Scottish Commercial Shipbuilding Industry

That the Parliament regrets and deplores the near extinction of the Scottish commercial shipbuilding industry; is acutely aware that this once great industry is represented only by Ferguson of Port Glasgow, a yard currently without orders and with a skeleton workforce; knows that this lamentable state of affairs stands in stark contrast to other European shipbuilding nations where many shipyards are enjoying remarkable levels of demand for all kinds of new vessels, which will take them beyond 2010; notes that in the past year the Northern Lighthouse Board took delivery of a new tender built in a Polish yard, Caledonian MacBrayne acquired a new ferry, also from Poland, and the Craig Group of Aberdeen accepted the latest of nine supply vessels from a yard in Spain; compares these orders for vessels which will operate in Scottish waters with the recent strange decision to defer the awarding of a new contract for a new fisheries protection vessel; believes that successive industrial and political leaders have failed this important maritime sector but is still of the view that commercial shipbuilding can maintain a niche on the Clyde, and therefore calls on the Scottish Executive, ship owners, the managers of publicly funded fleets of vessels and other appropriate interested parties to do all that they can to retain this sector of our shipbuilding industry.