Transport and the Environment Committee,

Meeting date: Wednesday, May 22, 2002

Official Report 254KB pdf

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Highlands and Islands Ferry Services

Item 6 on our agenda is consideration of a paper produced by committee reporters on Highlands and Islands ferry services. The paper, which has been circulated, updates members on the tendering of the Highlands and Islands ferry contract. The paper also contains proposals for future work by the reporters and committee consideration of this matter. The paper invites us to agree proposals for consideration of the tender, and proposals for the reporters to travel and undertake consultation on behalf of the committee over the summer recess. It proposes that the convener and reporters should work with the clerks to produce a bid for approval of such travel by the conveners liaison group. I invite the reporters to comment on the proposals.

I would be happy to make the trips that are proposed. I presume that Des McNulty would be happy to do so as well.

The trips that we made previously were useful. I visited Cumbrae and Tiree, whereas Maureen Macmillan visited other islands. The trips created a useful link between the parliamentary scrutiny process and the interests of the islands. Now that the specification has been put out to consultation, we can build on the work that we have done and extend it to some of the other affected communities.

The tendering of the Highlands and Islands ferry services is probably the most important transport issue for many of the communities to which Des McNulty refers, so it is appropriate that we continue our work on that. The reporters should continue to seek the views of people in those communities and of relevant organisations, as it is useful for the committee to receive comments on the tendering process. I recommend that we approve the proposals that have been made.

Before we agree the proposals in the reporters' paper, we should be mindful of one of the petitions that we will consider shortly—petition PE421—which may impact on the recommendations that we make to the reporters.

I anticipate that the petition to which the member refers will inform the work of the reporters. I do not want to prejudge the view that we reach on that petition, but if any of our actions impinge on the work of the reporters, they will take account of those actions in addition to the proposals that are made in the paper.

The paper recommends that the committee

"agree that reporters should undertake consultation and travel over the Summer Recess as outlined above".

We should add the words "and anything subsequently identified" to that recommendation.

When the draft specification is published, we will consider the detail of fare structures and so on. That will be the appropriate time to consider issues such as road equivalent tariff.

The paper on petition PE421 recommends

"that the issues arising from the petition be taken into account as part of their consideration of the draft service specification. It is therefore recommended that the Committee agree to take the petition into account as part of its work into the tendering of Highlands and Islands Ferry Services."

It remains to be seen whether the committee agrees to do that.

We will discuss the paper under the next item. I want to ensure that, if we agree to the reporters' proposals, the option proposed in paper TE/02/17/7 will remain open to us.

Do members agree to the recommendations that are made in the reporters' paper TE/02/17/5?

Members indicated agreement.