Transport and the Environment Committee, 04 Sep 2002

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 4, 2002

Official Report 200KB pdf

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Highlands and Islands Ferry Services

Item 4 is consideration of a paper from the reporters on the Highlands and Islands ferry services. We want to update members on the work of the reporters in considering the draft service specification of the competitive tendering for the Highlands and Islands ferry services. The reporters' paper outlines some of the key issues emerging from recent meetings on the matter. We wanted to update members in advance of our evidence-taking session with the Deputy Minister for Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning at next week's meeting. I invite the reporters to comment briefly on the paper.

First, I should point out that there is a mistake in the sentence at the bottom of page 2 and the top of page 3 about when the announcement on the Gourock to Dunoon service was made. It was of course made when the draft proposals were published. As a result, that particular sentence should begin with the phrase "At the end of June 2002". Although we believe that the advice came from Europe at the end of 2001, we are not exactly sure when the Executive made its decision. However, the decision was not announced until the end of June 2002.

The paper highlights several areas of substantial disquiet, particularly in relation to the Clyde crossing. I called a public meeting in Dunoon to discuss concerns, which I have outlined in the paper. The principal concern centres on the impact of the loss of the CalMac vehicle service both on the people in Cowal and on the development of the service across the Clyde. Professor Neil Kay has written several papers on that issue that are available for members to read. We need to find out exactly what the European Commission competition rules say about whether one is able to distinguish between a subsidised and an unsubsidised service on the same ship. As there has been a lot of discussion about the matter, we could press the minister on it.

Apart from that, we need to address some issues to do with Gaelic and to do with pensions and the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981. The Scottish Trades Union Congress is quite content about what the specification document says about the TUPE regulations.

Other issues concern other services, mainly to the Argyll islands, and centre on the need to have more frequent services to Tiree, Colonsay and so on. We should also explore substantial concerns about the cost of freight to the islands, particularly in light of the fact that the development of industries such as salmon farming rely on daily freight services to the mainland.

Des McNulty might have other points to add that I have not mentioned.

As Maureen Macmillan has pointed out, the most controversial issue relates to the Gourock to Dunoon service. After speaking to many people in different parts of Scotland, particularly in the island communities, we feel that they support the thrust of the Executive's approach of bundling services under one opco, or operating company. They also support the fact that the forthcoming CalMac timetables will form the basis of the service specification, because they feel that that will give the process stability. That said, we also heard very specific concerns about particular islands or aspects of the service.

More generally, the Executive needs to address the point that ferry services are crucial to the broader economic and social development of the island communities. The question is whether we can treat issues such as the future of CalMac purely as transport issues or whether they have a more fundamental role in such social and economic development. We need to raise that point with Lewis Macdonald, perhaps in the context of a discussion about what lies within his area of responsibility and within other ministers' areas of responsibility to take these matters forward.

The service will be tendered out for a five-year period, but much of the development considerations in terms of the long-term future of the service have to be thought about in the context of a longer time frame. Consideration therefore needs to be given to a longer-term development planning framework that will allow the services to be examined in a long time frame.

There was a suggestion that there should be a service enhancement fund so that island communities, the opco, the successors to CalMac, and other interested parties could have some mechanism for implementing ideas for new or improved services outwith the specified contract framework so that we do not end up with a five-year chunk that remains the same irrespective of how circumstances change in a given island or in relation to a specific service. We felt that the idea of a limited service enhancement fund that could be bid for on a competitive basis and which would allow new ideas to be tested out was an idea that should be pursued with the minister.

Does anyone have any comments? I remind members that the paper is intended to inform us of the situation in advance of our meeting with the minister next week.

I comment on behalf of George Lyon, who has a strong constituency interest. He would have liked to have been here but was at the public meeting in Dunoon last night and is attending a meeting with the minister on this topic this morning. Maureen Macmillan has already covered one of the points that he asked me to raise, relating to the point at which it became known that the intention was to have a stand-alone service, which was when the draft specification was published at the end of June. He also wanted me to raise the issue of the inconsistency between the way in which this issue is being treated and the way in which the northern isles lifeline ferry service is being treated. The northern isles service has run alongside a commercial freight operating company for years and George Lyon asks why, if there is sauce for the goose, there is no sauce for the gander.

I note what Des McNulty and Maureen Macmillan have said and commend them on their work and welcome the depth of the report. The crucial issue is the Gourock to Dunoon service and, as Des McNulty implied, an holistic approach needs to be adopted. We need to pursue the issue in Europe. The Gourock to Dunoon service is a starting-off point for many of the services in Argyllshire and the islands. We need to follow this matter up with the minister.

Do we agree to note the report and use it as the basis for some of our questions to the minister?

Members indicated agreement.

We will move into private session to discuss the committee's work programme.

Meeting continued in private until 11:58.