My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that introduction. It is my job to speak to Amendment 11 in my name. It has a rather odd objective, which might not be clear from the text: I am trying to help the Government to honour their very welcome commitment to a levelling-up grant of about £48 million which they have offered to the Isles of Scilly Council to supply new vessels for the journey to the mainland. Unfortunately—we discussed this in Committee—new information came to light last week which prompted me to put this amendment down.
As I said, the department offered £48 million to the council on the basis that the council would have control of the fares, the timetable and the freight costs, and would put out to tender the operation of building a ship and the service. Noble Lords will probably be interested to know that Transport Focus did some market research earlier this year, which showed almost unanimous support from the 2,500 islanders for the idea of having a competition to get the most efficient and best value for money service, rather than just continuing with the existing operator, which has been there for many years. Many people think that it needs to be subject to competition.
The operator, the Isles of Scilly Steamship Company, asked whether it could have half of the £48 million without competing in a tender because, it said, it was a very good company. Ministers rejected that, thank goodness, in a very robust way. I could quote from the letter of the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, but I do not think I need to. She and her colleagues are being very supportive of the concept of levelling up to get the best possible deal for the fares and the service quality for passengers and freight for the people who live on the Isles of Scilly.
The trouble is that the existing operator has now announced that it wants to go ahead and finance its own ship, without saying what the fares or the timetable will be. Will it run in the winter, for example? If you are going to raise £48 million or so in the private sector, that will of course put the fares up—but the operator will not tell us what the fares are going to be. Over the weekend, we have done a few calculations of what the fares might be and compared them with those for journeys of a similar distance from the mainland of Scotland to Islay, which some noble Lords will probably know. It is actually quite frightening, so perhaps I might offer a few examples.
Since 2012, which is 11 years ago, the fares to Scilly have gone up by 47%—I repeat, 47%—and, when compared with those for Islay, the difference is getting more and more. It was seven times different; it is now going to be 12 times different. I will quote just one figure. In 2027, which is in four years’ time, a return fare for a passenger to and from Scilly, with no car, will probably be about £204—£204 for one person to get to the Isles of Scilly and back. Think of taking a family there. If there was a husband, wife and two kids they would be almost broke before they got there. It is lovely when you get there—I love it—but the equivalent fare if you are going to Islay is £16.
I was very pleased to hear from the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, who wrote to me and said:
“I am concerned about the potential impact on fares and freight charges”
from the steamship company
“and the consequential impact for islanders”.
The department offered £48 million to fund the new vessels, but it cannot really go ahead and give the money, even on a tendering basis, if somebody else is trying to build a ferry at the same time and operate the same route. If it does manage it, the fares will be, as I said, over £100 for a single, and that is all contrary to the Minister’s wish to see levelling up applied to the Isles of Scilly.
In this amendment, I have attempted to come up with an idea that would frustrate any other operator trying to compete with what the Government are so generously offering, in their £48 million for what the islanders need, to ensure that the harbour authorities and the council would not be able to give this company permissions—there are plenty of permissions that we all know.
I am sure that the wording is wrong, as the Minister will probably tell me quite soon. But this is an attempt not to save the Government from themselves but to save their wonderful commitment to the Isles of Scilly from being debunked, irritated or cancelled, for very good reasons—Treasury rules and everything. If the Minister is interested in keeping this going—I hope she is—I would be very pleased to sit down and talk with her at some time before Third Reading. If that were possible, one of us could come up with an amendment, at Third Reading, that would hopefully work.
3.45 pm