Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Thursday, March 30, 2023

Official Report 827KB pdf

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Urgent Questions

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Ferry Services (Mallaig, Oban and Lochboisdale)

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to restore ferry services between Mallaig, Oban and Lochboisdale in South Uist, in light of the announcement that the services are to be withdrawn from 5 April to 13 May.

Transport Scotland met CalMac Ferries earlier today, and it confirmed that it is doing everything possible to bring vessels back into service and minimise the period for which the Lochboisdale-Oban-Mallaig route is out of service. CalMac has also put in place mitigation by increasing services on the Barra to Eriskay route, to allow greater use of the services from Barra.

We recognise the real challenges that are being faced and we regret the disruption that is being caused to island communities and, of course, island businesses. However, it is important to note that the islands remain open for business and that CalMac is highlighting where there is capacity on secondary routes.

As members are aware, we have provided funding for the charter of the MV Alfred, which will enable additional resilience in the fleet when she comes into service, next month.

I welcome the minister to his new post. He is only minutes into the role, but he is not off to a good start. His answer will be of no comfort to islanders who will be without a ferry service to the mainland for five weeks. It is hard for those of us who live on the mainland to understand the impact of that, because most of us have choices for how we get about, no matter how bad the public transport is.

CalMac’s chief executive, Robbie Drummond, has referred to “a challenging period” that could go on for two years. It is worse than challenging—it is disastrous. With the holiday period looming, what will the minister be doing in his break to sort that out?

I thank Mr Simpson for welcoming me to my new post. He and I have opposed each other in various roles in the Parliament previously, but, as he well knows, I will always do my level best.

What will I be doing over the next wee while? Today, I met Transport Scotland directors to discuss some of the most important issues that transport in Scotland faces. This afternoon, I will speak with CalMac about the issue in question and other issues.

I recognise how important the ferry services are for our island communities—they are lifelines. As the chair of the North East of Scotland Transport Partnership in a previous life, I served on the northern isles lifeline ferry service committee. Therefore, I recognise the impacts that such things have on our island communities. I will do all that I can to ensure that CalMac gets it right for all our island communities, and members can be assured that I will continue to update everyone on how we are going about that.

I am not sure that any of that will be a comfort to islanders. However, to be fair to the minister, he has inherited a disaster.

Islanders and businesses on the Uists need help. Has the Government done any analysis of the impacts of the situation on the local community and the economy? Will the minister commit to looking at a compensation scheme for islanders and reduced fares on ferries that they can use while the crisis goes on?

As I said in my earlier answer, my first course of action is to speak to CalMac this afternoon and hear what mitigations can be put in place. CalMac’s announcement of the change has come as a shock to many—including the Government—and we have to ensure that communication is right between CalMac and our island communities.

I will speak to CalMac this afternoon and we will seek mitigations. I will seek solutions so that our island communities can get back to the normality that they should have. As always, I will, of course, continue to update Parliament on our efforts to achieve that for our island communities.

I welcome the minister to his new post.

Today, I have been inundated with messages of despair from South Uist. It is a community that has suffered by far—I repeat, by far—the highest rate of cancellations of any island community over a period of months. For this to happen yet again, just as the Easter holidays are starting, is a devastating blow. Given what I have to call the frankly abysmal state of CalMac services to that particular community at present, will the Scottish Government consider putting in place either a business resilience fund or other specific measures for Uist?

I fully sympathise, and I recognise the impact that this is having on South Uist. I also recognise that Alasdair Allan has been vociferous on the matter. The impact on his constituents will, no doubt, be challenging for some, and the timing of this withdrawal is not the best, given the Easter period.

Scottish ministers need assurance from CalMac that this measure has been taken with full consideration of capacity and volume on alternative routes. It is important to note that CalMac has increased operations on the service from Eriskay to Barra and that there are other routes that enable people to reach South Uist. People should know that the island remains open for business, although car deck capacity on some routes might be pressured. As I said, I will meet with CalMac later this afternoon, and I will impress upon it the need to minimise any outage in this service.

On the point about the compensation scheme, I know that that has been discussed by the Lochboisdale business group with ministers and officials. I will need to consider it further, although our primary focus has to be on restoring services in order to minimise the impacts on business in the first place.

As always, I am more than willing to discuss these matters further with Alasdair Allan as the constituency MSP.

I, too, welcome the minister to his new post.

It is absolutely unacceptable that there will be no ferries from Lochboisdale for six weeks. Uist has already borne the brunt of recent disruptions. The mitigation put in place means that the small isles will also be left with only one ferry a week—again, that is absolutely unacceptable.

Disruption is now so common that the Scottish Government has devised a disruption management traffic prioritisation framework. The framework can cancel bookings and relegate hauliers to the end of the queue, making their businesses and the businesses that depend on them absolutely unviable.

Will the minister procure a freight ferry to bring into service for those periods? What assistance and compensation will he give to all those who are impacted? Or is he just another in a long line of failed transport ministers?

That must be a record for a member basically saying that a transport minister has already failed, considering that I have not been in post for even 12 hours—or for 10 minutes, in reality.

I would say to Ms Grant quite simply that she is confused in some of her lines of questioning. The mitigation framework that she talks of—[Interruption.]

Thank you, members!

—has nothing to do with the Scottish Government; it is CalMac’s.

I intend to have discussions this afternoon with CalMac around the measures that need to be put in place. I will talk to CalMac about the issues that are affecting islanders, and I will do everything that I can to ensure that CalMac does the job that it needs to do.

On the future procurement of ferries, as I have said, we have already brought in the MV Alfred.

I will be looking at this whole issue in some depth—as I know my predecessor, Jenny Gilruth, did—to find solutions that work for our island communities and to ensure that we have a ferry service that works for all.

I hope that I am going to be of some help to the minister. In 2018, the Scottish Government set up a resilience fund of £3.5 million to hold fast-moving spares for ferries that broke down so that they did not have to be manufactured. The problem was that the transport minister at the time, Graeme Dey, repurposed that fund for something else. The following year, Michael Matheson, who was the transport minister at that time, repurposed it for another reason but said that it was being reinstated. Can the minister confirm that that money has been spent on holding spares and that those spares are in stock and available for use on the ferries? If he does not know the answers, I suggest that that might be where he starts with CalMac this afternoon.

I am sure that that will be one of many topics of discussion with CalMac this afternoon, but, as my predecessor said, it holds that resilience fund. I will be questioning CalMac about that this afternoon, and I have to say that I will be questioning it about the currently unavailable ferries—which are the MV Caledonian Isles, the MV Clansman and the MV Hebridean Isles—to make sure that we get those ferries back into service as soon as possible.

I heard the minister say that he is meeting CalMac and Transport Scotland. When is he going to meet the communities that are impacted by this? They are sick and tired of hearing new transport ministers make promises that are never delivered.

I think that it is now 12 minutes since my appointment, and I have already met Transport Scotland—I did so this morning—and I will meet CalMac this afternoon. Of course, I will also be meeting communities the length and breadth of Scotland to talk about the transport issues that they face. Many members will recognise that, in all the ministerial roles that I have had, I have gone out of my way to listen to the voices of lived experience because that is extremely important to me in ensuring that our policy decisions are the right ones. This job is no different, and I will speak to our island communities as well as to everybody else that our transport system impacts upon.

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Police Scotland (Call Handlers)

I welcome the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs to her new post.

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that Police Scotland call handlers used a fake system for eight years.

I am grateful to Mr Rennie for lodging that question. Although it is a matter for Police Scotland, any suggestion that callers to Police Scotland were not having their calls properly prioritised is clearly unacceptable. I have assurances from Police Scotland that that historical practice was limited to a single regional force and that it is no longer in use anywhere in Scotland and has not been since 2015. Police Scotland call handling has been completely overhauled since the creation of a single national service and policing continues to be a priority for this Government.

The Scottish Police Federation warned about the dumping of SC06 calls at the time, so the Government should have known about the issue. Back in 2015, I also raised the alarm repeatedly about the failings of the newly centralised Police Scotland. Those systematic failings led to the tragic deaths of Lamara Bell and John Yuill, but we were not told that call handlers used a fake system with a fictitious call sign. It was used to hide the chaos, and anxious members of the public had their calls ignored. The call sign was DUMY. Did ministers or officials know about call sign DUMY?

I say very directly to Mr Rennie that I am not aware of any information that suggests that ministers were advised of that at the time. In terms of the issue at hand, my officials in the police division have discussed the issue, as you would expect, directly with the relevant Police Scotland division. Police Scotland has stated that, although the call sign existed, it was used when calls were at a peak so that they could be put into a holding system until they could be dealt with. Police Scotland does not believe that any calls were dropped due to its use. That said, Police Scotland makes it clear that it is not an acceptable approach at this time.

With regard to the tragic and painful loss of life on the M9 to which Mr Rennie referred, I say directly to him that Police Scotland has given my officials categorical assurances that the historical call-handling issue is not related to the tragic death of Mr Yuill and Ms Bell. A fatal accident inquiry is about to commence soon with regard to that matter, and I cannot add any further comment on it at this stage.

I am afraid that this is the culture that the Government has established—to spin and manipulate to avoid the truth coming out. That response also lays bare the abject failure of governance, because the Scottish Police Authority should have spotted the issue. Will the cabinet secretary now commit to wholesale reform of the governance arrangements for the police service?

I know that, when it comes to the creation of a single national police force, Mr Rennie and I sit on different sides of the fence. I hope, however, that, in view of the contact that he has had with me over a range of portfolios for a number of years—neither Mr Rennie nor I are new to this place—he will appreciate that I am very strong and focused on governance and accountability.

Police Scotland must be one of the most scrutinised public services in Scotland, and rightly so. I point to the fact that, on issues in and around call handling, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland produced several reports—starting in 2015, with the most recent report in 2022—with clear recommendations that have been implemented.

I look forward to continuing to engage with Mr Rennie on that and many other matters.

I, too, welcome the cabinet secretary to her new role.

I recognise that the call-handling system in question is a legacy service that was permanently deleted in 2015. However, as the new cabinet secretary has just alluded to, that will be of little comfort to those people who have been personally affected by the revelations.

As the cabinet secretary takes on her new post, what steps will the Scottish Government take to ensure transparency, maintain public confidence and build increased public trust in policing?

I thank Ms Nicoll for her comments and look forward to being held to account at future appearances at the Parliament’s Criminal Justice Committee, which she convenes.

I start by reiterating something that I said to Mr Rennie, which is that Police Scotland is—entirely rightly—one of the most scrutinised public services in Scotland. I will continue to work with the Scottish Police Authority, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland, the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner as well as other national and local bodies and, of course, this Parliament, to support and challenge Police Scotland to ensure that we maintain an excellent standard of policing for all our communities.

Along with the investment of nearly £1.5 billion in policing in the coming financial year of 2023-24, I expect to introduce the police complaints and misconduct handling bill to Parliament later this year.

I welcome the cabinet secretary to her new position.

The problem is that two of her justice predecessors still hold two of the highest offices of Government, and many questions about the issue remain unanswered. The cabinet secretary has said that call handling has improved, but the reality is that, last year, hundreds of thousands of calls to Police Scotland went unanswered or were dropped by the caller.

Around the revelation—I should add that it is a scandal—has anyone gone back in time to review what happened to those calls that went into the ether? What was the exact consequence of not dealing with those calls? More importantly, can we get categorical reassurance from the new cabinet secretary that that practice did, indeed, end in 2015 and has not happened once since then? Serious questions remain unanswered, and someone must pay the price for that scandal.

I appreciate why Mr Greene and other members have raised this matter, which is, of course, serious. Without repeating in full the comments that I made earlier to other members, I refer him to the explanation that has been given for the situation, which is that the call sign existed and was used when call numbers were at a peak so that calls could be put into a holding system until they could be dealt with. Police Scotland has said that it is clear that calls were not dropped due to that. However, as members would expect, I am due to meet the chief constable shortly, and this is one of many matters that will be on the agenda.

For brevity, I refer members to the several reports on the matter that have already been published, including early reports that made a number of recommendations on issues around staffing, systems and processes, as well as the 2018 follow-up report that recognised the considerable priority that had been placed on and effort that had been made in this area, plus the progress that had been made.

I, too, congratulate Angela Constance on her appointment as Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs.

Does the cabinet secretary agree that this is a very serious matter? The call centre system was designed to redirect 101 calls to make response times look better, and the BBC reported today that some calls went unattended as a result of that.

The cabinet secretary says that she is not aware that the practice existed in any other parts of the force. However, does she agree that Police Scotland should never again allow pressures to meet certain response times and targets to lead to such a practice?

Given that the chief constable, who is leaving Police Scotland, has pleaded with the Government to fund the police to ensure that the 101 service, which is a vital public service, continues to provide the best service that it can, will the cabinet secretary assure members that she will make sure that the 101 service will operate effectively and be adequately funded?

I have reiterated to members throughout this afternoon’s discourse that I consider this to be a serious matter, albeit one of historical practice. Nonetheless, it is imperative that we continue to govern, scrutinise and hold ourselves and one another to account, because there must be the strongest possible confidence in our police force and all related practices.

On funding, I have already intimated that we will invest nearly £1.5 billion in policing, which is a resource increase of 6.3 per cent, or £80 million. As Ms McNeill will appreciate, I will scrutinise that budget with great care and detail as we move forward.

I, too, welcome the cabinet secretary to her new role.

A senior police officer has told the BBC that he was instructed by Police Scotland to investigate the matter. He produced a report, but no one knows where the report is. Will the new cabinet secretary, when she meets the chief constable, instruct or request a fresh search for that crucial document?

As always, I appreciate Mr Findlay’s deep interest in our criminal justice system on this and a range of matters. I will, indeed, meet the chief constable very shortly.

From the briefing that I have received from my officials and the extensive questions that I have already put to them, I am aware that there have been five reports on issues in and around call handling thus far. I therefore urge members to go back to and look at those reports and the recommendations that were made and to look at the progress that has been made. My door is always open to any supplementary information that needs to be drawn to my attention.