Scottish Ferry Services

That the Parliament welcomes the investment by the Scottish Government in support of the ferry industry; accepts that there must be value for money in delivering publicly funded services; further welcomes the recent report by the University of Glasgow regarding ferry services in Scotland and believes that this is a valuable contribution to the ongoing Scottish Ferries Review by the Scottish Government; notes that the report argued that there is no evidence of services not being run efficiently and that quality standards are high and rising; further notes the report’s claims that higher standards would be more easily retained in the context of a larger operator holding the contract for all Clyde, Hebrides and Northern Isles routes and that single operators are unlikely to be able to offer the same degree of quality and safety training to employees at the same cost due to a lack of economies of scale; also notes that the report argues that the private sector is in no better position than the public sector to charter the specialist vessels required to replace ageing ships, and urges the Scottish Government to safeguard the quality of ferry services and current maritime skills by taking all steps in its powers to retain the integrated Clyde and Hebrides ferry network in the public sector.?