Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government remains fully committed to improving Scotland’s transport and trade links to the Continent, which carries even more importance after the UK Government’s damaging exit from the EU.

I have personally engaged with parties interested in introducing new ferry services, and Transport Scotland officials continue to communicate regularly with potential operators and Scotland’s main ports.

I also met with Lord Davies of Gower, then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport, in London on 5 February regarding this issue. I subsequently received written confirmation from Lord Davies that the UK Government was not willing to financially support a new service from Rosyth, highlighting the risk of potential litigation should other operators consider such support to be subsidy.

Due to UK Subsidy Control restrictions, any service is required to operate on a commercial basis. I hope that prospective commercial operators are able to commit to operating a successful and profitable service, however this is ultimately a decision for those operators.

We will continue to engage with port operators and others to explore opportunities for new commercial services, so that Scottish exporters have more direct routes to markets on the Continent.