Chamber and committees

I am asking for permission—

I congratulate Jamie Halcro Johnston on securing the debate. I start by apologising, as I think I may have to leave before the end of the debate, if that is okay. I suspect that quite a lot of members speaking—

Okay—thank you very much.

This is not the first time that we have debated ferries and it will not be the last. The fact that we have to—and we do have to—tells us that there is a problem. Too many islands have suffered a dismally poor service. Breakdowns are common, which is not surprising with our ageing fleet. The chronic lack of investment in ferries over the years has led us to where we are.

We just have not had a proper ferries replacement programme, and now we are playing catch-up. That is exacerbated by the situation at Ferguson Marine, where two ferries are languishing years behind schedule and massively over budget. We do not know for certain when they will be finished, but we know that the nationalised yard is not considered good enough to bid to build two more ferries. They will be built in eastern Europe, and it would not surprise me at all if we see them in service before the Ferguson ferries.

We are also in the embarrassing position of having to buy a second-hand ferry from Norway to service the Craignure to Oban route. The MV Utne is being sold so that the Norwegians can replace her with a zero-emission battery vessel, so we get the gas-guzzling cast-off while they save the planet. We also have to fork out more than £3 million to prepare her to operate here. Quite what the justification is for that price tag is anyone’s guess, because the Government has not told us.

Jamie Halcro Johnston rightly says that our ferry links are lifelines. He notes the problems over the summer and recounts the damning report of the former REC Committee, which said:

“the Committee believes that there has been a catastrophic failure in the management of the procurement of vessels 801 and 802, leading it to conclude that these processes and structures are no longer fit for purpose.”

The committee went on to say that there should be

“a root and branch overhaul of current decision-making structures”.

It was really talking about whether we need CMAL—Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd—any more. The then minister in charge, Paul Wheelhouse, was completely dismissive of the committee and told it:

“we do not accept the Committee’s description of a ‘catastrophic failure’”.

Mr Wheelhouse is no longer here to continue the debate. I suspect that his election leaflet quoting me and Alex Rowley praising him during a debate—it was not about ferries—helped to put paid to his political career. [Interruption.] That is true.

Ferries are as vital to Scotland’s connectivity as decent roads and railways. The Government must accept that things have not been done properly. It must accept that there is merit in what we and others, including the REC Committee, have been saying, which is that we need to invest more in ferries; award longer contracts so that operators can procure the vessels; and consider whether we need CMAL. The issue has become a party-political football because of those failings. I make a genuine offer to the minister to put myself and maybe others on the ferry industry advisory group, which has not met for two years—I will even chair or co-chair it, if he wants—so that we can get our islands moving again.

I have a brief comment on the Valuation and Rating (Coronavirus) (Scotland) Order 2021. In essence, the order says that business owners cannot appeal the rateable value of their properties after April 2021 by using coronavirus-related impacts as an argument for changing the rateable value of the property. As you will know, convener, this is not a policy committee and we do not look at such matters, but it seems to me that that is pretty significant and that we should at least flag it up to the lead committee. It is a serious matter for businesses if they cannot use coronavirus impacts in that process. We all know that there are very serious impacts on businesses.

We should certainly write to the lead committee to make it aware of the issue. It will scrutinise the order anyway, but it is worthwhile highlighting the issue.

I have a comment on SSI 2021/348, which deals with something called experimental traffic regulation orders. I was a councillor for 10 years and I have never heard of those. I must admit that when I hear the words “experimental” and “orders” together, that concerns me, particularly where councils are involved.

The instrument seems to introduce a new way of bringing in traffic regulation orders—it is a truncated system. If orders are to be made permanent, a new system is being introduced. As members know, when any changes to roads are made, such as bringing in a cycle lane, they are often controversial and surely deserve the fullest scrutiny. The public should be able to comment within a decent timeframe.

Again, that is a policy matter, but it should be highlighted to the lead committee, which needs to take a good look at the issue and satisfy itself that the measures are appropriate. In this case, I think that the lead committee is the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee. Another letter from this committee is probably appropriate.

Thousands of householders are currently worried about how they will pay for new heat and smoke alarms by next February, but the minister says that by 2025 he will bring in regulations that could land householders with bills of tens of thousands of pounds. He has twice failed to say how he will help people to pay for that; will he do so now?

The turnaround director, Tim Hair, said in his 30 September letter that Ferguson’s uses seven different data systems that do not talk to one another. In other words, no one knows what anyone else is doing. Is it any wonder that the vessels are so late and so over budget?

Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd—CMAL—has just ordered a small, slow, second-hand ferry from Norway, the diesel-powered MV Utne, at an overall cost of £9 million. It was for sale at under £6 million. Will the cabinet secretary explain what the gap is for? Is it just for livery? Why are we going for gas-guzzling cast-offs and not for the same kind of eco-friendly ferries that the Norwegians are buying?

To ask the Scottish Government what the latest estimate is of the public cost of procuring the ferries MV Glen Sannox and hull 802. (S6O-00260)

I thank Donald Cameron for bringing the debate to the Parliament. It would be nice if we had something to be thankful for, because, if that were the case, we would not need to be here. The problems on the A83 are long-standing.

Too many parts of Scotland—generally, those on the edges—get left behind when it comes to road investment, although in this case lack of money is not the problem. Goodness knows, enough has been spent—£8.5 million in the past five years—on mitigation measures. No, I am talking about the spending of money on a permanent solution that will mean no more road closures; Argyll not being cut off unless drivers take an enormous detour; business not suffering; and people being able to do normal things, such as get about, get to work and trade.

As Donald Cameron said, 1,500 businesses support the Rest and Be Thankful Campaign. A quick look at the campaign’s website shows the level of frustration. The campaign has some stats of its own: 200 days is the length of time for which the A83 was disrupted in 2020; 10 years is the length of time that was waited for 11 new proposals, only one of which is feasible; 10 years is the Government’s current timeframe for delivering a permanent solution; 100,000 tonnes is the amount of debris that could fall on the road; £1 million is the amount of money that was spent on the barrier wall on the old military road in 2020.

We are not talking about some remote road that a few tourists use to get to the hills, although that is important, too. The A83 is a key artery. It is as important to the people of Argyll and Bute as the A77 is to people in Ayrshire, or as the A1 is to those in the Borders. There is a lack of investment in those roads, too, but communities along them generally do not get cut off.

Too often, projects in this country get bogged down in process. The cabinet secretary or minister of the day will talk about how they need to follow the process, how proper studies need to be done and how there is a need for reviews and consultation. That is all shorthand for delay—for not actually doing anything.

Donald Cameron spoke about the growing divide between Transport Scotland officials and stakeholders on the ground. That is all too typical of the we-know-best attitude that permeates some parts of the public sector. It is not good enough. Mr Cameron has spoken to three different transport ministers in his time in the Parliament. He has been an MSP for as long as I have—just over five years—and nothing has happened in that period.

The Minister for Transport, whom Mr Cameron praised, should chair the meetings of the A83 task force—or get someone independent to do so—and commit to winding it up because a new road has been built. That needs to happen now—not in 10 years’ time.

The A83 campaign has written to various ministers and officials. In an act of sheer desperation, its chairman, John Gurr, wrote last week to the coalition of chaos’s very own ministerial double act, Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater. He said:

“we estimate the impact to the environment on idling traffic waiting at lights or for a convoy, or with the increased impact of 30-60 miles diversions—for a two-mile road closure—to be an extra 3,300 tonnes of CO₂ into the atmosphere.”

That is bad for the environment. One would think that that would interest the Greens. The Government must act, and act now—not in 10 years’ time.

Thank you, convener. As you have said, the instrument deals with what we shall call the vaccination passport scheme, and everyone knows what that is. The committee has been asking a number of questions of the Government about the scheme for several weeks.

What we decide today is not whether we agree with the policy—that is for the Covid-19 Recovery Committee and, at some point, for the full Parliament. Our role is to decide whether the procedure that is being used is the correct one. The Government has put the regulations through under the made affirmative procedure, which means that they have come into effect without proper scrutiny by any committee. Committees have looked at the policy in general terms but, until today, no committee has managed to discuss it while having the regulations in front of it—and they are already in force.

For me, the question is whether that was the right procedure. The First Minister announced weeks ago that she and the Scottish Government wanted to bring in a vaccination passport scheme. The regulations came into force last Friday, but the Government has said that it will not enforce them for another two weeks. Given all that, I argue very strongly that that gives the Parliament time to properly scrutinise the regulations and therefore that the made affirmative procedure that the Government has used—which avoids scrutiny—is the wrong procedure. The Government should have put the regulations through under the affirmative procedure. That would have given the Parliament a chance to scrutinise the regulations in some detail, unpick them and possibly avoid some of the problems that we all know have come up with the policy.

I am not content with the regulations as laid and will vote against them.