SNP faces backlash as Scottish shipyard loses out to Poland on state ferry contract
The Scottish Government has triggered outrage after revealing that a £175m ferry contract has been awarded to a Polish shipyard instead of struggling local manufacturer Ferguson Marine.
A contract to build seven electric vessels for ferry operator CalMac has been handed to the Remontowa yard in Gdansk, which triumphed over four other bids including one from Clyde-based Ferguson Marine.
The Scottish yard was brought under government control by the ruling Scottish National Party (SNP) in 2019 and has received hundreds of millions of pounds of state aid.
Russell Findlay, leader of the Scottish Tories, said the decision to send business overseas rather than support the struggling state-owned shipyard was a 'hammer blow' for employees and a result of SNP 'incompetence'.
The contract was awarded by state-controlled procurement firm Caledonian Maritime Assets (CMAL). CalMac has also been under the direct control of the Scottish Government since 1990.
Unions also criticised the decision. Alex Logan, the convenor for the GMB union at Ferguson Marine, said: 'This contract should have allowed the yard to seize back a reputation for excellence unfairly torn away. We had a worldwide reputation for building small vessels and sending this work overseas makes no sense.'
Mr Logan questioned the logic of the SNP failing to award the contract to Ferguson Marine after pledging to invest in the modernisation of the yard. He said the Ferguson Marine workforce had been 'used as a political punch bag' over a number of years.
Sue Webber, the Scottish shadow transport secretary, said the decision could prove to be 'the death knell' for Ferguson Marine.
She said: 'It should be a given that a nationalised shipyard wins a Scottish Government contract. It's a measure of how badly the SNP have mismanaged Ferguson's that ferries, which should be built on the west coast of Scotland, are to be made in eastern Europe.'
Fiona Hyslop, the Scottish transport secretary, said the decision represented a milestone in modernising the fleet of CalMac.
CMAL said the five bids were assessed against various technical and financial criteria by its own experts and outside marine specialists.
Kevin Hobbs, the procurement company's chief, said it was required to select a yard that would both serve the needs of islanders and 'deliver the best value for the public purse'.
Ferguson Marine handed over the first of two new CalMac vessels six years late in January.
Remontowa has built vessels for CalMac before, though not for more than a decade, having most recently delivered the MV Finlaggan in 2011.
CMAL also overlooked a bid from Birkenhead-based Cammell Laird and one from Cemre of Turkey, which is in the process of building the next four ships due to join the CalMac fleet.
Cemre recently revealed that the first delivery, originally expected this month, had slipped to June, depriving remote islands of vital links upon which their economies depend going into the tourist season.
The seven electric ferries to be built in Gdansk will be deployed on short sea crossings to islands including Bute, Mull and Gigha.
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