Maritime services contribute £3.8bn to the Scottish economy, support 75,000 jobs and provide £1.2bn in taxes.
In a speech today,
UK Chamber of ShippingPresident Ken MacLeod will highlight concerns about the Scottish Government’s statements on independence.
“Time is running out,” he is expected to say.
“This is real, and there is too much at stake. We need to know, in detail, how independence would work so that Scottish shipping can at least have some certainty.”
MacLeod, who is from the Isle of Skye and lives in Glasgow, will add:
“Late last year the Scottish Government published its white paper on independence. In it they say that the Northern Lighthouse Board, the Marine Accident Investigation Branch and the MCA will continue their work unchanged, and I quote - ‘funded by existing arrangements’.
“Well, those existing arrangements are that they are funded by UK taxpayers. I suggest humbly that this does not constitute independence.
“I express no formal view as to how the Scottish people should vote. But it is clear to me that the Scottish Government has not yet done enough to explain what independence looks like for the shipping sector.”
MacLeod will also condemn the EU for failing to recognise the global nature of the shipping industry.
“Ships can move anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice.
“They move in and out of national jurisdictions on a daily basis, and we have the International Maritime Organization to provide the global level playing field we need.
“There is surely a role for the EU to play, most notably in sustaining the single market, but when it comes to regulation, all too often they just get it wrong.
“We’ve seen this with the environmentally and economically illiterate regulations of sulphur.
“This is the EU interfering in a global regulatory regime and spending millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on coming up with the wrong answer to the wrong question.
“They have to up their game. They have to understand. And sometimes that means accepting that the best thing they can do is do nothing at all.”