Why even nationalist MSP can see problem with SNP's 'proto-colonial' approach to islanders
Scotland’s islanders need to have much more of a say over vital services like ferries
Just occasionally, I watch a Holyrood debate – to use the term loosely – in search of enlightenment. This week, I was seduced by the title of a motion in the name of the Scottish Government: “Empowering Island Communities”.
I am greatly in favour of empowering communities, a philosophy to which the Scottish Government is deeply hostile, and I have a particular interest in islands which have been conspicuously disempowered in every respect available.
So what new dawn would this motion unveil? Alas, its purpose was for the Scottish Government to congratulate itself on consulting about an “Islands Plan” to replace one which nobody has heard of since it was published in 2018. Empowerment was definitely not an outcome.
Best plan for islands?
Like most Holyrood debates, this one was padded out by SNP backbenchers pressed into service to read speeches on matters of which they know nothing and care less. One hapless contributor, Clare Adamson, apologised in advance for having difficulty pronouncing the place names before her.
Since the most challenging proved to be “Orkney”, which she managed fine, Ms Adamson could have spared herself the apology if not the embarrassment before landing in the safe haven of her peroration. “If I have anything to say this afternoon,” declared the member for Motherwell and Wishaw, “it is that the best plan for our island communities is an independent Scotland.” So that’s “the plan”!
One wonders how the Presiding Officer can sit through these flagrant breaches of a protocol that applies in any self-respecting school debating society, far less parliament – refer to notes by all means but don’t read out speeches. At one level, it is merely pathetic. At another, it is insulting to the subject matter – in this case island communities.
‘A bit embarrassing’
Fortunately, there are still a few MSPs capable of debate. Douglas Ross, who has acquired a new lease of life since shedding the burden of leadership, had counted the words in the motion and got to 109 “without the word ferries being mentioned”. How, he wondered, could this “even have been signed off by highly paid ministers”?
“When an official handed them the motion, did they not say, ‘This is going to look a bit embarrassing if we don’t even mention ferries’?” Mr Ross then awoke the Presiding Officer from her reverie by suggesting that islanders didn’t want another useless plan – they would prefer “a bloody ferry”.
It was scarcely surprising that the motion did not mention “ferries” and “empowerment” in the same 109 words since the SNP’s determination that islanders should not get within a hundred nautical miles of running their own lifelines has been the defining feature of the past decade’s scandal and the squandering of hundreds of millions of pounds.
That money could have been transformational for islands and made a useful contribution to, let’s say, reversing the impoverishment of local authorities throughout Scotland. However, the far more important priority for SNP ministers has been to retain long-range control through their quangos – regardless of cost or consequences. And they dare to speak of “empowerment”.
Well-organised stitch-up
Fergus Ewing, another of the Holyrood “few” who understands the word oratory, described it as “a proto-colonial approach” and called for islanders to have statutory representation on boards of the transport quangos which directly affect their lives – CMAL, CalMac and Highlands and Islands Airports.
He also called for islanders to be on panels which effectively appoint the chairs of these organisations. This is more significant than it sounds since the whole quango racket, on which I could write a book, revolves round the pretence of open competition when it is actually a well-organised stitch-up with the same names recurring time and again – often as members of the panels which appoint one another.
This is the system which ensures the current chair of Caledonian MacBrayne is the Danish businessman Erik Østergaard. He was chair of CMAL – the procurement quango – throughout the years when the Ferguson Marine scandal evolved.
It was incredible that he was then appointed chair of CalMac in 2021 and then – and I address this directly to Fiona Hyslop on her way out the door – shameful that he was re-appointed by her last year in full knowledge that he and others she rubber-stamped had never been near affected island communities. That is the SNP’s idea of “island empowerment”. No wonder it didn’t appear in the 109 words.
Ferries are critical to every aspect of island life but there are other actions which speak a lot louder than words. That takes me to the report published this week by the Accounts Commission which shows a £547 million budget gap across Scotland’s local authorities. Edinburgh has the biggest deficit in cash terms and Falkirk as a percentage of the budget.
No more meaningless plans
In other words, it is a generic problem which flows from a decade of Scottish Government underfunding for local councils while demands rose and services deteriorated. Most councils have been squeezed so hard there is very little left to cut.
That is certainly true in the Western Isles where, over a decade, the revenue allocation to the council was cut by 17 per cent through a formula which actually punishes depopulation and falling school rolls, rather than recognising the needs which these conditions demand – at fractional cost to the overall scheme of Scottish Government expenditure.
The last thing Scotland’s islands need is another meaningless plan but two concrete actions would help. End the folly of how the ferry network is mismanaged and give island authorities the funding that island conditions demand. Simple – and also a huge net saving, rather than a cost.
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