Chamber and committees

I commend the committee for its report and its recommendations. It is painful for me to read it, not only as a parliamentarian but as someone with a deep connection to Scotland’s shipbuilding industry. My family has worked on the Clyde for generations, and it was a great moment of pride for me when, in 2011, I continued that tradition by joining BAE Systems. I was working at BAE Systems in Govan in 2014, when Ferguson Shipbuilders Ltd went into administration and was rescued by the Scottish Government. We all celebrated that moment—we all thought that that was a good move, because we all believed in the future of Scottish shipbuilding. However, it is one thing to have sentiment, and another thing to have competence—that is the thing that has been sorely lacking in the past decade of policies around the shipyard, as the report clearly spells out.

One of my jobs when I worked at BAE Systems was to do benchmarking against shipyards around the world. That involved working with an organisation called First Marine International, which I have a close connection with. I know that it has been heavily involved in Ferguson Marine and in trying to understand how to make it an effective shipbuilding operation. Its recommendations were used by BAE Systems in its project to build on the Clyde what was commonly known as a frigate factory but was intended to be a complete under-cover shipbuilding system using a semi-tandem production methodology. That was a complex thing to achieve, but we focused our efforts on trying to deliver it, because we knew that that is the basis on which world-class shipbuilding is undertaken anywhere else in the world. We needed to be in the upper quartile of the league table that is developed by First Marine International, which goes all around the world to maintain that benchmarking study. We developed that design and I am pleased to see that, although there were a few false starts, planning consent has been granted and the construction of a new, integrated shipbuilding facility is under way in Govan, underpinned by a permanent and continuous shipbuilding programme for eight type 26 frigates, financed through the Ministry of Defence.

That is in contrast to what has happened at Ferguson Marine, and we can use that as a useful basis when considering what we need to do. It is one thing looking at the report and tearing lumps off each other, but we have to raise our sights and think about what we want to do as a country. Do we want to have commercial shipbuilding in this country or not? That is the question that we must answer robustly. Do we want to have a national shipbuilding system? We must come to a conclusion on that because, if we want to do that, it is not good enough to simply say that we want it; we must also put in place the building blocks for it. First and foremost, we need a shipyard that is capable of undertaking the work. Willie Coffey mentioned that building a fit-for-purpose shipbuilding facility is either a pie-in-the-sky idea or it is essential, because, certainly, vessels 801 and 802 were not capable of being built in the current shipbuilding facility.

I have been to Ferguson Marine on several occasions. It is not a shipyard that is fit for purpose. Fundamentally, it is too small. The members of the workforce are fantastic and highly skilled. Many of them work between various shipyards and programmes—as members might imagine, Scottish shipbuilding is a small world. The issues with the yard are nothing to do with the workforce or their skills; they are to do with the fact that we did not put in place the fundamentals first of all but, instead, we charged into a mighty Trojan horse of a project that has gone spectacularly wrong, and we are now trying to recover our position.

The question is, do we put in place the necessary finance and capital to build a world-class shipbuilding facility? I am sure that First Marine International has said on many occasions what sums are needed in order to do that, so, do we put in place the essential financing? A criticism that has often been made is that Ferguson Marine did not have in place a builders refund guarantee, which is the financial cornerstone for any shipbuilding project in the commercial world. The reality is, however, that no British bank will provide a builders refund guarantee; that is a not a financial product that is offered in Britain. The Royal Bank of Scotland used to do it all the time—in fact, RBS was one of the world’s biggest ship-financing institutions—but after the 2008 crash it withdrew from that market completely.

Only a matter of weeks ago, I asked the Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy whether the Scottish National Investment Bank would put in place a facility for builders refund guarantees so that Scottish shipyards could undertake commercial work. He said that the bank is not minded to do so at this point. I say to the minister that, if we intend to be a commercial shipbuilding nation but we do not have the fundamental cornerstone of financing in place, we cannot do it.

That is part of the reason why the current system has never worked. The facilities are not adequate, the financing is not in place and a patient forward programme is not in place. The current procurement system is not set up to allow Scottish businesses, or Scottish builders, to win. That is why we see the perverse spectacle of more than £200 million of public money flowing into the Turkish economy to build ferries there, when we know from economic studies that every £1 that is spent on a shipbuilding programme in this country returns £1.30 in value. We are cutting our own throats here. If we have a Parliament that is set up to try to build and grow the Scottish economy and try to build prosperity for our communities, this is a singular failure from which we should be trying to learn.

We should be understanding what the solutions are. The facilities and the financing need to be put in place in a way that is competitive, and the procurement needs to be structured in such a way that it allows for series build in order to enable efficiencies to be gained.

Between the first of the type 45 destroyers that we worked on at BAE and the sixth, we saved something of the order of 30 per cent in man hours. That shows what can be achieved with a continuous ship-build programme. That is what needs to be put in place for us to succeed, and that is why it is essential that the Government finds a means by which to get the small vessel replacement programme structured in such a way that it will be delivered by Ferguson Marine or an equivalent national shipbuilding champion in the commercial world. There can then be a conveyor belt of production so that the workers can achieve the necessary learning curve, and it can be underpinned by financing and facilities that are fit for purpose.

That is the point: if we can get those things in place, we can be a successful commercial shipbuilding country again. While we ruminate and chastise everyone for the failures over the past decade, the solutions are staring us in the face. We have achieved it with naval shipbuilding and we can do so with commercial shipbuilding, and I urge the minister and all colleagues in the chamber to collaborate constructively in order to achieve that for us all.

Will Graham Simpson take an intervention?

In Parliament yesterday, MSPs from across the parties heard from unpaid carers just how challenging their roles can be. Many have no access to respite at all and some even compromise their own health and wellbeing and forgo medical appointments to provide that care. One of my constituents has talked about how she has had to not go for dental treatment, despite being in pain and discomfort, because it would take too much time away from her caring responsibilities.

I say to the First Minister that those insights are not new: carers tell us again and again about the challenges that they face. Although the Government backed the Feeley review recommendations in 2021, we have not had the reforms that are so sorely needed. Will the First Minister confirm today that the Government still supports the Feeley recommendations? If it does, when will he instruct the scrapping of non-residential care charges?

There is lots of shipbuilding work out there in the world to be won, but the point is that Scotland will not win any of it unless we have competitive facilities that are invested in. No investment has taken place in Ferguson’s or an alternative shipbuilding location in the area. In addition, no builders refund guarantees are available in the Scottish economy at the moment. What are we going to do to fix those fundamentals so that we can win some of that £200 million-plus business and bring work to our yards?

Will the member take an intervention?

I thank Mr Ruskell, a Mid Scotland and Fife member, for lodging this members’ business motion, which I was pleased to sign. I thank him, in particular, for his and his team’s steadfast support for the campaign to extend the current concessionary travel schemes to asylum seekers. The campaign, which was launched back in December 2021, currently has public support from, I think, every party represented in the Scottish Parliament, which is fantastic to see. Indeed, the Government has committed to exploring the possibility of implementing the policy in its programme for government, and for that, I and others are truly grateful.

The campaign focuses on one simple premise: the extension of the current concessionary travel schemes in Scotland to people who are seeking asylum and are subject to immigration control and who, as a result, are not able to access normal social security provisions or work to earn an income. It could not be any simpler than that, really. It has resulted in a pilot in Glasgow to evaluate the impact of such an extension, and we look forward to the outcomes of that.

The campaign also has the backing of third sector charities and organisations, including the Scottish Refugee Council, the Voices Network, Maryhill Integration Network and many others, from anti-poverty groups such as the Poverty Alliance to mental health organisations such as the Mental Health Foundation and faith leaders across Scotland. We have heard from people with lived experience of their trauma from dealing with this country’s hostile asylum system and the impact that concessionary travel would have on their mental wellbeing, their ability to integrate into our society and the feeling of purpose and agency that they would subsequently have. It would be a real liberation psychologically and physically for thousands in Scotland.

When we started the campaign, we coined the slogan, “For such small change, it would make a huge difference”, and we stand by that, because it is as true today as it was in December 2021. In the grand scheme of the Scottish Government budget, the costs are negligible, with implementation less than half a million pounds a year, or less than 0.1 per cent of the Scottish Government’s annual budget.

Politics is about choices and priorities, and in today’s society, in which the United Kingdom Government does everything in its power to use asylum seekers as a lightning rod for its failures across the public policy landscape, we in this Parliament have an opportunity to stand against such gratuitous and appalling demonisation. It is an opportunity for us all collectively to say that those people are our neighbours; that they are some of the most vulnerable people in the world and suffer significant trauma; that they are our friends; and, most important, that they are welcome here and should be given every opportunity to fulfil their potential as human beings and as citizens.

On that point, although it is essential to provide that access, we know that, for all citizens in this country, our bus service could do with being much improved. There are issues of cost that we need to look at carefully. In a cost of living crisis, many people are finding access to the bus system unaffordable, and nowhere more so than in Glasgow. I would just contrast the publicly owned system in Edinburgh, where the cost of a single bus fare is £1.80, with the privatised and unregulated system in Glasgow, where the fare is £2.65. Such a difference is unacceptable, and it is a measure of the failure of the 1986 deregulation and privatisation of the system.

I encourage the minister in his speech to make reference to chapter 2 of the 2019 act. We really need to get that activated, because it contains the provisions for franchising. Public control and extending ownership is one thing—and the arguments for it have been rehearsed in the chamber this evening, with the Conservative member for Central Scotland indicating that it would entail massive capital expenditure—but we could emulate, for example, Manchester, which had a breakthrough achievement when it re-regulated its system as of March 2021. It is the first region in the UK, I think, to do so since the 1986 deregulation was introduced.

What Manchester is hoping to do is take control of the fare box. If the regional transport authority can do that, it gets the private operators’ attention, because it can compel routes, package routes to ensure that operators cannot cherry pick the profitable ones and ditch the loss-making ones, and bring coherence to the public transport planning landscape. As has been discussed tonight, we have a form of lemon socialism whereby we privatise the profits and socialise the losses.

Absolutely. I had a really constructive meeting with Strathclyde Partnership for Transport, which said that it might need additional legislation to safeguard its right to introduce franchising. Therefore, although the power in the 2019 act needs to be activated, we also need that collaboration with SPT and other transport planning authorities to ensure that we make the most of the opportunity. I invite the minister to refer to that.

I thank the member for giving way. He is making a very good speech. He made the point about public subsidy of bus companies. Does he agree that simply providing that without having visibility of the profits that are being generated by privatised bus operators is not good enough and that we should consider using grants not in a blind way, but as a way to take public equity stakes in privatised bus companies?

Does Christine Grahame recognise that around 45 per cent of all private bus operators’ turnover is public money, delivered through subsidies, and that many of those buses have been bought through that subsidy from the public purse?

The minister will be well aware of many community organisations that are trying to save Scotland’s built heritage that is at risk. A good example is an organisation called the Springburn Winter Gardens Trust, of which I am the chair. The trust is trying to save Scotland’s largest Victorian glasshouse, which is in an increasingly perilous state of dereliction and has been abandoned since 1983.

We have been really struggling to try to achieve the necessary capital funds to initiate works to save the building. Would the minister be willing to meet me and the trustees to see whether we can find a viable way to save this historic building, which is in one of Scotland’s poorest communities?