Two new large Scottish island freight ferries are likely to be built overseas, with Turkish and Chinese shipyards shortlisted for the £200 million project, even as the UK Government expands major investments in Clyde and Rosyth shipyards.

Transport Scotland confirmed this week that four bidders have been invited to submit detailed tenders for the Northern Isles vessels: Cemre and Tersan in Turkey, Guangzhou Shipyard International in China, and a Stena UK partnership with China Merchants Jinling Shipyard in Weihai.

The two ships, designed for freight but capable of carrying up to 200 passengers in peak season, will replace ageing tonnage on the Aberdeen to Kirkwall and Lerwick routes.

Cabinet Secretary for Transport Fiona Hyslop described the development as an “important milestone” in the Scottish Government’s efforts to improve lifeline ferry services. Tender returns are expected in November 2025, with a contract award scheduled for February 2026.

At Holyrood, written questions have already raised issues around the decision to consider foreign yards. MSPs have asked whether the Procurement Act 2023 should disqualify tenders from states without free-trade agreements with the UK, whether the Subsidy Control Act 2022 allows for a UK-only restriction on grounds of national security, and whether the National Shipbuilding Strategy’s call for a minimum 10 per cent social value weighting has been applied.

The scrutiny comes at a time when the UK Government is scaling up domestic shipbuilding capacity with significant investment. Defence Secretary John Healey recently describing Scotland as the heart of UK shipbuilding, with billions invested in yards on the Clyde and at Rosyth, sustaining thousands of high-skill jobs.

Kevin Hobbs, chief executive of Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd (CMAL), defended the chosen “freighter-flex” design, saying it will provide both additional freight capacity and flexibility for passenger demand. Serco NorthLink, which operates the routes, welcomed progress to the tender stage.

George Allison
George Allison
George Allison is the founder and editor of the UK Defence Journal. He holds a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and specialises in naval and cyber security topics. George has appeared on national radio and television to provide commentary on defence and security issues. Twitter: @geoallison
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66 COMMENTS

  1. A shame that countries like China are on the short list. But it does reflect the UK’s focus on shipbuilding is all but entirely focussed on warships. We build them here regardless of cost and security reasons, but in the civil world value for money rules and what is purchased depends on the amounts of money available.

    • The SNP loves or buy all its buses from China too. I have no problem with international tenders (maybe not china) I’m just against international tenders at the same time vast amounts of public money are pumped into bus and ferry manufacturer bailouts.

      Pick one,

      • And now Alexander Dennis is moving from Scotland to Scarborough, and only now the SNP are trying to stop that. Apparently, Manchester bought more Alexander Dennis buses than Scotland.

  5. Not a single UK or even European shipyard on the shortlist. Do they live in a parallel world? At least Turkey is a NATO member. As for China, somebody needs to have a quiet word.

  6. Well, we all buy Chinese stuff and take it for granted and their Car Industry Is booming too, It’s not too difficult to imagine buying their ships really.

    20 years ago, actually 10 years ago, their Motorcycles were rubbish, total copies of other companies, but they have started to catch up now on design and manufacturing quality (just like the Japanese did) they are even knocking out some decent larger performance bikes now, using top notch components and as always, Brilliant Prices.

    • No freedom loving rider should support the CCP dictatorship that doesn’t respect fair trade, international rule of law, intellectual property and human rights.
      The stated CCP strategy of mercantile dominance is intended to destroy manufacturing capability so they have leverage on the rest of world enabled by the globalist who are allowed to export jobs without restraint.
      Once they have that leverage they will be able to charge what they like as freedom of choice is gone.
      This isn’t Brilliant rather a slippery slope to servitude.

      The only vote you have with CCP is Not to buy their products.

  7. Given the shortage of skilled workers and the need to urgently increase naval shipbuilding, there is an argument for sending this type of work abroad.

  8. Given the amount of work going on and the capacity issues in the system, I can understand the need to contract this out abroad, but China? Really?

  9. I think most people in Shetland would agree that the No.1 priority is you get the right design of ships operational ASAP as currently neither the freight nor passenger requirements for a lifeline service are fit for purpose. This is having serious impacts from time to time on Shetlanders being able to travel South, and is also affecting time sensitive exports of lambs and especially fish and shellfish. When Humza was SNP Transport Minister we were promised new ships by 2026 but the necessary funding was never even allocated in the Scottish Budget.

    Replacing the passenger ferries Hrossey and Hjaltland in another issue which has not yet been resolved except in terms of vague promises.

    • Committing to 200 passengers as a headline figure then building a vessel which will be effectively full with round about 90 passengers isn’t getting the right design of ship in place

      • I would agree. I think there is a case for a homogenous fleet with proper passenger capacity (and real capacity, not lots of pods !) which would make rescheduling to cover the drydocking cycle, and also unscheduled repair work (as fairly recently) much easier.

    • How can a Lifeline Ferry not be critical infrastructure that cannot be provided by a foreign adversary that is not open and trustworthy..

      Europe First is the starting point where UK suppliers decline to offer, and only trustworthy countries like Japan or South Korea could reasonably be included.

      This may be a devolved matter but it’s clear that sovereign capabilities are central so UK government should be supporting or if necessary regulating as UK maritime security is not negotiable.

      • I wasn’t advocating placing orders with the PRC, only suggesting that the ferry replacement saga has been going on so long that the priority now is more “just get it sorted” than “where will they be built”.
        I agree totally with your points, these ships constitute critical infrastructure, and as with RFA, the presumption should always be to build in the UK unless there are overwhelming reasons not to. One of my beefs over the years is that the powers that be in the UK never seem to factor in the wider national interest when making these decisions – like the loss of jobs: not just directly, but thoughout the supply chain, and the steady erosion of UK industrial capacity. Plus the damage to communities, increases in benefits costs, and loss of tax revenue to HMG. I did try at one point in my career try to discuss this with a senior civil servant, and got precisely nowhere: “not part of our remit old boy” would sum up the response. How you change that culture I don’t know.

        • Interesting, the whole of government approach seems to be transformational in that the civil service is otherwise content to sit in their box and not look outside.
          There’s management science about how process is distorted by the organisation so process should drive the organisation.
          Obviously most organisations are less deliberate than that with a responsibility focus amongst the better drivers. Unfortunately events are no respecter of that.
          I suppose that geopolitics are core business of the Foreign Office, with those responsible for Industry, Technology and Finance in close attendance, but I’m not a civil servant so what would I know..

  10. Yep let’s help to build up the key enemy of the west. FFS the west has essentially made china the premiere maritime power simply by buying its ships, containers and using its ports and products.. when the west lived in the delusional state that it had won history and everyone would become happy capitalist liberal democracies that was sort of OK..but we now know what China is.. it’s a Nationalist Communist state, with a heady mix of Han exceptionalism and a national belief in reunification, complete control of the 9 dash line and a national destiny as a hegemonic power. And it’s been using a mercantile strategy to gain maritime dominance.. for a western nation to even consistently buying a Chinese ship is essentially helping in a small way to sign the death warrant of the hegemony of liberal democratic power.

    Geostrategic incompetence and sea/maritime blindness by the Scottish government..surprise surprise.. if it’s impossible to build ourselves we should be negotiating with another western nation or ally to build it with an agreed industrial offset from something we can build and sell.

    • Mate, I just sort of wrote that. Virtually everything we buy is made in China. Complaining about these ferries seems to be a bit daft.

      Sweet and Sour Chicken Balls for Tea tonight !

      • I don’t mind their sweat and sour chicken balls.. it’s their strategic industries I have an issue with feeding ( cars, electronics, semi conductors, ships etc etc) .. but I’m happy to but their quick cook crispy ducks…😁

      • It’s not daft to pay attention to critical infrastructure and know who is trustworthy or not.

        It is a ridiculous argument to buy all manufactured goods from a single country because it’s easy.

  11. Here in B.C. the contract to build 4 new ferries was awarded to China, granted we don’t currently have much shipbuilding capacity (asides from our “River” class destroyers on the East Coast and icebreakers on the West Coast) but why China? If anything how about South Korea? They are building our KS111 submarines. Or, heaven forbid, we could start up a real shipbuilding industry again. Some foresight would of helped with this situation. It would take time and initial investment but there are long term benefits.
    Arghhhh!

    • A really Special SNP myopia to prefer the CCP dictatorship that doesn’t respect fair trade, international rule of law, intellectual property and human rights.

  15. Just a quickie, How many of you refrain from buying Chinese Goods ? Things like ermmm, virtually everything we buy ?

    Not just electrical stuff like TV’s, iPhone’s, remote control hoovers (👀👀👀) but virtually everything made that’s sold in every Superstore, shop and Supermarket ?

    I’m genuinely asking this as I for one try really hard to not buy Chinese (It’s actually incredibly difficult) It’s been a decades long concern that “We” are all helping China to “take over the World”.

    • Interestingly I purchased a British made oven..on purpose..l but delivery was delayed because of the missing element that came from china..

      Even if something is not made in china or uses Chinese parts.. the stuff that makes it and the final product would have been shipped around in a Chinese made shipping container ( about 98% of all shipping containers are made in china ), it would have been carried off the ship by a Chinese crane ( 80% production of port cranes and handling gear) and it would have likely spent time in a Chinese mainland or Chinese owned port ( 112 across the globe) been shipped in a Chinese built ship ( 57% of ship production)..

      People often roll their eyes when you say china is the preeminent maritime power in the world.. but what they fail to understand is at the majority of present global maritime infrastructure is essentially built, controlled by china or dependent on china… that makes china the pre eminent maritime power on the seas and will invariably mean the PLAN becomes the preeminent naval power.. its an almost inevitable consequence of maritime dominance. China is essentially where the British empire was just before pax Britannia..but somehow china is disregarded as second class. But that perception is what china wants, it’s paridgm is “ hide your strength”.

      Now nations that want to avoid wars “show their strength” in acts of deterrence ( using the 3 Cs).. what makes China such a peril is that it’s doing what nations who are planning to go to war do…hide.

      • Your British made oven is a good example. Just like virtually all modern cars and Motorcycles they all use Chinese parts, engines and other components. Bosch and BMW are prime examples of “Good old German companies” that use Chinese manufacturing to produce their goods. People tend to not know this though. BMW Bikes have used Chinese engines in lots of their smaller bikes, for many years, built to BMW Specs and quality that the Chinese have embraced and are now using to build their own quality bikes.
        Brands like CF Moto, Voge, Sinnis, Zontes, Lexmoto and a few others are purely Chinese brands that are leaps ahead in quality and spec than just 10 years ago. The CF Moto products are now causing raised eyebrows and actually getting raive reviews.
        Personally, I stick with Japanese and Italian Bikes but mostly older models that don’t have anywhere like the % of Chinese content of the modern stuff.
        All these comments about China building Scottish Ferries makes me smile.

        Monday I’m having a Hayabusa delivered, I’ll bet no-one here really knows what one of those is, this will be my third “Busa” they are brilliant bikes with absolutely bomb proof engines and an ability to be tuned (Guy Martin uses one for setting records) No silly modern tech just ABS and 3 power modes (never used the lower ones !)
        Genuine 200mph bikes that are restricted to 186mph by “gentlemans agreement” The Chinese aren’t quite at that level yet but they are getting very close working with performance companies like MV Agusta.

        As for the TVR, It has no Chinese content at all apart from a few Electrical items, a proper British car, I’ll bet no-one else on here drives a car with so little Chinese components !

        • TVRs are proper British cars, that’s why they break down every 23miles 😂😂.. but you are right about Chinese parts in almost every car 30% of a Hyundai electric car is Chinese.. even in 2018 I believe they were exporting 35 billion dollars worth of car parts.. that’s before they started essentially owning the electric car market.

          Their precision engineering is now as good as anyone’s.. which means there military industrial complex is as well.

          • It’s not about the engineering nor the price.
            Mase in China means disrespect for fair trade, international rule of law, intellectual property and human rights.

            The only vote we have with the CCP dictatorship is not to buy their supposedly cheap products which in reality is an exchange of sovereign capabilities and so a loss of freedom.

            • You need to read the rest of my comments as I agree, essentially the reason they now have precision CNC machining and css lathes is because the west kept on building factories in china and also buying the Stuff from the factories in china. We created the beast through a profound sense of western exceptionalism that was created by the last man and end of history paridgm as well as a significant weakness in the neoliberal market economy..that interacted together to allow a national communist and mercantile state to exploit the hell out of those weaknesses. So buying from them increases the problem..but essentially the west and the rest of the world is now so depend on Chinese based supply chains as well as using Chinese maritime resources to keep the flow of goods going that essentially we have a massive problem.. yes we should not be strengthening china.. but and this is the single biggest geostrategic question around the near future of humanity if put to the test, exactly whose economy and most importantly political system would collapse first ?

              So how do we reverse the damage..because Trump trying is doing exactly economically ( but completely missing the wider geostrategic picture as he does it) and all he is actually achieving is to drive more and more emerging economies towards china..even India is getting snuggles up, places like Vietnam have essentially tied their economic future to china..the African nations have essentially turned to china as has a huge portion of South America….

              The west has essentially given maritime dominance to china and if you have maritime dominance you will tend to gain market dominance ( as about 90% of things are moved by sea).. China is gaining control of vast swathes of raw materials and getting market dominance in key industries.

              So what do we do.. we let the tiger out the cage and it’s now sitting in the field..how do you get the tiger back in the cage without being eaten alive ? It’s a question not a challenge by the way 👍

              • A question that democratic nations with 4 year or so term limits is ill suited to solve compared to the dictatorship for life adversary. So a too hard problem that gets kicked down the road for the next lot to solve.

                It’s almost like the ‘civil service’ aka professional part of the executive is the only long term establishment that has a stake in solving this. Would Sir Humphry or Bernard be up for that without massive political encouragement for a whole of government engagement?

                I fear not as there’s far too much short term noise; cost of living crisis, housing crisis, and so on, to allow a long hard look at root causes and how they connect…

    • It’s impossible. I recently ordered a British mobile phone. I was a couple of hundred yards from their headquarters in London only yesterday. Of course the phone was manufactured in China and shipped from Hong Kong. Samsung are manufactured in Vietnam, so am I supposed to support the British company building in China, or the Korean company building outside of China?

      • Korean company building outside of China.

        Important to know that many CCP companies have relocated to Vietnam or Cambodia in search of cheap labour, a grateful host country, and to obscure their ownership. No inconvenient Made in China labels!

    • Considering the lifeline ferry critical infrastructure demand for the UK, England has Channel Islands, Isle of Wight and Isle of Man. So Scotland has far more Islands to connect with the mainland, and should be the leader in Industrial Strategy for Ship Building, especially Ferries.

      How us the SNP government not focusing on this heritage and capability. Surely some focus would be good for Scotland..

    • Considering the lifeline ferry critical infrastructure demand for the UK, England has Channel Islands, Isle of Wight and Isle of Man. So Scotland has far more Islands to connect with the mainland, and should be the leader in Industrial Strategy for Ship Building, especially Ferries.

      How is the SNP government not focusing on this heritage and capability. Surely some focus would be good for Scotland..

  19. So the Scottish government would rather have unemployed Scots to pay for than spend money at home? Would rather employ the enemy than support our country? I know too many people buy cheap Chinese crap that breaks a day after you buy it, knives that are blunt after cutting a slice of bread etc. but when the government takes your money and hands it directly to our countries enemies while screwing the tax payers they take the money from they are down in the depths of shit. And yes china ARE our enemy, they are actively supplying men, material, components and machines to Russia, actively bullying our allies like Japan and Taiwan and building up their army and navy for war with us.

    • Further, the PLA Navy is now building and commissioning Aircraft Carriers three times faster than USN according industry analysts.

      The US DoD and congressional oversight for efficiency in the Peace Dividend delusion era has ensured that there’s no capacity to scale up for 21st century threats.

      The current administration has no interest in long term planning, preferring a performance culture, as in theatrical performance. Renaming Department of Defence to Department of War is both illegal and superficial. The current incumbent doesn’t understand that his Executive Order powers are limited, and only Congress can decide on many things. No evidence of any plans there, certainly nothing that enables long term investment in ship building.

      • Correction:
        Their plan is Project 2025 which delivers fascist dictatorship and such DJT statements as “you’ll never have to vote again”.

        Military assets are small concern alongside the end of US democracy, obviously.

    • As usual, it appears that NO western governmnet at ANY level takes care of its people, our national government is giving billions to Mauritius along with OUR Chagos islands

  21. Have a look at the motor show in Turin Italy…. Almost all Chinese cars this year……. They are taking over and we just sit back and let them.

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