Ferries scandal ‘goes all way to the top’... as bill soars by £84m

SCOTLAND’S ferry fiasco is now set to cost taxpayers up to £338million – as Holyrood was told the shambles ‘goes all the way to the top’.

Bosses at the nationalised shipyard yesterday revealed the estimated cost to complete the project to build two CalMac ferries has soared by up to another £84million.

The project has also been delayed by another three months and will now not be completed until the first quarter of 2024.

The second vessel will not be operating until the summer of that year.

It comes as ministers refused to call in the police despite explosive claims of ‘insider dealing’.

Deputy First Minister John Swinney insisted that ministers should not be telling police what they should investigate, while Nicola Sturgeon refused to rule out whether any criminality had been involved.

It follows revelations in a BBC documentary that Ferguson Marine Engineering Ltd (FMEL) was given access to a 424-page document from a design consultant which other bidders did not see – and then appeared to copy large sections of it in its bid.

In a Holyrood debate on the crisis yesterday, Scottish Tory transport spokesman Graham Simpson said FMEL had become ‘an inside track shoo-in’ for the contract and received ‘special treatment’ from a government which was ‘desperate’ to award it to the firm.

He said: ‘They need to come clean and they can’t use these revelations to stall and deflect.

‘The buck stops with ministers, and there were several of them. If CMAL [the ferries quango which awarded the contract] did favours for Ferguson’s, it was because they were told to. This goes all the way to the top.

‘You could call what we saw last night insider dealing, and it could leave the door open to costly legal action and add to the already astronomic cost of two ferries.

‘Make no mistake: the SNP’s handling of this is a scandal.’

Police Scotland yesterday said it is ‘not investigating any criminality at this time’.

The Scottish Government has referred the issue to the Auditor General for Scotland, who has confirmed Audit Scotland will ‘look at the substance of the allegations raised… before deciding if further audit work is required’.

Asked if he would ask police to investigate whether there had been ‘corporate corruption’, Mr Swinney said: ‘It is not really for me to call in the police – the police operate independently of government.’

Miss Sturgeon, asked if she has ruled out whether there has been any criminality, said: ‘I’ve certainly seen no evidence of that, but it’s not my job. We have independent authorities that are there to determine these issues.’

The latest details of cost rises were revealed by shipyard management in a letter to MSPs.

David Tydeman, chief executive

‘SNP’s handling of this is a scandal’

of Ferguson Marine (Port Glasgow), said completion of the first vessel, Glen Sannox, will still be April 2023.

But he also confirmed one option is to delay the commissioning of a liquefied natural gas propulsion system until winter 2023, meaning it would run only on diesel for the 2023 summer season, while the handover of the second vessel, currently known as hull 802, would now be in the first quarter of 2024 and not the last quarter of 2022.

His letter confirmed the Glen Sannox completion costs are now estimated at £101million, while 802 will cost up to £108.6million.

It means the total cost of the project is £209.6million – up by £84million since March – in addition to the £83.3million spent by CMAL on ‘milestone’ payments prior to nationalisation and £45million of Scottish Government loans handed to the former private owner of the yard before it plunged into administration.

The vessels were initially meant to enter service during 2018 costing a total of £97million.

THE SNP ferries fiasco has been an object lesson in the secrecy and buck-passing which have become hallmarks of its style in government.

Yet more delays in the botched CalMac project came to light yesterday – while the eye-watering overall cost rose to nearly £340million.

Faced with these devastating disclosures, Nicola Sturgeon, firmly in blame-shifting mode, asserted that it wasn’t her job to alert police to potential criminality.

But the buck stops with the First Minister – she has run out of room for manoeuvre and can no longer bury her head in the sand.

Only a public inquiry can get to the bottom of this extraordinary shambles – and hold those responsible to account.