Meeting of the Parliament 08 June 2023
Thank you very much, Presiding Officer.
First, I would like to put on record my thanks to the previous Minister for Transport, Kevin Stewart, who was due to open this debate for the Government but has, this week, resigned for personal health reasons. I am sure that, like me, colleagues wish him well and thank him for his service.
I reiterate our thanks to the Public Audit Committee for its detailed and in-depth work in preparing the report. It builds on the significant work that was undertaken by the Auditor General for Scotland in production of his own report on the matter. I also take this opportunity to thank the staff of Audit Scotland for their professional and detailed approach to compiling the report and to concur with the convener in thanking the members of the committee and the clerks for compilation of the report that we are considering today.
I reiterate at the outset that Scottish ministers regret the delay to the ferries. I fully understand the distress and difficulty that is caused by it, and I apologise again to our island communities for the unacceptable delays in the delivery of vessels 801 and 802. As someone who grew up in an island community, I know very well the challenges of living in an island community in the first place, never mind when your connections are disrupted as they have been of late.
The Scottish Government has made it a priority to engage directly with communities and to hear from them in relation to those impacts. I am bound to look for solutions to alleviate the pressures on the ferry network while we await the delivery of the two vessels that we are considering today, as well as the four new ships that are being constructed in Turkey.
As we noted in response to the committee, I welcome the report’s recognition that there have already been significant improvements in procedures and processes by Transport Scotland and CMAL, working alongside CalMac Ferries, since the procurement of the vessels almost eight years ago. Improvements have already been made in the governance of port and vessel projects, and further work is on-going within the tripartite arrangement to strengthen that further. Many of the improvements were adopted prior to the inquiry into these matters by the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee, in 2020, or the Audit Scotland report.
The work included consideration of the role and remit of the programme steering board. More recent key strategic recommendations have been channelled through that body and have been broadly welcomed by communities. They have included provision of a resilience vessel, the splitting of the Skye triangle services and plans to enable vessel 802 to be deployed alongside the MV Glen Sannox to Arran.
Following the RECC inquiry, Scottish ministers confirmed that a review would be undertaken into the existing structures, to ensure that they were fit for purpose. We have now published the project Neptune report and are engaging with communities on possible future arrangements. We have made it clear that the community view is key to this, and we are keen to move at pace to implement the change that communities need and deserve.