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ONE of the SNP’s new MPs yesterday called on his own party to let CalMac continue to run the west coast ferry services.

Tommy Sheppard said he hoped Serco failed to win the contract for the £1billion lifeline routes, which have been put out to tender by the SNP.

He spoke out after attacking how NHS ­services had been handed over to the outsourcing giants, during an interview with a London taxi driver.

Sheppard, who won the Edinburgh East seat last month, told the Record: “I don’t think any private company should be involved in the health service.

“I don’t have a ­particular opinion on whether Serco are a good or bad company.

“The health service and transport are a bit different but I would prefer not to see Serco running the ferry service to the islands and I hope CalMac continue to run the service.

“In fairness to the Scottish Government, they don’t want to privatise the ferry service, but they are obliged by European legislation to go out to tender every so often.”

The MP’s comments will raise eyebrows given the SNP ­Government have put the contract for the west coast ferry ­services out to tender.

Serco and publicly-owned CalMac are the only bidders for the £1billion routes.

CalMac have been forced to axe two-thirds of today’s ferry services as a result of a strike being held by RMT union members over job security, ­conditions and pensions.

Industrial action has been fuelled by uncertainty over the future of the west coast routes.

Serco took over services between Aberdeen, ­Kirkwall and Lerwick – and between ­Scrabster and ­Stromness – in 2012 as part of a £243million, six-year deal.

Sheppard made his opposition to privatisation clear while being quizzed by taxi driver Mark McGowan on the political campaigner’s YouTube channel.

He queried the “suspicious” relationship between Serco and the UK ­Government and claimed David Cameron was being driven by ideology.

McGowan described how Serco had the contract to take a sample of his blood in hospital, and went on to criticise the links between the firm’s CEO Rupert Soames and the Government.

In reply, Sheppard said: “It started off with bringing in private companies to do support services.

“Now, the private companies are moving into the wards and the operating theatres and there is a danger they are taking over clinical responsibilities and it’s really worrying.”

McGowan raised the fact that Soames is the brother of Tory grandee Sir Nicholas Soames, and both are grandsons of former PM Sir Winston Churchill.

Sheppard replied: “It’s ­suspicious, isn’t it?”

He went on to attack the “convenient overlap” between private firms lining up to take private contracts and key figures in the government.

And he criticised the way private firms “siphon off” a slice of public money for profit and warned of the dangers of letting them into public services.

He said: “We have gone beyond the economic rationale for this and we are now in an ideological contest.

“The strategy is simple. You starve public services of funding so the quality goes down.

“Then you pop up and say the private sector can do this better. Then you privatise it and make people pay the private fees instead of funding these things through tax.

“And that is where you end up like America, where you need to take out private insurance to cover the things we take as basic rights at the moment.”

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