Meeting of the Parliament 19 March 2025
I remind the Parliament that my wife works part time for CalMac.
In response to Claire Baker’s comments regarding Turkey, I put on the public record at the outset that colleagues genuinely need to realise and recognise why there are delays there. More than 50,000 people lost their lives in an earthquake, and shipyard staff went back to their communities to try to help them. I do not think that it is fair to attack the Scottish Government because of an earthquake that took place in a different country.
I want to touch on the road equivalent tariff, which the SNP Government brought in in 2008. Almost every fare on every route, barring the Orkney and Shetland routes, is cheaper than when the SNP came to power, even after 18 years of inflation.
Scottish Labour’s motion talks about the
“governance structure for west coast ferry services”.
As Fiona Hyslop, the present transport secretary, and Jenny Gilruth, the previous transport minister, will know, I offered my considerations on project Neptune, which Claire Baker referenced. To me, the project offered little apart from proposals that would damage Port Glasgow. I accept that having three organisations, which all have different boards and chief executive officers, is not perfect and costs money. However, decimating Port Glasgow town centre by removing jobs would cost a lot more.
Putting CMAL back into CalMac would inevitably lead to 50 jobs leaving Port Glasgow and returning to Gourock. Jobs staying in the constituency is a good thing, but 50 jobs leaving Port Glasgow would damage the town. It would lead to CalMac staff going around the network. That has been argued for by Alasdair Allan MSP and by David Stewart when he was a member of the Scottish Parliament—