Minister warned over tug boat’s future

Politics: MP demands assurance for future

Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin has agreed to high-level talks over fears funding for an emergency tug at Orkney could be axed.

Towing vessels were recommended to be stationed off Scotland’s coast as part of the inquiry into the Braer disaster of 1993, but have been at the centre of controversy in recent years.

UK ministers provoked anger in 2010 when they announced plans to pull funding for the two tugs based at Stornoway and Lerwick, before being forced to partially back down and retain one of them.

However, the contract for the vessel is due to expire soon and Mr McLoughlin was warned at Westminster yesterday that it must be extended.

Speaking at transport questions in the Commons, Orkney and Shetland MP Alistair Carmichael said: “The secretary of state is aware that the funding for the coastguard tug currently stationed in Orkney is guaranteed only until the end of this financial year.

“Will he convene a round-table meeting, perhaps involving Scottish ministers, local authorities and industry representatives, to see how we might find a way of keeping this most vital provision in place in the future?”

Mr McLoughlin responded: “I am aware of the vessel, partly because I visited it with the right honourable gentleman in the last parliament, and I am more than happy to meet him to discuss this matter.”

Mr Carmichael, the former Scottish secretary, later said: “It is essential for the northern isles that the contract for the coastguard tug is extended once again.”

However, campaigners in the Highlands have repeatedly called for the second tug to be reinstated and stationed on the west coast again.

SNP transport spokesman Drew Hendry criticised Mr Carmichael’s comments last night, with the Inverness MP saying: “This is breathtaking cheek from Alistair Carmichael and shows that his stated concerns for a solution for the west coast and the Minches as Scottish secretary were just hot air.

“Carmichael’s call for funding for the single one stationed in his own back yard speaks volumes about his own failures when he was Scottish secretary, and ignores the needs of people of the Highlands and islands as a whole.”

“Breathtaking cheek from Alistair Carmichael”

IN DOUBT: One of the emergency tugs which provides cover for Scotland’s northern coast