Ferries fiasco contract with Ferguson Marine published unredacted by ministers

The contract was signed with the shipyard in October 2015.

Ministers have released almost 50 pages of previously secret parts of the contract signed with Ferguson Marine shipyard in 2015 to deliver two ferries.

It comes after costs for the two ferries being constructed at the shipyard, the Glen Sannox and as-yet-unnamed hull 802 rose by a further £20 million, with projected costs of the project well over £300m and delivery dates more than five years late.

Scottish Government ministers had previously released just 16, hand-picked pages of the contract its ferry procurement body, CMAL, signed with Ferguson Marine in 2015 when it was under the ownership of the pro-independence businessman Jim McColl.

Ferguson Marine shipyard in Port Glasgow

However, Holyrood’s public audit committee was handed the full, unredacted contract by the “former director” of Ferguson Marine.

The committee wrote to the director-general economy, Gregor Irwin, stating there was a “clear merit” in the contract being published.

The letter stated: “The committee believes there is clear merit in publishing this contract information in full and asks the Scottish Government to do so in the interests of transparency and to enable scrutiny.”

On Wednesday, the Government published the contract, which includes details of the staging payments for the build, conditions for termination of the contract, and the lack of a builder’s refund guarantee.

The document stated the contract for the two ships could have been cancelled if delivery was more than 120 days late, with former first minister Nicola Sturgeon infamously launching the ship 71 work days after the deadline for its launch, securing FMEL another £1.2m, in November 2017.

The ailing shipyard was nationalised in 2019.

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