The wholly-owned Scottish Government company Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited has announced that new CalMac ferries will be built abroad, flying in the face of previous warm words about Community Wealth Building and using public contracts to retain wealth in communities in Scotland.

This news will come as a hammer-blow to Scotland’s shipbuilders and demonstrates the SNP’s complete lack of an industrial strategy.

This announcement means more jobs and more money going overseas at a time of economic crisis.

The modernisation of the ferry network can help secure the future of Ferguson’s and drive the economic renewal of the Lower Clyde. For the Scottish Government to keep missing these opportunities or making a complete mess of them is a damming indictment of the SNP.

Catastrophic failures in the Scottish Government’s procurement of two new ferries are at the heart of the Ferguson’s ferry debacle. Ministers should take personal responsibility for turning things around and filling Ferguson’s order books with work that can transform the ferry network and support good, skilled, local jobs.

Scotland’s shipbuilders are being left on the shelf while more public money goes into the coffers of foreign businesses.  We need an approach which delivers good quality ferry services for the people of Scotland and which also delivers good quality jobs for people in Scotland.  It is unacceptable to export these jobs.  This is simply not good enough. The people of Scotland deserve better.