The Scottish has branded UK ministers ”penny-pinching number crunchers” for closing the Forth coastguard station.
Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead used a Holyrood debate on Thursday to express ”concern and disappointment” over the decision to axe eight stations across the UK.
Shipping Minister Mike Penning confirmed the closure of Fife Ness along with the Clyde station at Greenock and six others south of the border this week.
Round-the-clock centres will be retained at Shetland, Aberdeen and Stornoway but Aberdeen’s will be downsized.
Mr Lochhead said: ”Safety cover is now being reduced and jobs lost across our maritime emergency services. The UK Government’s approach has not been properly co-ordinated or strategically thought through, and instead has been based on saving money, not lives.”
Labour MSP Lewis MacDonald said ”bad decisions” had been made by Westminster.
”Much of the impact of the service cuts will be felt in Scotland,” he said. ”Two out of the nine maritime rescue co-ordination centres scheduled for closure are in Scotland, in the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde.
“Indeed, they are intended to be the first to close not at some dim and distant point in the future but within 18 months’ time.”
Alex Fergusson, Tory MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, said the Scottish Government had approached the subject with ”blind denial” that a review was needed at all.
But he added: ”We on these benches totally recognise the concerns over the closure of individual coastguard stations such as the Clyde and Forth.”
Mid Scotland and Fife Labour MSP Claire Baker said the closure is ”a bitterly disappointing decision by the UK Government.”.
Mr Fergusson asked Mrs Baker if she would ”have the grace to accept that the original proposals were Labour’s proposals.”
She responded: ”We do recognise the need to modernise but I think there are real worries about the proposals coming forward.”
The loss of local knowledge was one of the key concerns for many MSPs, she added.
Fife Ness, which covers 344 miles of coastline from Montrose to the north of England, employs 14 people and is said to have dealt with over 1400 incidents in the last three years.