SUNDAY MAIL Feature | Sunday 1st June 2025

We have come a long way since the banks of the Clyde echoed to the din of riveting and welding as the river and its yards produced many of the vessels which the world’s seagoing trade and travel depended on.

And where once the name Clyde-built was a byword for shipbuilding excellence, of skill and craftsmanship of global renown, now it is attached to the depressing spectacle of the ferries fiasco.

It is a saga with no clear end in sight. The latest twist involves a further huge cost rise in the price tag for the MV Glen Rosa, soaring to £185 million, with the launch of the vessel into service on the Arran route pushed back well into next year.

And some who have knowledge of the procurement process believe that even once the new ferries set sail, they are likely to be plagued by technical issues and breakdowns for years to come.

It would be all too easy to blame the workforce at Fergusons – easy, but wrong. The blame for this surely lies at the top, and with many of the decisions taken at senior level.

The scale of the scandal surrounding the procurement of new vessels to serve on island routes almost beggars belief, and it would take far too long to recount every twist and turn in a saga which stretches back a decade and more.

But the ferries debacle exposes a much deeper issue – that of what seems to be a chronic problem when it comes to major infrastructure projects across Scotland and the rest of the UK.

Our transport network alone is creaking at the seams, and in many places in need of a massive overhaul to bring it into the 21^st century and up to speed with the services offered to travellers in other countries.

But whether it is our transport services or other major capital projects, we seem completely unable as a nation to get them finished on budget and on time – that’s assuming they even get started.

In Scotland alone, we have an inglorious recent history of procurement and infrastructure failure – the Edinburgh trams and the Holyrood building project immediately spring easily to mind as examples of public money being wasted and poor project management from the top down.

It doesn’t have to be this way.  Other countries near and far seem to be able to manage such projects much better than we do.

Our great history of innovation and manufacturing shows what we are capable of given the chance. There is nothing inherently stopping us from replicating those engineering and technical feats of generations gone by – what is needed is the political will and the right leadership when it comes to individual projects.

And if it comes down to a question of where powers lie, the Scottish and UK Governments should be able to come to a sensible agreement about the investment needed. Ordinary people want to see results, not bickering.

Other countries are not shy about their ambitions when it comes to building the industrial base they need to prosper, and nor should we be. The US, for example, has recently announced plans for a major expansion of shipbuilding in a bid to reverse decades of decline and see it rival the likes of China which has soared ahead and now accounts for much of global seagoing manufacturing.

That is the kind of reindustrialization and regeneration that Scotland and the rest of the UK are crying out for.

And while it may not be realistic to imagine recreating the glory days of Clyde shipbuilding, that does not mean we should abandon industrial expertise and craftsmanship where it still exists.

That is because we are currently living through potentially the most transformative era in modern times, an age when every advantage we have needs to be used to create the green energies and technologies of the future.

And that means repurposing existing facilities and skills to apply them to that new world of opportunity.

It is already happening in parts of the country, where workforces and hardware which was previously used to support the North Sea oil and gas industry are being redeployed for use in renewable technologies such as wind power, carbon capture and hydrogen fuel.

And that is exactly the kind of innovation which can help secure a viable future for what remains of our once great shipbuilding sector.  I personally know of companies who are eager to invest significantly in Scotland and who would be keen to discuss ways in which shipbuilding expertise could be used in a way which supports their projects.

That would see Clyde workers use their skills to help power the great transformation which will revolutionise the world around us over the next 25 years or so.

It is sometimes said that we only make progress because we are standing on the shoulders of giants.

It would be the most fitting legacy imaginable – and a welcome antidote to the sorry saga of the long-running ferries fiasco – if some of the great green technologies of the future were founded on the shoulders of those giants of Scottish shipbuilding who once made the Clyde the envy of the world.