After years of cancellations and service disruptions, islanders on Mull and Iona want to replace ferries run by state-run CalMac with their own community service, using three faster catamarans. Their announcement came as Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, prepares to be questioned by MSPs over claims a failed ferry-building contract was rigged to save one of the last shipyards on the Clyde. Sturgeon is due to appear before Holyrood’s public scrutiny committee on Friday as part of its inquiry into costly overruns that have hit the construction of two ferries to Arran and the Western Isles. He will face challenging questions. The purpose-built ferries were due to enter service in 2018 at a cost of £97m. Now, at least five years behind schedule, Audit Scotland, the spending watchdog, predicts the boats will cost at least £240m. A BBC Scotland documentary claimed last month that Ferguson Marine, the Clyde shipyard awarded the contract in 2016, was secretly given the exact specifications for the vessels, written by government ferry owner CMAL, while bidding for the project. The BBC said it allowed the company to completely revise its plans midway through the bidding process – a change no other bidder was allowed to make. Ferguson’s was also able to bid without demonstrating that it had bank guarantees as insurance against the failure of the contract. After a series of delays and government bailouts totaling £45m, the company collapsed into administration and had to be nationalized in 2019 by the Scottish Government to ensure the ferries were built. Both ferries are designed to use climate-friendly hybrid engines that run on batteries and liquid natural gas. It emerged earlier this week that the first ship to enter service in 2023, the Glen Sannox, will run on diesel for seven months because the yard failed to order a critical component for the hybrid engines. John Swinney, Sturgeon’s deputy, told the BBC documentary that ministers shared responsibility for the Ferguson disaster. “There has been a collective failure,” he said, later telling the MSPs Audit that Scotland had been asked to investigate the BBC’s allegations. Jim McColl, a millionaire investor and former ally of Alex Salmond, the former first minister, who owned Ferguson’s at the time the contracts were awarded, insisted he was not aware at the time that no other bidder had those specifications. “In retrospect, it put us in a very strong position,” he said, denying any wrongdoing. Opposition parties say the Ferguson fiasco is just one of a series of troubled deals by the Scottish National Party government that have put hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money at risk, including the purchase of Prestwick Airport and the taking on of guarantees of £545m for a problem aluminium. smelter at Fort William. For islanders, it is emblematic of an at times chaotic ferry service which has severely damaged tourism vital to the Hebrides, left islanders unable to get to hospital appointments, weddings and sports games and led to millions of pounds in lost business for traders, farmers and contractors. They say services are getting worse. From January to September this year, CalMac, the company that operates 34 ferries between 50 ports on the islands and the west coast, canceled more than 8,100 routes, 1,500 of them for mechanical reasons. Joe Reade, chairman of the Mull & Iona Ferry Committee and owner of Tobermory-based biscuit company Island Bakery, said their islands already had a strong tradition of community ownership, including forests, affordable housing and the Ulva takeover. of an island located right next to it. West coast of Mull. Ferry services in the Scottish Hebrides are a purely state monopoly: CalMac operates the services and CMAL owns the vessels. Both are overseen by Transport Scotland, a government agency that manages the country’s road networks and oversees public transport. In a sign of how important the issue has become locally, the feasibility study into the costs and risks of Mull running its own ferry service is being funded by another government agency, Highlands and Islands Enterprise. “Hebridean ferry services are some of the most inefficient, wasteful and expensive in the entire world,” said Reade. “We need more capacity, higher frequency, better reliability, more weather resistance, longer operating hours and more comfort. “These improvements can only be affordable if ferries are cheaper to buy and run. Right now, nobody has an interest in improving value for money.” As Ferguson now nears completion of the ferries, the Scottish Government hopes the Holyrood inquiry will bring an end to this saga. In late October it announced two new £115m ferries had been ordered, using the same design as two vessels being built – in Turkey – for services to Islay. “The Scottish Government is absolutely committed to improving the lifeboat fleet and better meeting the needs of island communities,” said Jenny Gilruth, Transport Secretary. Reade is not impressed. These new ferries were first proposed in 2012, he said, and remain far more expensive than necessary.
