FERRY fares across Scotland will increase by 10 per cent from next year, the Scottish Government has said.

In a letter to the net zero, energy and transport committee at Holyrood, transport secretary Fiona Hyslop said a fare freeze which had been in place this year - at a cost of about £10 million - would be "too challenging to continue" given the financial outlook facing the government.

The rise, which will take effect from January 1 on the Northern Isles network and March 28 on the west coast, will affect CalMac's Kilcreggan-Gourock service operated by MV Chieftain.

Ms Hyslop wrote: "We froze ferry fares for 2023-24 instead of a 9.1 per cent inflationary increase in order to help people, businesses and communities at the height of the cost-of-living crisis, and to continue to recover from the impact of the pandemic

"However, doing so meant that government effectively bore the loss of revenue in the longer term. In the current fiscal climate that loss, at £10 million a year, is too challenging to continue.

"Reluctantly, we are having to raise ferry fares in the coming year by 10 per cent, bringing fare levels back to around what they would have been had fares not been frozen in 2023-24.

"This means, in real terms, fares have broadly increased in line with inflation over time.

"That will help to partially recover the previous freeze, address some of the significant budget pressures and allow the continued support of the ferries network in future years."

But the Scottish Tories said island communities will be "astonished and angry" with the news.

The party's transport spokeswoman, Sue Webber, said: "Those reliant on CalMac for lifeline ferries have endured a sub-standard service for years due to the SNP's incompetent procurement of new vessels.

"So the announcement of a 10 per cent hike in ticket prices will feel like another slap in the face to them.

"The transport secretary says these rises are necessary - but they wouldn't have been had the SNP not wasted hundreds of millions of pounds on two new vessels which have still to carry a single passenger several years after they were due to come into service."