Sketch: Not all plain sailing for Stephen Flynn at the transport committee

Stephen Flynn is here to help – if there’s anything you want to know, just ask! The recently appointed Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Tourism and Transport is giving evidence before Holyrood’s transport committee for the first time, having given up asking questions on foreign affairs at PMQs so he can answer them on Sunday rail services in Monifieth.  

Flynn, the MSP for Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine, and the man many consider to be the next leader of the SNP, is on his best behaviour before Lib Dem Willie Rennie’s cross-party group, promising to be “candid”, a word which will appear again and again during the course of today’s session. He’s spent the summer getting up to speed in his new brief, touring the country from the Western Isles to Cairnryan and looking “under the bonnet”, metaphorically speaking, one assumes.  

The transport secretary is giving evidence a week after First Minister John Swinney set out his Programme for Government, promising a radical re-shaping of Scotland’s public services but failing to mention the looming £5bn black hole in the budget that’s necessitated it. 

Among the transport plans outlined in the PfG was the decision to bring the agency Transport Scotland back into government – a plan which was in the SNP’s election manifesto, unlike the decision to axe most of the country’s health boards, which wasn’t. 

Once the niceties are out of the way, Rennie cuts right to the chase, asking: What’s wrong with Transport Scotland? Somewhat awkwardly for the Cabinet Secretary, he’s flanked today by three officials from said organisation who for the most part sit in stony silence. 

Flynn says it’s important to “deliver on our manifesto commitment that the public voted us in on” to bring Transport Scotland back in-house, not something which came up very often on the doorstep in North East Fife, Rennie says. Nevertheless, a promise is a promise and the transport secretary clearly regards this one as something he can deliver.  

Flynn says it’s been “an education” since taking up his post after the election and that TS officials have been “wonderful” at explaining how everything works – or doesn’t, as the case may be. Which is no doubt part of the reason he’s reticent to talk about jobs losses when Rennie presses him on it. 

“That’s not my motivation,” Flynn says. “The government’s motivation in this regard is to make sure we’re able to get on and deliver the commitments we made to the public. We had an election a few months ago and this was a key part of our manifesto, the prospectus we put to the Scottish people…” 

When Rennie concludes there will no job losses or savings, Flynn says, of course, there will be “natural attrition”. “At this stage it would be remiss of me to say there would or would not be [job cuts],” he adds a little unhelpfully. So much for answering questions.  

There’s some momentary respite for Flynn with questions from SNP MSPs Collette Stevenson and Zen Ghani on rail – subjects ranging from the Clyde Metro project to electrification of the network before Lloyd Melville goes in hard on those Sunday services for the good people of Monifieth. The days skewering Keir Starmer at PMQs are no doubt feeling very long ago.  

Flynn is just about coping, however, with questions on his vast – and let’s be fair – quite complex brief. He starts answers with phrases such as, “if I may be so brash”, which is not wholly unwelcome given the levels of turgid manager-speak that usually issue forth from SNP ministers in such settings.  

But things are about to take a turn – we’re headed for choppier waters. Rennie asks about the bête noire of the transport secretary brief – ferries – and suddenly Flynn is flailing. 

Awkward timing, but the top story on the BBC website’s Scotland page is about a “significant incident” which took place onboard the Glen Sannox in June last year when 700kg of highly flammable methane gas – enough to fill a four-bedroom house, apparently – was released as 82 passengers were being transported from Arran to the mainland.  

Flynn has a prepared response acknowledging just how rubbish Scotland’s ferries are but doesn’t appear to know very much about this latest story – he says he didn’t see the news this morning because he was FaceTiming his kids and the sorry state of Scotland’s maritime fleet obviously didn’t come up in conversation. 

He bats it across to his official Chris Wilcock, who fortuitously is Director of Ferries at Transport Scotland. Sadly, Wilcock doesn’t have much to add. “I apologise for not watching the news this morning,” the transport secretary offers. Rennie is unimpressed. 

Labour MSP Donald MacKinnon asks about the Sound of Harris ferry which has been removed from service due to technical issues. There are questions too about the future of the state-owned Ferguson shipyard and the government’s promise to make a direct award of the contract for four smaller ships. That was done earlier this year before Flynn was in post and before the shipyard announced last month that it was cutting a quarter of its workforce as it awaits confirmation of new orders.  

Things get frostier still when Reform UK’s Graham Simpson returns to the subject of Transport Scotland and asks exactly what the difference is going to be once it’s taken in-house. 

“Whoever’s still employed – and hopefully the three people with you today will still have jobs – they’ll still be answerable to you,” he says. 

“I don’t think we should be flippant about people’s jobs,” Flynn says. “Mr Simpson, I can’t help you with your lack of clarity – that's a matter for you,” he adds, which if not altogether helpful, is at least candid.