Chamber and committees

It might be helpful for the broadcasting staff if I stay with you for my second question, and I will then bring in Harald Høyem. Which organisations normally own the ports and harbours that are used by ferry services? If it is not the operator or the contracting authority, how are decisions on harbour investments made?

Thank you very much.

You deliver a service.

I would like to know who funds the innovation for your hydrogen ferries. I am also intrigued by the fact that you have an automatic ferry that has apparently run already. Where does the funding come from for that? Are the tender companies going to the market to get long-term investment for that? How is it being funded and how is your hydrogen project coming along?

Are there any hydrogen ferries in development? Are there any being deployed? What is the current status?

Where the hydrogen is coming from? Is it naturally sourced from converted wind to green hydrogen?

We will watch with great interest. Thank you.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. I will put this question primarily to Robbie Drummond. There seems to be a significant gap in how passengers have described their recent experiences of ferry travel to this committee and the picture that was painted by the statistics and information we received from you—you have latterly given us additional information on that. For example, the committee has heard that people are having to travel several days before a medical appointment on the mainland to ensure that they can get there on time, despite what we hear from CalMac concerning assurances about reliability and arrangements for emergency travel. Why is there this disconnect between what we have been told directly by your passengers on our visits to island communities, and what your organisation has told us is available?

That is very general and does not tell us what your organisation’s views are. You have implied that people need to be accountable for different parts of the service, but there is the complexity that sometimes CalMac has been blamed for things that are the responsibility of CMAL or perhaps Transport Scotland. I want to draw you out somewhat. Do you think that the current complexity means that there is a lack of responsiveness and accountability?

I want to take us back to the weather and to Robbie Drummond. We have received a submission from the Mull and Iona Ferry Committee—you will not have seen that, but we are happy for you to respond to it once you have had a chance to see it. The Mull and Iona Ferry Committee has looked at freedom of information data from CalMac over the past 22 years and Met Office analysis of wind recordings, and it has said that the number of weather-related cancellations in comparable winters has increased by around a factor of 10.

Bearing in mind that safety and the decisions of masters are absolutely paramount, the Mull and Iona Ferry Committee’s reflection on the engagement with CalMac is that there are issues relating to the tracking of the weather experience and whether there has been a significant decline, the potential of external factors, tighter regulation, a more litigious environment, and a fear of prosecution of masters. There might be other forces that are perhaps leading to a more restrictive view of whether it is safe to travel.

We also heard that on our visits. Anecdotally, people reflected that, in the past, masters would perhaps have sailed, whereas now they do not.

Feel free to come back to us once you have seen the submission, but do you have any reflections on changing behaviour and who is looking strategically at whether that is really happening? Do you acknowledge that that is happening? Where does that put masters’ decision making? Are they taking more conservative approaches because of the changing nature of potential issues around legal challenges, for example?