Scotland's fisheries protection authorities and Ross Finnie, the environment minister, have been cleared of any wrongdoing over the cancellation of a tender for a £10 million vessel in what appeared to be a move to help a Scottish shipyard. Robert Black, the Auditor General, has investigated the decision to halt the tender process for the Mina-type vessel earlier this year and decided the Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency (SFPA), which comes under Mr Finnie's remit, was not biased in favour of the Scottish yard. His decision will come as a relief to Mr Finnie who has been under pressure because of his close relations to Ferguson Shipbuilders in Greenock - the company that appeared to have had most to gain from the tender decision.
The controversy began when the SFPA awarded the tender for a fisheries protection vessel to Appledore, of Devon, rather than Ferguson. The agency then fuelled an even bigger row when it halted the process, warning of problems in the way the tender had been handled. It ordered that a new process be started - effectively giving Ferguson the chance to re-enter the race. Geoffrey Cox, the MP for Torridge and West Devon, intervened to warn of legal action, and he accused Scottish ministers of treating the Devon company unfairly. It then emerged Mr Finnie was a friend of Alan Dunnet, the chief executive of Ferguson Shipbuilders - leading to claims from Mr Cox that he should have declared this friendship or taken no role in the awarding of shipbuilding contracts. A spokesman for the Auditor General stressed yesterday that Mr Black's sole interest was in the financial side of the process and, on that, he was satisfied there had been no wrongdoing. His report said the SFPA had treated all the final tenderers equally.