Coal contract angers MP
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The MP, George Foulkes, is asking Scottish Secretary George Younger to carry out a "full investigation" into the method used by the South of Scotland Electricity Board in allocating the massive contract.
The contract was won on the phone by three major hauliers, including Yuill and Dodds, which ran the coking coal to Ravenscraig steel works during the miners' strike.
Mr Foulkes said: "I do not think that the phone tendering comes within normal procedure for nationalised industries.
"I have put down a question to the Scottish Secretary George Younger asking if he will investigate the circumstances." Tenders by phone were invited from six haulage companies by the SSEB within hours of the announcement that the miners' strike had ended.
The deal was to carry 1,200 tonnes of coal from Knockshinnoch plant near New Cumnock, Ayrshire, to the Longannet power station in Fife.
Among the six firms invited to tender were Yuill and Dodds of Strathaven, Lanarkshire, and W. H. Malcolm, two companies involved in the controversial Hunterston-Ravenscraig yearlong coke convoys.
The contracts went to Yuill and Dodds, W. H. Malcolm and S. Anderson. The MP said he was concerned that a share of the contract could have been given to Yuill and Dodds because of its help in running coke to Ravenscraig.
An SSEB spokesman confirmed that the haulage companies were asked to quote over the phone.
Jimmy Yuill used his own One of the unsuccessful tenderers was CoyIton South Ayrshire based Andrew Wilson, a former Road Haulage Association Scottish chairman, who claimed he was given only two hours to come up with an acceptable package.