ON Tuesday, I was pleased to attend the formal launch of the MV Glen Rosa at the Ferguson Marine yard in Port Glasgow.

The launch marked the first occasion in which the vessel, one of the two earmarked for the Ardrossan-Brodick route, has hit the water.

This doesn’t mean the vessel will immediately be in service – handover to CalMac is not expected until September 2025.

However, it was still a great relief to witness the vessel’s launch, eight years after it first ordered, in person.

Most readers will be aware of the series of mistakes that have caused such delays, which shouldn’t be laid at the door of the excellent workforce.

Inquiries and parliamentary committees have exposed catastrophic failures around procurement, governance and financial safeguarding at Scottish Government level.

And so while management has been far from blameless throughout this debacle, overseeing a number of technical issues which stem to before the yard’s nationalisation, the sudden sacking of shipyard CEO David Tydeman a fortnight ago was still a shock.

Such decisions are ones for the board of Ferguson Marine, but I had no reason to doubt his commitment to the yard in my own meetings with him.

Given we also saw CalMac chief Robbie Drummond removed from post last week, and there have been seven transport ministers in just seven years, it’s clear accountability does not simply lie with a handful of individuals.

A more accurate summary would be that the ferries fiasco is a failure of government policy.

Islanders will always need ferries, yet just two major projects have been completed since the SNP took power in 2007.

As it stands, Ferguson Marine is the only shipbuilder left on the lower Clyde. Consequently, the strategy of CMAL, the public body which owns and leases ferries, has been to lease from private operators, outsource projects abroad or scour the globe for secondhand vessels.

The Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee’s ferries report last year concluded that efforts to purchase or lease vessels abroad should not be relied upon.

That is why my Scottish Labour colleagues and I have repeatedly argued that developing an industrial strategy and rebuilding shipbuilding capacity, particularly here in Inverclyde, is necessary and urgent.

Not only has the Scottish Government failed to explore this possibility – it has refused to even provide the funding needed to modernise Ferguson itself in the short term.

Both management and the trade unions represented at the yard have made clear the site remains too small to build large vessels on a consistent basis and changes made to the yard by previous owners have been key barriers to progress.

The failures at Ferguson Marine must of course be learned from, with clear strategies developed so any further investment provided is used as productively as possible.

But ministers need to stop treating the yard – and indeed ferries as a whole – like a millstone around their neck.

They must instead recognise this as an opportunity and develop a serious ferries strategy.