Fergus Ewing
Independent · Scotland
“Last October, the Chinese renewables company Ming Yang announced an investment of £1,500 million in my constituency, which would initially create 1,500 direct jobs and lead to 4,000 jobs in phase 3.”
“As her cabinet secretary, I thank her for her diligence as a minister and congratulate her on the successful passage last week of a vital piece of Government legislation that was also supported across parties. I am glad that the bill that we have worked on together will—as I hope—pass this evening. It sends a strong signal.”
“I turn to the concerns of stakeholders, and particularly the teaching trade unions, with whom I have spent a lot of time in the past three years. First, I am sympathetic to some of the concerns from the teaching trade unions.”
“I will embarrass the minister now with all this praise in front of his colleagues, but he is known to be pro-business, and that is a good thing. Sadly, he is an oasis of common sense amidst a desert of disdain and disinterest.”
“Most practitioners will not need training, but those that do, definitely need it. Therefore, we need a focus on the training and on ensuring that it is available to all practitioners who require it.”
“Its work was diligent, detailed and critical to providing the scrutiny that allowed the bill to be improved. I pay tribute to Douglas Ross. He has been a diligent parliamentarian throughout, and I agree with him on what the Parliament needs to aspire to being when it comes to how it works and how contributions are made.”
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“He made an accusation that I said something about the company that I do not think is accurate. I said: “UK DMO Ltd is a private company made up of member organisations from across industry.” I am sure that it will be paying attention to the debate and will have heard what he said. I think that it is, therefore, unfair to accuse me of something that I did not say. People have concerns about lack of certainty and say that there are too many unknowns, and Conservative members are saying that they cannot support the amendments because of that, I assume, but that is a fundamental misunderstanding of how the scheme should work. DRS is, and always has been, industry-led. Therefore, the scheme administration is responsible for its operational design and delivery.”
“The amendments that are proposed follow intervention from the former UK Government with respect to Scotland’s DRS. That was originally contrary to the wishes of this Parliament. Some of the criticisms and concerns that the member has levelled could equally be placed at the door of the UK Government’s DRS. That was the policy of his own party. The scheme has now been introduced by the current Labour Government. However, it is important to hear his questions about the examination of the details of the scheme, which will come from the establishment of the approval that is in the regulations in the order. That will be the responsibility of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee. In relation to the point by Fergus Ewing, I refer him to the Official Report.”
“If it is the case that the cabinet secretary has misinformed the Parliament, what remedies do I have to correct that important error? The Presiding Officer: As an experienced member, Mr Ewing will be aware of the mechanisms that exist and of the fact that the content of members’ contributions is not ordinarily a matter for the chair. We will continue. I call the cabinet secretary. 17:18 Fiona Hyslop: I thank Maurice Golden for the opportunity to again discuss the draft Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Amendment Regulations 2025. DRS forms part of the Scottish Government’s response to the global climate emergency and brings environmental and economic benefits. I think that the member recognises the importance of that, as do 57 other countries that have a deposit return scheme.”
“On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I seek your guidance. From my hearing of what the cabinet secretary said, she told Parliament that there is representation from small businesses on the board of UK DMO board. I believe that not to be true— the reason being that the Scottish Grocers Federation, which sought to be on that board, was refused, and its contention is that there is no small business representation on the board, despite the fact that small grocery shops around the UK do not have the space to put in reverse vending machines and do not have the logistical capacity to deal viably with the scheme, and that all the flaws—I believe that there are around 40—in the Scottish scheme are manifest in the UK scheme.”
“The Government must admit its mistake and say, “We got it wrong.” It takes guts to do that, and I believe that the Deputy First Minister has guts. All her colleagues are decent human beings. It is time for them to act, because, as Marcus Aurelius said, “you can also commit injustice by doing nothing”. 13:05”
“What an absurd argument. The indisputable fact is that the girls were sent there by Glasgow Corporation. Glasgow Corporation owned the school. It was part of the state. The state is responsible for the abuse. It was young children who were abused. Abuse is always unacceptable, but it is despicable when it happens to young children. With respect, Presiding Officer, I am not convinced that the sub judice law applies here in respect of the ability of the Government to provide a solution. It cannot hide behind that. I was going to read from what the Deputy First Minister’s predecessor said two years ago, but I will note only that she said that a solution would be found. That was two years ago. Why has a solution not been found?”
“If it requires an executive direction to Redress Scotland, that must be done. We cannot hide behind legalistic arguments. The idea that these children were put there for a holiday or respite care is an insult. As well as being an insult, it is factually wrong. Fornethy was a residential school. The corporation advertised for teachers. What do teachers do? They teach in schools. Therefore, that argument is just an insult to the victims. It is platitudinous, pedantic, nitpicking and legalistic, and I do not think for one moment that the current Deputy First Minister would seek to invoke or stand behind it. The other argument, as Mr Smyth has said, is that the girls did not cease to be under parental control. Are people really saying that the parents consented to the abuse that their children suffered? What arrant nonsense.”
“I will respect that, but, having read through the histories of abuse and the lifelong impacts that that has had on the girls as adults and for the whole of their lives, it is plain to me that this Parliament, if it stands for anything, must redress that injustice. I hope that we can all unite behind that. The sad fact is that the palpable, egregious and serious injustice that was caused to the most innocent girls in the country over a sustained period of more than 30 years, for several weeks at a time, which is the truth of the matter, has still not been redressed by either the Glasgow Corporation or the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government must take the lead. We must accept the responsibility to do that. How it is done is a mere detail. If it requires legislative reform, that must be done.”
“I warmly congratulate Colin Smyth on his dogged pursuit of this issue and on the speech that he gave today, which is one of the finest that we have heard in this session of Parliament. I also commend members across all the main parties— Mr Cole-Hamilton, Mr Golden, Mr Greene and many others—who have supported the Fornethy victims in the meetings of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee and in the chamber. It is a matter of some shame that this debate is so poorly attended. It reflects badly on us all. Presiding Officer, you have given a ruling that we cannot talk about the abuse that was inflicted on these innocent girls.”
“To ask the Scottish Government when general practitioner vaccination services will be fully restored to GPs in NHS Highland, in light of reported concerns that the proposed hybrid model is less safe and more expensive. (S6O-04785)”
“I think that Fergus Ewing and I are in agreement on the windfall tax: the point is passing at which it could be described as a windfall tax or at which its current level could be described as such. The Scottish Government has made it clear that the UK Government needs to clarify its position on that now.”
“Why are we not pressurising the Labour Government to do what everybody in Aberdeen can see must be done without delay, because we are in the biggest jobs crisis that this country has seen? The Presiding Officer: Always speak through the chair. Alasdair Allan: Fergus Ewing will appreciate that nobody in the chamber is disputing the enormity of the problem for any individual or family in the north-east of Scotland who is facing the kind of situation that he describes. I do not want to minimise that in any shape or form. Fergus Ewing is well aware that the Scottish Government has no role in the consents process, other than that we believe that they should be subjected to not only economic but environmental tests.”
“According to the report published today by Robert Gordon University, 400 people in the oil and gas industry will lose their jobs every fortnight. The only transition that those 400 people will face every fortnight is a transition to take up a job in the Emirates, Houston in the US, Norway or other countries that believe in developing their own oil. The windfall tax must surely end now—there is no windfall; it is just a tax—and consents to our own gas and oil reserves must be granted. My question to the Scottish Government is this, minister: when will you come off the fence? We know that there is evidence that Rosebank and Jackdaw will emit in their production a fraction of the fracked gas that is supported by Donald Trump. Why are we becoming Donald Trump’s little helpers?”
“There is a lot of interest in supplementaries, so brevity in questions and responses would be appreciated. Audiology Waiting Times 1.”
“Jim Fairlie: I reiterate that I am well aware that there are issues with gulls swooping down and causing problems for people in the areas that have already been mentioned. That is why I made sure that licences were issued earlier this year. We are holding the summit to ensure—[Interruption.]—that measures are taken to protect people as we go forward from this point. The Deputy Presiding Officer: Could I please ask members to resist the temptation to shout out while ministers are seeking to respond? That concludes portfolio questions on rural affairs, land reform and islands. There will be a brief pause to allow front-bench members to change over. Health and Social Care The Deputy Presiding Officer: The next portfolio is health and social care.”
“It is not only a public health and safety issue. I have repeatedly warned the Scottish Government, in this chamber, that serious injury or fatality could arise from massive gulls swooping down on elderly people and infants; I have even warned about the consumption of seagull faeces causing horrific disease. After those warnings, a 74-year- old man in Nairn was injured by a seagull. When will the Scottish Government get a grip and respond—not to NatureScot, but to what the people say? Will the summit to which the minister referred be open to the public, the press and MSPs? Will there be presentations by business improvement districts and will the summit be co- designed by BIDs? They are the ones that have to sort out the mess.”
“That opportunity needs to be relevant to every community of every scale in all parts of Scotland, rural and urban. We have an opportunity to learn from the best of what other European countries have done. I know that the intention is there, but we are not yet seeing that happening on the scale that it needs to happen. I look forward to seeing a recognition of that in the closing speech from the Government. 16:31”
“There will be much more reliance on public borrowing capacity to invest in systems that will generate profit for the future that is in public hands. Many have made the case that remote rural communities and villages or islands are natural places where we have the opportunity to put local resources to good use, and there are many examples of where that has been attempted. However, I want to make the case that we can see our urban communities in the same way, whether at a community scale or even down to the level of an individual tenement block. We can see those as green energy islands in their own right, with people investing collectively in the energy challenges of retrofit but also in the energy opportunities of installing renewables and storage in a way that cuts people’s bills and creates good local jobs in the community.”
“Whether the energy is wind, solar or storage, and whether the communities are rural or urban, what will those communities look like? They will be communities that have at their disposal not only power in the sense of energy sources, but political and economic power. Far more of the income that is generated from the energy system will be invested back into the community, including, for example, in energy efficiency and heat decarbonisation. Why on earth should we not see an energy system that pays for those costs rather than leaving them to the public purse while the private sector takes the profit from the energy system? In that energy system, we will see much more reliance on local energy companies to lock in the benefit, using publicly owned land, buildings and assets.”
“Christine Grahame talked about her concern that better-off communities might be better placed and more likely to benefit from community ownership. That is a challenge with the current model. It makes the case for moving away from that model, in which communities have to negotiate for mere community benefit, and instead shifting power into community hands. That would include the formation of publicly owned community energy companies, whether they are owned by the community or the local authority. I would like us to think about the energy system that we to aspire to. What will it look like in the future, once we have made the transition to a genuinely sustainable energy system that also places a great deal more emphasis on community ownership?”
“I also disagree with the Liberal Democrats’ support for Rosebank. That project will neither improve energy security nor reduce energy costs; it will merely eke out the old, failed, polluting and profit-driven energy system of the past a little longer, while keeping emissions on the rise. I was much more enthusiastic about Beatrice Wishart’s comments about Shetland Heat, Energy and Power, which I have had the chance to visit—I even got the opportunity to operate the grabber at the energy-from-waste plant. I will be even more enthusiastic about that project once it has moved away from waste and on to more sustainable energy sources. However, it is the kind of project that we should see a great deal more of around the country.”
“The windfall tax is one way of ensuring that that highly profitable industry actually pays for some of the transition, and that will not happen without tax playing a role. Finlay Carson: Does Patrick Harvie recognise the real concerns of local communities that face an endless stream of applications for inappropriate wind farm developments on their doorsteps? Those concerns have to be recognised as part of any transition to renewable energy. Patrick Harvie: The planning process needs to make the distinction between appropriate and inappropriate developments of any kind, whether they are for renewables or anything else. It is for the planning process to do that. That is very far from saying that we should not be maximising the opportunity that comes from Scotland’s renewables potential.”
“I disagree with those who have voted for climate targets over many years and who now, recognising that we are behind schedule on climate action, suggest that we slow down rather than speed up. I do not agree with those who seek to demonise renewable energy infrastructure, when we could be seeing it as an opportunity to transform the ownership of our energy system. I do not agree with the SNP voices that express opposition to the windfall tax on fossil fuel profiteers. That industry has done a huge amount to bring about the climate emergency and to promote climate-denial conspiracy theories but very little to invest in its own workforce, despite knowing that the transition has to come along.”
“Members made that connection, but they also referred to the gulf between where we are now in Scotland and what those countries that have been truly successful with community ownership have managed to achieve. Denmark and Norway in particular were mentioned on a number of occasions by different members. We need to recognise what those countries have done to achieve their level of success if we are going to learn those lessons. I want to recognise those points of consensus and common ground, but there have, of course, been differences, too. There is no doubt that I disagree with some of what was said by some of the conservative voices—mostly, but not wholly, in the Tory party.”
“By all means, let us carpe diem, but, at the same time, let us follow the motto of the late Emperors Augustus and Titus: festina lente. The Deputy Presiding Officer: We move to closing speeches. 16:24 Patrick Harvie: What a pleasure to follow that. This has been an interesting balance of constructive debate, consensus and some disagreement. Alex Rowley, Michael Matheson and Emma Harper were among the many members who very clearly expressed the connection between the infrastructure challenges that we face and the attitudes of the public, in a sense setting out that the direct energy benefit of that renewable energy infrastructure needs to be connected to an economic and social public benefit. If we do that, we will earn, retain and lock in public support for the transition.”
“I profoundly believe that there is a tremendous opportunity ahead for Scotland and Britain, but only if we cast aside our political differences, recognise that we will need oil and gas for some time to come, and agree with Chris Stark that, by developing our own oil and gas as much as we can by 2050, the reduction in North Sea gas will be 95 per cent rather than 97 per cent. The difference is negligible. We are arguing about something that is of relatively small importance— except that the beneficiaries are fracking and Donald Trump. Things are going to take longer. We need to proceed with urgency, but we need to recognise that the barriers are very serious and that they require grown-up working together. I will finish off this extended peroration with two Latin tags.”
“Would not it be great if we could have a grand coalition, with the parties of the extremes being marginalised as a result? Maybe that is the only way to deal with the extreme parties, one of which is making grounds without having a single person who is a household name in Scotland—that is quite extraordinary. I can speak for another six minutes if I have got that, Deputy Presiding Officer, but I suspect that— The Deputy Presiding Officer: That would be stretching the elasticity too far. I can give you another minute, Mr Ewing. Fergus Ewing: Well, I suppose that that gives me time for what is commonly called a peroration.”
“The sooner all Governments recognise that oil and gas and renewables need to work together, and that the skills of oil and gas will be required for renewables, the better. The Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce survey found that those skills are being lost to Britain. How can we deliver net zero when, as Russell Borthwick said, we are seeing the deindustrialisation of Britain? It is not possible. That challenge must be met, and the grid development will take longer than we wish it to. The alarming signs of Ørsted pulling out and of SSE cutting planned development by £3 billion are warning signals that we cannot ignore. We must not be alarmist, but we must all work together across Britain to overcome those barriers. I think that there is a consensus here among the main parties.”
“I again suggest that there should be a standing committee, chaired by the UK energy minister, that involves the Scottish ministers and other devolved Administrations, companies and the plethora of public bodies that Audrey Nicoll referred to. However, there must be one leading body to drive the whole thing along; otherwise, it will get stuck in the maw of regulatory bodies not doing their job quickly enough. The barrier, though, as the Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce survey found this week, is that investment in the renewables supply chain has been relatively flat for the past five years. There is an astonishing consensus that oil and gas should be supported. A recent survey showed that 91 per cent of business supported that and that, according to True North, 70 per cent of the Scottish population support it.”
“Fergus Ewing: I know that the minister and Michael Shanks are doing some good work together. I am happy to take Dr Allan’s intervention. Alasdair Allan: The member anticipated what I wanted to say, which is that there has indeed been very positive working between the two Governments. He raises the prospect of CARES working with the UK Government. CARES is doing exactly that, and we hope that that will long continue. Fergus Ewing: I hope that the time for taking that intervention will be added to my already elastic time quota, Deputy Presiding Officer. I entirely agree. I am saying that, with regard to integration, there should be a rewiring of British Government on how it deals with the issue. It is just too important for us to be squabbling about it politically, particularly when there is a wider consensus among most of the main parties.”
“However, what I want to say in this speech, in my generous time— Douglas Lumsden: Will the member take an intervention? Fergus Ewing: Yes, of course. Douglas Lumsden: On the point that Fergus Ewing was making about funding—which is a point that Sarah Boyack made earlier—does he feel that the Scottish National Investment Bank might be a route for some communities to get funding to get their projects off the ground? Fergus Ewing: I agree with Mr Lumsden and with Ms Boyack. I think that the Scottish National Investment Bank and GB Energy should work together. The Scottish Government and the UK Government must work together. The wind that we generate in Scotland needs a market. It does not stop at the border—in fact, electricity does not know where borders are. Alasdair Allan: Will the member give way?”
“I agree with them, and I agree with the suggestions that have been made about the involvement of local authorities, although I think that private companies should be partners, not enemies—that is essential for success. When I was energy minister—I made this point before to the minister—we had a scheme that used the renewable energy entrepreneurship fund to finance a community share and then lever in private capital by way of a loan from the Triodos Bank, the Co-operative Bank or the Close Brothers Group. That allowed those ventures to be funded very substantially by the private sector on the security of the future income stream that would come from the development. I would like to see the Government building on that model in future.”
“I am not going to repeat what has been said, as that would be a waste of debating time, other than to say that the point has been made by many, including Christine Grahame and others, that the financial value of community ownership has been found to be 34 times greater than the value of community benefit paid at the standard rate of £5,000 per megawatt. The source of that information is a 2021 Aquatera report for the Point and Sandwick Development Trust, which I have here—to give credit where it is due. That point is undoubtedly true, so the fund that the minister has announced today is welcome. The case studies show small projects in Dundee, Drymen—or near Drymen—and Glasgow. Those projects are welcome, but I think that members want to go much, much further than that.”
“The point that he was making was that transitions take time, and they often take longer than politicians would wish. There is a tendency to set targets that, very often, are unrealistic and unachievable; I will not go through the examples from this session of Parliament, because it would use up the rest of my speech. However, it was Chris Stark—who used to work for me when I was energy minister—who said that undeliverable targets get in the way of genuine action. I think that there is a risk of that. In this debate, there have been many interesting contributions from all sides—from all parties, I believe—and I think that there is agreement that community projects and community ownership are very desirable.”
“I, too, apologise for being slightly late. I should, of course, have emulated my late mother, Winnie, who more often than not turned up at least an hour before any engagement was due to begin—she would often turn up for public meetings when the doorkeeper was in the process of unlocking the door to the hall. As a result, there were very few doorkeepers in community halls throughout the Highlands and Islands who were not canvassed by Winnie Ewing. I will begin by referring to a learned article in The Times by the distinguished historian and energy analyst, the Pulitzer prize-winning Daniel Yergin, who is one of the world’s experts on energy. He made the point that it took two centuries for coal to replace wood as the main source of heating, and it took one century for oil and gas to replace coal.”
“If, as the cabinet secretary says, people are to be at the heart of the plan, they must be in the room. As the election looms ever closer, I hope that all the parties—particularly the main moderate parties, not the two extreme ones—will put it in their manifesto that there will be islanders on these boards and that that change will be introduced in the first six months of the next session of this Parliament. 16:09”
“It has been an unmitigated disaster.” I ask, had there been islanders on the board, would we have seen the ferry fiasco? Would they have said to me, as Captain Iain Dewar did in Lochaber, back in the 1980s, that the public bodies build the wrong ferries because they do not understand how they work? That makes a very strong case for islanders’ involvement. The civil servants are in charge of the selection policy. Far be it from me to attack civil servants, who cannot defend themselves, but I think that their role is too powerful, and they guard their powers as determinedly as squirrels hoard their nuts for winter hibernation. It has got to change. There should be islanders on the selection panels for the chairmen of all these bodies. To conclude, we have a protocolonial approach.”
“The boards are quite small in number—there are five or six of them—and there is no reason why they could not be expanded to include, say, four or five people from the islands. As John Daniel Peteranna said, “without the influence of Islanders on these public bodies controlling Island services the current de-populations trends ... will accelerate.” I should also mention a long-standing campaigner and friend of mine, Brian Wilson, the former Labour minister, who said in a recent article that the “central issue is about control. It is about the ‘who-whom’ relationship between Edinburgh and communities served by CalMac. At present, this is conducted through a tripartite arrangement with Transport Scotland as puppet-master, CMAL as procurement quango and CalMac as operator.”
“In other words, the people who are in charge of making the policy have no connection with the people who are affected by the policy—that is the point that I wish to make in my remarks. It is something that could and should have been corrected. It is sad that we have not corrected it as yet, but we should have. As Kenneth Gibson said, doing so in this case means placing islanders at the heart not just of operational decisions, but of policy strategic decisions. That means mandatory places on the boards of those public bodies that are in charge of delivering the lifeline services—principally, but not exclusively, HIAL, CMAL and CalMac. There should be people from the islands on every one of those boards.”
““The Blunders of Our Governments” was written by two distinguished professors, Sir Ivor Crewe and Professor Anthony King. It was written mostly prior to devolution, and it catalogues the blunders made by the Westminster Government, including the poll tax, which was devised by a group of rather posh Conservatives. One civil servant commented on the policy by saying, “Good luck with that down Brixton way when it comes to collection time.” His advice was ignored. The point is that the professors identified the problem as being the extent to which policy development had become separated from the realities of the world. They called it an operational and cultural disconnect.”
“Like my late mother, Winnie Ewing, I am a survivor of Up Helly Aa, except that I think she attended it on 10 occasions, showing quite exceptional stamina. Unlike my mother, I cannot claim the unique achievement that she frequently professed that she had attained, which was that she had visited every inhabited island around Scotland in her five decades as a parliamentarian. However, in my 14 years as a minister, I have greatly enjoyed working with officials and businesses on the islands—I am sure that the same is true for current cabinet secretaries and ministers. I hope that we have achieved things, but that is for others to judge. There is a very interesting book that should be required reading for any minister and possibly for every member of the Scottish Parliament.”
“I move the motion on empowering Scotland’s island communities, That the Parliament recognises Scotland’s islands’ invaluable contribution to Scotland’s economy, culture and identity; welcomes the investments that have accompanied Scotland’s first ever national islands plan; recognises the positive impact that the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018 has had, but notes the need for further action to tackle island challenges; welcomes the extensive community engagement to develop the new national islands plan, and notes that measures to address depopulation and create community wealth should be key themes of the new plan; further welcomes the positive progress and impact of the Carbon Neutral Islands project, and agrees that the Scottish Government should continue to work towards prosperous and sustainable island communities. 15:29”
“The Government is committed to working with our island communities to deliver on their priorities. The next iteration of the national islands plan will build on the progress that has been made to date. As with any work that we undertake— whether it is the development of the new plan, the carbon neutral islands project or all the other activities that I have mentioned—we are deeply conscious of doing things with, and not to, island communities. I look forward to today’s debate and to continuing to work collaboratively to deliver positive change for our islands.”
“Another key project that I want to address is the carbon neutral islands project. The Scottish Government continues to take its climate obligations seriously, and we recognise that our islands are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. From the outset, communities have been central to the project, and we have directly supported the employment of community development officers to lead delivery on the ground. There have been several key achievements to date but, to build on those early successes, we have worked closely with island stakeholders and Highlands and Islands Enterprise to develop a financing road map, which is being published today. It sets out a range of initiatives that are in development. We will continue to invest in the islands, with a further £1.6 million of capital allocated this financial year.”
“We have been engaging with island communities and local authorities to inform the new document, and in-person engagements across island areas are on-going. In fact, officials from the islands team are currently in the Outer Hebrides to engage with those communities directly. Douglas Ross: Will the cabinet secretary give way on that point? Mairi Gougeon: I am sorry; I am approaching the end of my speech and I need to progress. While the new national islands plan takes shape, our determination to continue addressing islanders’ challenges and ambitions is already fully reflected in the latest budget and programme for government. On transport, we have introduced free interisland ferry travel for all residents of Shetland, Orkney and the Outer Hebrides who are under the age of 22, and we have extended the free travel voucher scheme.”
“In recognition of the demographic challenges that many islands face, population attraction and retention will be the key and overarching objective for the new plan. Douglas Ross: Will the cabinet secretary give way? Mairi Gougeon: I am sorry, but I have to make progress. When we tested the proposal with island communities and local authorities, it received robust endorsement. Commitments that feature in the plan will be geared towards the strategic objective. We propose having community wealth building as a key principle that underpins delivery of the plan, so actions that feature in the plan will be designed to create and retain wealth and wellbeing locally. Key to all that is ensuring that islanders are at the very heart of the new plan.”
“Notwithstanding the tumultuous times that have had to be navigated in the delivery of the national islands plan, we fully accept the results of the consultation and recognise that island communities continue to face challenges in areas including some that have been touched on today, such as housing, transport and access to health and social care services. I stress clearly that we are listening, and we will continue to work with islanders to deliver real improvements. Having heard what we did through the consultation, and having reflected on what islanders have told us, we have concluded that a new national islands plan is needed. We have heard that the new plan must be more targeted, with fewer objectives and an even stronger focus on delivering tangible and relatable commitments.”
“Does the cabinet secretary agree that the lack of local residents from the islands represented on the boards of quangos and public bodies that provide lifeline services—notably Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd, CalMac Ferries and Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd—means that we lack the local knowledge, which is so important, and which—you never know—could have helped us to avoid the ferry fiasco in the first place had it been available? Mairi Gougeon: Having local voices and engaging with communities is of course vital as we look to deliver critical services. As I was saying, at the end of 2023 we carried out a public consultation to inform a review of the national islands plan. While the plan was found to be ambitious and comprehensive, those who responded were clear that more needs to be done to improve outcomes for island communities.”
“Highlands and Islands Enterprise estimates that, over the next decade or so, 18,000 additional jobs, mostly in the renewables sector, will be created in the region, which will add around 40,000 more people to its existing population. Will the finance secretary give that fair consideration in relation to the NRAC formula, given that NHS services in the Highlands are bursting at the seams as it is? Ivan McKee: I have already indicated that the NRAC formula will take into account population shifts over time, along with a range of other factors, including, in the case of NHS Highland, the rural nature of the area that it covers. The member can rest assured that that shift in population will be factored in to NHS funding and the NRAC formula. Argyll and Bute Health and Social Care Partnership (Funding) 8.”
“Highland Council proceeded with a consultation, and it is now reflecting on the response. As I have said, I will meet Highland Council representatives shortly to discuss where the council is in that regard and the options that are available to it. The tax is set out in legislation, as the member is aware, and the City of Edinburgh Council is the first council that intends to implement it; it will do so next year. As I have said, we will continue to engage with other councils, as we learn from that implementation, to understand what their plans are in their local areas.”