The Scottish Authorities has confirmed that no UK shipyards submitted expressions of curiosity for the design and building of two new freight ferries to serve the Aberdeen–Kirkwall–Lerwick route, in line with written parliamentary solutions printed on 3 and 10 October 2025.
Responding to a collection of questions from Glasgow Labour MSP Paul Sweeney, Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity Jim Fairlie said that Caledonian Maritime Belongings Ltd (CMAL), the authority answerable for procurement, “obtained no submissions from UK-based shipyards in response to the Single Procurement Doc stage for the 2 new NIFS freight flex vessels.”
Fairlie mentioned CMAL would proceed to evaluate all bids “in accordance with the necessities of the Public Contracts (Scotland) Laws 2015,” and confirmed that ferries, whereas important to island communities, “don’t meet the definitions required to use Part 45 of the Subsidy Management Act,” which might have allowed choice for UK shipbuilders on nationwide safety grounds.
Sweeney additionally requested how the procurement aligns with the UK Authorities’s 2022 Nationwide Shipbuilding Technique, which recommends a minimal 10 per cent social worth weighting in new competitions. Fairlie replied that Scotland’s procurement legislation already embeds group advantages and social worth beneath the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, requiring public our bodies to contemplate how contracts enhance financial and social wellbeing and assist native jobs.
He added that “Transport Scotland contracts achieved 613 new entrant positions, 72 graduate positions and 36 apprenticeships throughout 2023–24,” with wider public procurement producing £13.7 billion in financial exercise and supporting round 120,000 full-time equal jobs.
Individually, Sweeney requested Finance Secretary Kate Forbes whether or not the Scottish Authorities would fee a nationwide shipbuilding technique to handle structural boundaries to export development. Forbes replied that there have been “no present plans to develop a Scottish shipbuilding technique,” noting that ministers proceed to work with the UK Nationwide Shipbuilding Workplace “to make sure that the Scottish shipbuilding business advantages from the nationwide and worldwide alternatives of its Shipbuilding Technique.”
The written exchanges come amid a aggressive tender involving 4 shortlisted bidders for the £200 million Northern Isles challenge, together with Cemre and Tersan in Turkey, Guangzhou Shipyard Worldwide in China, and a Stena UK partnership with China Retailers Jinling Shipyard in Weihai. Whereas the shortlist contains one UK-linked consortium, the absence of direct bids from home yards has prompted controversy within the persevering with debate over Scotland’s shipbuilding competitiveness.
Scottish Authorities eyes Chinese language shipyards for ferries
Why no UK shipyards bid
In response to Sweeney, the absence of home bids displays deep structural points in how Scotland designs and funds main shipbuilding contracts. He has argued that the present procurement mannequin provides little incentive for UK yards to take part as a result of it fails to steadiness worth in opposition to the financial and industrial advantages of sustaining home capability.
In his view, Scotland’s method contrasts with the UK Authorities’s 2022 Nationwide Shipbuilding Technique, which recommends a minimal ten per cent social worth weighting in competitions. With out such specific weighting, Sweeney contends, Scottish companies are “usually not even bothering to tender for the work, in full information that they can not compete with the aggressive shipbuilding finance supplied by state funding banks in Spain, Turkey, Poland and China.”
He additionally criticised the construction of the CMAL contract, suggesting it “successfully locked Scottish yards out fully” by providing no significant subcontracting alternatives. The dearth of monetary assist mechanisms, resembling entry to state-backed credit score or insurance coverage akin to these loved by abroad rivals, has additional dissuaded UK yards from investing in pricey bids they’re unlikely to win.
Authorities ministers have implied that home capability limits had been an element, noting that Ferguson Marine didn’t enter the competitors as a result of the vessels had been too giant for its amenities. Sweeney disputes this, pointing to close by infrastructure such because the Inchgreen Dry Dock, which he says might have enabled last meeting of vessels inbuilt modular type.
He has additionally known as for a devoted Scottish shipbuilding technique and for the Scottish Nationwide Funding Financial institution to play a extra lively function in financing business shipbuilding. With out these reforms, he argues, the mix of excessive home prices, restrictive procurement guidelines and restricted coverage assist will proceed to discourage UK shipyards from bidding for main contracts.