 years could have been avoided.
There are conflicting accounts of how we have ended up where we are today. The First Minister is right to ask us to treat the accounts of Jim McColl and the previous owners with caution. He is not, as she said in the chamber, a “disinterested” party—that is correct—but neither is the Scottish Government. The ferries were procured on its behalf by Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd. As I have said repeatedly, the First Minister is ultimately responsible for the Scottish Government. She should assume direct ministerial responsibility for the Government’s investments at Ferguson’s, for putting the yard on a stronger footing and for ensuring full transparency in relation to everything that has gone wrong.
Audit Scotland has said that there is insufficient documentary evidence to explain why the contract for the ferries was issued without a full refund guarantee. That remains astonishing and clearly requires further investigation. The minister has quoted from an email today that nobody in the chamber has seen before now.