Chamber and committees

Is the money for crew members’ food and travel included in their wages? Is that what is bringing down their terms and conditions?

I am not entirely sure that your sacked employees will agree with that.

When my colleague Emma Harper was down at Cairnryan last week, she spoke to some of the folk who have been sacked. They raised serious concerns about how a new crew can be trained in health and safety to a competent standard so quickly. How long will that process take? Are you confident that they will be trained to a competent standard?

You said earlier that the pay was the same and that the terms and conditions were changed slightly but not a lot. That is why I am asking why you needed to sack the Cairnryan seafarers.

Good morning, panel, and thank you for coming along.

In previous evidence-taking sessions, the committee has heard about staff retention in local authorities. In response to Monica Lennon, you mentioned planning services and building standards, but have you been made aware of concerns about any other services in local authorities? If so, what impact has that had on you and your members?

I will go to Grant Tierney first, and then Martyn Raine.

Ian Hill, do you have anything to add?

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate on Scotland’s ferries. Although I was not an MSP at the time, I am acutely aware of the extensive inquiry that the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee undertook on ferries in session 5. I am sure that we are all in agreement that it is incredibly crucial to our island communities and island economies that we have good transport links between our remote communities and the mainland. Those transport links act as an essential lifeline for residents, including for the supply of food and services.

Over the past few years, Scotland’s ferries have been operating in very tough conditions. Ferries have faced the challenges of the Covid-19 restrictions, combined with increasingly adverse weather events. Vessels also need to be taken out of circulation for essential day-to-day maintenance, which folk in the chamber seem to forget about at times. Those challenges have caused cancellations and disruptions on the ferry network.

In response to those challenges, the SNP Scottish Government has invested more than £1.9 billion in our ferry services, vessels and infrastructure since taking office in 2007. Those investments have included money for new routes, new vessels and upgraded harbour infrastructure, as well as the roll-out of significantly reduced fares through the road equivalent tariff scheme.

The services that are provided by P&O, including the vital links between Scotland, Northern Ireland and Europe through the port of Cairnryan, are essential for Scotland’s economy. The Tory UK Government has consistently blocked changes to employment legislation that would have prevented the abhorrent treatment of workers at P&O Ferries, and it still shows no signs of doing anything to close down the possibilities of future companies doing the same.

Does the cabinet secretary agree that, although there is clearly much more to do, the Scottish Government’s efforts and ambitions around tackling the climate crisis have been widely recognised, including by Chris Stark, the chief executive of the United Kingdom Climate Change Committee, who said on “Good Morning Scotland” recently that the Scottish Government “has been noticeably better” than other parts of the UK

“at putting a vision around ... what it wants to do to make Scotland more resilient”

in terms of climate, and also said that

“We don’t see that, for example, from DEFRA in the UK”?

Normally, I would take an intervention, Mr Kerr, but I have absolutely no time.

I am aware of the 46 per cent capital cut that Labour and the Liberal Democrats made in the time that they were in Government.

Given the investments and actions that I have laid out, it is simply puzzling that we continually hear from across the chamber calls for more funding for everything, including transport infrastructure, healthcare, justice and education. The list never ends, but I am still waiting to see what any of the Opposition parties’ budgets would have been. I have seen neither sight nor sound of where they would cut funding in order to fund their endless calls for money. It is very easy to make those demands when they do not have to balance the books every year. If the Opposition parties joined our calls for full fiscal autonomy for this Parliament, they would at least have a basis for their uncosted financial demands. Coming from a local authority setting, where most Opposition parties provide an alternative budget, I was amazed that none came forward in this chamber.

The Scottish Government is committed to undertaking the first comprehensive review of the ferry network. The islands connectivity plan will replace the current ferries plan and look at aviation, ferries and fixed links, to ensure that all potential options for connecting our island communities are considered. As part of that plan, it is key that the Scottish Government consults the users of the ferries and learns from the experiences of other countries and other modes of transport, and I ask the minister for an assurance on that.

I welcome the fact that the Scottish Government will produce and maintain a long-term plan and investment programme for new ferries and development of ports, in order to improve resilience, reliability, capacity and accessibility, increase standardisation and reduce emissions to meet the needs of island communities.

In 2005, when the Ferguson’s yard faced closure because of the inaction of the previous Labour Government, the SNP joined Labour rebels to demand that the yard be saved. In 2014, when the yard faced closure once more, the SNP Scottish Government stepped up and helped to save it, rescuing more than 300 jobs. Today, there are almost 500 permanent and temporary staff at Ferguson’s. Let us contrast that against the recent developments with P&O Ferries, a multimillion-pound corporation that benefited from taxpayer Covid-19 funding and has just made 800 staff redundant with absolutely no notice.