SCOTTISH ministers have no excuse for failing to renationalise the country's railways after the government announced moves to introduce a publicly-owned ferry service, campaigners claim.
The European Commission had advised the Scottish Government that the country's ferry services could be run by an in-house operator, leading to a review of Scotland's £1-billion worth of contracts.
A union leader has now said that the findings have implications for other areas of transport such as rail and showed nationalisation was possible if there was enough “political will” from the SNP. Manuel Cortes, Transport and Salaried Staffs' Association (TSSA) general secretary, said if Holyrood voted to renationalise rail, the Westminster Government would not be able to stop it.
Last night, the Scottish Government restated its claim that Holyrood does not hold enough powers to renationalise rail. Ministers controversially handed Dutch rail operator Abellio a contract to run ScotRail services in 2015. However, Cortes insisted that if the SNP Government took a similar approach to rail as it has to ferries, that Scotland's trains services could be returned to the public sector.
Officials have now said the European Commission advice, prompted, it said, by a joint approach from the government and the RMT union, indicates that, in certain circumstances, public ferry services could be awarded to an in-house operator without the need for tendering.
Transport minister Humza Yousaf has already postponed the procurement for one of the Scotland’s busiest routes, the Gourock to Dunoon service, by nine months to allow for the completion of the review.
Cortes said that if the Scottish Government was prepared to test the strength of its powers over rail in the same way as it has with ferries it could renationalise services immediately.
He said: "Clearly we have been saying that there is no need to retender the ferry services and last week's letter from the EU commission shows we were right all along. Sadly there has been a colossal waste of public money.
"We always said that what was lacking was the political will to stop this legal and tendering process, but we are pleased the Scottish Government has seen sense.
"We believe the lack of a political will is what's holding the Scottish Government back from taking the railways back into public ownership. We've been proved right on the ferries and we will be proved right on rail too."
Cortes added: "Now is the time for Humza to ensure that this ferry service is never again retendered and to end the disaster of Abellio ScotRail by bringing these services into public ownership at once.
"Sadly politicians will use EU regulations and other things as a smoke screen to carry out particular policies. Now we have it from a higher authority that this shouldn't have been tendered in the first place. The only thing that's holding this back is the lack of political will of the SNP administration.
"My view is that the Scottish Parliament voted to bring rail back into public ownership I can't see how Westminster could block it."
A spokesperson for the Transport Minister restated an SNP pledge to ensure a non-profit organisation is in position to bid for the rail contract whenever it next comes up for renewal.
Yousaf's spokesperson said: “We announced a policy review to consider the legal, policy and financial implications relevant to the procurement of ferry services, the outcome of which cannot be prejudged.
“In respect of our railways, the Scottish Government doesn’t have the powers to renationalise the railways. We did ask for additional powers during the Smith Commission but this was blocked by other parties at the time.
"The minister has requested that the UK Government provides greater operational devolution of Network Rail functions to Scotland to ensure that our rail industry is better placed to deliver the best possible outcomes for passengers.
“The Scottish Government is making good on its manifesto commitment to enable a public-sector bidder to compete for a future rail franchise, indeed TSSA is on the reference panel, established by the minister, which is actively considering how to take forward that issue.”
An Abellio spokesperson said: “We have no problem competing with a public bid should that be what the Scottish Government decides to do.”
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