Shetland ferries

We often hear Labour crowing about how much subsidy Calmac receives from the Executive.  Alasdair Morrison regularly adds revenue subsidy i.e. to support fares, to capital subsidy i.e. to build the boats, to come up with a wonderful figure.  He claimed the subsidy for the entire operation was £20m in 2001, £27.9m in Dec 04 (Col 12673), whilst the BBC reported it was £15m in 2000.  About £3m of that appears to be on the Gourock run in an attempt to drive Western ferries out of business – which is of course of great benefit to the Calmac directors, as they go to collect their fat salaries at Calmac’s Gourock HQ.

Now, we all know that Alasdair is starting to see the light (as an election looms) and modestly suggesting the extension of the Air Discount Scheme to ferries.

To put everything in perspective, it has just been announced that the Calmac run to Shetland is getting £31m per annum in subsidy, which is more than for the entire rest of the service covering the whole of the Western Isles.  Indeed the service received £71m after it hit financial trouble.  Trouble that is for everyone but the bank that leased the ships to Northlink, and made a killing q.v. train leasing.

We should be standing up and screaming for a proportionate level of support for these islands and aiming for RET on these routes.  If Shetland can get it, when they have other ferry and air services, why are we being so modest in our ambitions?

Incidentally, the same BBC report has Alasdair Morrison refuting any suggestion of the Calmac services going out to tender.