Chamber and committees

I hope that the member is not entirely surprised that I am standing up for communities in my constituency who find themselves on the receiving end of the matrix.

I will begin with a sentence or two first, if I can—thank you.

The Public Audit Committee’s report that we are debating today adds to the work that has been done by the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee in its inquiry in session 5, and in the Auditor General for Scotland’s report in March last year. As the Audit Scotland report, “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”, notes,

“Procuring both vessels at the same time was intended to be the start of a standardised approach to building new vessels”

for CalMac.

The contract was for a combined £97 million for both ships, with delivery due in May and July of 2018. Those were intended to be the first in a series of vessels, which would have seen the average age of CMAL’s major vessels reduced from 21 years in 2017 to 12 years by 2025.

Instead, as has been very well, but fairly, rehearsed, island communities have been left waiting for new vessels during that period. As a result of the sequence of events, which members have gone through today, many island communities are still depending on vessels such as the MV Isle of Arran for network resilience. That vessel, for members who do not know her, is so old that she predates the emergence of Apple personal computers and commercial camcorders.

I spend a great proportion of my life raising concerns about the ferry network, which is a measure of just how essential ferries are for every aspect of island life. That reliance on an ageing and overstretched fleet is, of course, having real and serious consequences for my constituents.

CalMac crews and shore staff do an outstanding job, but CalMac, as a company, can and should do much better for island communities. This winter’s annual refit programme has been one of the most chaotic in living memory and has shown itself to be maddeningly inflexible to changing circumstances. The latest decision to deprive South Uist of its ferry service entirely—again—for all of June is one example of why island voices are increasingly, as we have all heard, being raised to use phrases such as “out of touch” and “remote” when describing CalMac’s upper management.

I do not mention all that, in relation to the operation of ferry services, to deflect from the undeniable reality that CalMac does not have enough ships to fulfil its duties as an operator, or even, at present, to sail from all the ferry ports that are advertised on its timetable.

I welcome the news that the Glen Sannox, however belatedly, now shows signs of being ready for this autumn, and that progress with vessel 802 suggests that she might be in service late next year, just as I also warmly welcome the award of contracts to build another four new vessels, the construction of two of which is now well under way.

The Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy’s decision to give a ministerial direction for vessel 802 to be completed at Ferguson’s was, despite much bluster from some quarters in the chamber today and previously, the right thing to do. It might well have cost less to start again and build elsewhere, but the costs of waiting for the necessary two or, probably, three years extra to do so would have been borne by island communities and businesses, as they continued to deal with disruption.

The Public Audit Committee agreed

“with the REC Committee that the decision-making structure for the procurement and construction of new vessels to serve the Clyde and Hebrides ferries network is cluttered and lacks transparency.”

The landscape of differing responsibilities of Scottish ministers, civil servants, CMAL, CalMac and Transport Scotland is—in my view and that of many others—very complex indeed. I hope that the work, through project Neptune, that is under way to review governance arrangements, provides an opportunity to set some of that right. Angus Campbell from the ferry users community board has been diligently going around the country to ensure community input in any future reform.

On a personal note, I thank the outgoing transport minister for the very considerable efforts that he made in office to engage with many island communities, including mine, and I wish him all the best for improvement in his health.

Everyone on the islands is painfully aware—believe you me—of the failings that are associated with the building of the Glen Sannox and vessel 802. Those failings have had undoubted consequences, both economically and socially, for my constituents. However, they also raise wider questions about how, in the future, the management of ferry services by CalMac can be done more effectively. Not least, I hope, if I can be entirely frank—and as other members have mentioned—that CalMac will take the hint that there is something far wrong with the matrix that it uses to decide which ferry services to abandon at any time, given that, generally, the same ferry service is abandoned. Government and CalMac alike will need to address all those questions in order to ensure that we have the ferry services that we need for the years ahead.

I also recognise the work that was done by Mr Stewart as minister—not least on his recent visit to South Uist.

The community of South Uist has had reason to feel that CalMac has been treating it with disdain. CalMac says that the decision to abandon ferry services to the island was made, essentially, because of its prioritisation process, but that process takes no account of the fact that the same route, the same community, the same businesses and the same individuals constantly bear the brunt of disruption. It takes no account of the relative economic fragility of the place and it takes no account of island circumstances. What can be done to challenge and reform the matrix or the process that is depriving South Uist of its ferry, and to ensure that South Uist stops being the default route for cancellation decisions every time there is disruption?

Professor Gethins, you mentioned Flanders and Denmark as examples of places that want to and do engage in multilateral diplomacy and with as many multilateral institutions as they can. Scotland is doing that to some extent with the EU in Brussels, but are there other multilateral institutions that we should or could have opportunities to be involved in in the future? That question is open to any of the witnesses.

I will pick up on the point about being a good global citizen. Professor Jackson said that the council is not necessarily a tool to be used by the Scottish Government, but we have a good reputation for bringing people from other parts of the world to academic institutions and to events such as those organised by Beyond Borders Scotland or those sponsored by the Scottish Government. What more can we do to build on that reputation by bringing people from parts of the world where there are problems and attempting to be a force for reconciliation or good? I see Professor Jackson and Professor Gethins nodding their heads.

You have kind of touched on the answer to my question, which is about the REUL bill. Obviously, we have seen a ping-pong of amendments going back and forth between the two houses of the UK Parliament. Did the UK Government consult the Scottish Government at any point about the content of those amendments and their likely effect on your planning around the laws that you have mentioned?

Last night, Caledonian MacBrayne announced that it would yet again be abandoning ferry services from South Uist for virtually all of June, in order to make up for issues elsewhere. In a statement that could only have been written a long way from South Uist, customers were advised that they could instead get to Oban and Mallaig via either Barra or Skye.

What more can the Scottish Government do to challenge CalMac’s decision, given that that community has already seen a third of its services cancelled during the past year?

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the progress of its plans to bring empty homes back into use as affordable homes for key workers in rural areas. (S6O-02315)

Job vacancy rates in NHS Western Isles continue to increase. Given that many young local people cannot find an affordable home locally, we risk potential additions to the workforce moving elsewhere. How can the Government help to fill NHS, social care and other essential job vacancies in island areas?

The organisation Uist Beò recently shared a story about a global alliance manager for Hewlett Packard who was able to relocate to South Uist thanks to remote working. In its policy on addressing depopulation, what assessment has the Scottish Government made of similarly increasing remote working opportunities in the civil service, particularly when it comes to allowing civil servants to live on island communities?