Chamber and committees

Just to clarify, it cannot be mechanical problems with any of the ships, because CalMac said that only 1,678 mechanical problems cancelled sailings but that the Scottish Government approved the cancellation of 1,551 sailings. According to CalMac, you are carrying the can for that.

He has not. He offered to ring me and give me an explanation, which was not satisfactory to me. That information should have been given to the committee. I do not want to dwell on this too much longer, but you are carrying the can as far as I can see. CalMac talks about substitute vessels not being available for any other reason. All those are given as reasons, so it cannot be for those reasons. It would be useful if you exerted some pressure to say that you have not cancelled those sailings, because it may give the wrong impression that you have. Minister, I know that you would not want that on your shoulders.

I am confused by your answer. In that report, the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee said that it was a “cluttered decision-making” process that “lacks transparency”; that there had been “varying degrees of failure”; that CMAL and the Scottish Government

“failed to discharge their respective responsibilities ... effectively”;

and that the experience of the contracts for 801 and 802 “exposed serious failures” in the tripartite arrangement, which therefore needs

“a root and branch overhaul”.

Basically, the REC Committee said that CMAL failed but, on the way forward, you are saying, “It’s fine. There’s not a problem. Let’s just crack on.” Is that what you are saying? If it is, I am seriously concerned for ferry procurement in Scotland.

Do you challenge it only on the basis that you are making creeping changes?

Okay. I will come back to that.

I did not interrupt you, so please do not interrupt me, because that will not start us off on the right foot.

The RECC report says that

“Transport Scotland and CMAL applied inadequate due diligence in scrutinising and signing off the ... process”

and that “Insufficient due diligence” was undertaken. Those words are all in the report.

We are talking about a project that was due to cost £97 million but which is probably going to end up costing £0.5 billion. Forgive me if I do not understand why the people of Scotland should not find that of due concern, when your organisation was overseeing the contract. Explain to me why they should not.

I totally agree with you. One of the things that the report mentions is transparency. We know that two of the vessels are going to cost £111 million. I would like to know, for example, whether you have addressed the issue of staged payments. Have you addressed all the other points that were made in the RECC report? When we ask for that information, we are told that is commercially sensitive, so we cannot have it. Therefore, it is very difficult for people to scrutinise the process and understand whether there has been change.

Maybe we should leave that issue there, but I would say that looking forward is about learning from history so that you do not repeat the same mistake.

We now move to questions from Mark Ruskell.

That might become quite relevant when we come to our report. We might have to prompt you, as we get to concluding the report, for any advice that you can give us.

Mark Ruskell wanted to ask some questions.

Thank you for clarifying.