Chamber and committees

Obviously that has the benefit of stopping the sort of wildfires that we have seen quite recently and the resulting devastation, but how do we get that kind of land management—or at least the kind of management that stops wildfires and the damage that they cause? How do we replicate that elsewhere outwith grouse moors?

So, as well as having licensing, should we also be saying to landowners that they need to control the risk of wildfire on their land, too?

Yes—thank you, convener.

We are aware that the Scottish Government might make an announcement about further regulation of snares and that it is gathering evidence on humane cable restraints. What are your views on that?

Yes, I can imagine only that people are getting angrier by the day as they wait for action but see none being taken at all.

Everyone is impacted. A haulier told us that, be it a toothbrush or a new build house, you have to get it on the island and it has to come by ferry.

Alasdair Allan talked about the 40 per cent drop in accommodation bookings. That is almost half an annual income gone. I mentioned Ceòlas. Its summer school has been impacted because bookings are well down. That has a knock-on effect to the local community as well. Furthermore, a hotelier told us:

“People can’t make a living ... they can’t stay here.”

The disruption impacts on staff as well, because they must bear the brunt of community frustration. That is simply not right. They were once proud to serve their islands and that has been taken away from them.

I think that members are interested in how the Government, rather than CalMac, will respond to the demonstrations on South Uist.

I, too, welcome Fiona Hyslop to her new post. I sincerely wish her every success in it, because people’s lives really depend on her being successful in sorting out this debacle.

Island businesses do not want compensation; they want ferries. However, without ferries, they need help to survive, and that is why they are asking the Scottish Government to set up a resilience fund. We agree with them. We are not asking the Scottish Government to cut spending elsewhere to do that; we are asking it to pay for it with the very fines that it charges CalMac when ferries are not running. Surely it is natural justice that those who bear the brunt of the cancellations should receive those fines.

The cabinet secretary keeps flagging the MV Alfred as her contribution, but £1 million a month is being spent on renting the MV Alfred—£9 million for nine months. That is a ferry that costs £14 million to buy—it is ridiculous. The Scottish Government bears responsibility for the crisis; it lies squarely at its door. It is not the fault of CalMac or its staff because they do not build ferries—it is the fault of the Scottish Government, which failed to build them. When it did try, it proved to be absolutely incompetent.

As Neil Bibby said, the Government has built six ferries in 16 years. Compare that with the 10 built in the eight years of the Liberal-Labour coalition. Even Margaret Thatcher built more ferries than the SNP and, sadly, those ageing ferries are still being used on those routes. The cabinet secretary and the minister are responsible for the inaction of their Government. They cannot pass the buck.

Of course, some islands are impacted more than others. As Michael Mara said, in South Uist, one in four sailings is disrupted, but not a single island is unscathed. That is creating a huge personal cost to communities. Beatrice Wishart talked about funerals missed, weddings missed and cancer treatment missed. Katy Clark talked about food and essential provisions being impacted in Arran and the Cumbraes. Donald Cameron talked about Mull, and Ivan McKee reeled off a huge number of issues.

There is not an island that is not impacted by all this, but South Uist is a case in point and it stands out. The local economy loses £50,000 a day in low season to lost ferries. It has lost millions in the past couple of months. South Uist was a growing community—young families were being welcomed back. Stòras Uibhist, the community landowner, was developing the area, and Ceòlas, the language and culture centre, was becoming a focal point for the whole community. It was community empowerment in action, yet the community has been marooned by the Scottish Government. A third of the population was out protesting against that, but the best that they can get from the Scottish Government is a review of the matrix.

Very briefly.

I will, Presiding Officer.

When Government makes a mistake, it compensates people, as it did during Covid when people were losing their businesses. The Government needs to do that now, as the impact of the disruption is worse than Covid. It needs to build ferries, it needs to set up a resilience fund and it needs to do right by our communities.

We are grateful to the Public Audit Committee and its staff for their work on the report.

The workforce at Ferguson’s has been let down by the Government. Stuart McMillan seemed to suggest that members in the chamber are hammering the workers at the yard, but they are not; they are hammering his Government. If he tries to divert that anger, it is he who is causing distress to the workers at the yard. The workforce at CalMac has been let down as well, but those who have been most let down are the communities that are being driven to their knees by the lack of ferries.

Neil Bibby and others talked about the unprecedented protests in South Uist. A turnout of a third of the population is unheard of anywhere, yet that is what happened in South Uist at the weekend. They have had enough. This has to be fixed. They need ferries. It will not be fixed without a transport minister, so why the delay in appointing one? Can the First Minister really not find a willing candidate on the back benches?

Richard Leonard talked about the committee report and the lack of transparency—the evasion and how the Government avoided questions and even refused to attend. It did not even have the courtesy to respond in time and in detail to the committee’s report. If that is how the Scottish Government treats the Public Audit Committee of this Parliament, I begin to wonder, but it is exactly how it also treated Audit Scotland. We need transparency. This is the squandering of public money and the betrayal of communities.

Neil Bibby and Craig Hoy added their voices in condemnation of Willie Coffey and Colin Beattie, who tried to water down the report. Their role on the Public Audit Committee is to represent the people of Scotland, not the SNP. For the minister to tell us today that CMAL will decide which parts of the KC’s report will be published is absolutely shocking. This is a failing Government trying to hide the truth.

The Scottish Government is squandering taxpayers’ money. The cost of the MV Glen Sannox and hull 802 would have been almost enough to renew the whole fleet. Bizarrely, the Government is also paying Pentland Ferries an amount for a nine-month hire that would pretty much have bought the boat. Brian Whittle talked about paying for consultants. Indeed, the Scottish Government paid for consultants on project Neptune and is now going through another procurement worth millions of pounds for more consultants. That is wasted money when a bystander could tell it for free that what we need is ships and that that is the only way to solve the problem.

The Scottish Government needs to sign off on a design that will fit harbours, put a running programme of replacement out to tender and build an interchangeable fleet with capacity to cover dry dock and high season. Doing so will mean investing in shipbuilding—Paul Sweeney made that point. At this moment, it does not really matter who runs the contract, because you cannot provide a ferry service without boats. Although the Scottish Government loves to point fingers at CalMac, it is simply passing the buck for its own incompetence.

Alasdair Allan and the Scottish Government talked about and put blame on the matrix. If you change the matrix, you simply cut off another community and pit communities against one another. We are already pitting tourists against locals, freight against passengers—divide and rule simply will not work.