Speech in the Scottish Parliament

26 May 2010

David Stewart : I congratulate Mary Scanlon for securing the debate and I strongly endorse the text of her motion.

She mentioned my old friend and colleague, Lord George Robertson, who was very helpful and influential to me when we were at Westminster together.

He is, of course, well known now for his many roles, particularly as a director Western Ferries.

As we have heard, Pentland Ferries was set up by Andrew Banks in 1997.

Initially, he ran and serviced routes between Invergordon and Orkney.

At that stage, Pentland Ferries found it difficult to generate sufficient freight.

However, Mr Banks is a man with vision and a determined nature, and he obtained a 99-year lease at Gills Bay terminal, about 3 miles from john o'Groats.

In May 2001, the MV Pentalina-B started sailing into St Margaret's Hope.

Mr Banks understood the important role that ferries play in rural development and in attracting inward investment and sustaining indigenous jobs by providing lifeline services.

At one stage, I was a member of the Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee with Rob Gibson.

In the past, the committee has argued that we need a national ferry strategy if we are to break away from the Cinderella service feel and atmosphere that ferries have had in the transport family, compared with road, rail and aviation.

The mantra of better integration of different modes of transport has echoed through the lecture halls of every transport conference in history.

However, we have a system that cannot co-ordinate the end of the winter timetables for bus, rail and ferry services with the start of the summer timetables, so the ferry sails into Oban just as the train departs.

Andrew Banks understands that ferry customers want comfort, speed, frequency and reliability.

The MV Pentalina, which was built in the Philippines, is the state of the art.

As Mary Scanlon pointed out, it has a capacity of 350 passengers.

It can take either 32 cars or eight articulated lorries, and has an impressive speed—compared with ferries in the west of Scotland—of 18 knots.

The ship has been designed to handle rough waters and will sail all year round.

This debate and previous debates about ferries generally have highlighted the need to develop new routes, as Mr Banks has done; the need to improve the frequency of services; the need to utilise vessels better; the need for a common design of vessels, with greater automation; the need to upgrade piers, as has happened at Gills Bay, to allow greater turnaround in harbours; and the need to cut the time for commissioning new vessels.

Mr Banks has shown how a private individual can locate a gap in the market and develop a viable service there.

By his hard work and imagination, he has highlighted wider issues relating to ferry services in Scotland.

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