Thank you, convener. This is really a personal statement. I grew up in the west Highlands in the 1950s, and the situation in the whole Highlands and Islands region at that time was that young people were haemorrhaging away, the traditional primary industries were exporting their produce south with little added value, hydro schemes were coming to an end, the short tourist season was about to be hit by cheap holidays in Spain—people preferred to go to Benidorm rather than Oban—and there was massive emigration to the central belt, Canada, Australia and New Zealand of everybody from hotel workers to university graduates. The Highlands were emptying.
In 1965, Harold Wilson’s Government, convinced that one-off schemes for the Highlands were not getting to grips with the underlying problem, set up the Highlands and Islands Development Board. If Willie Ross, the Secretary of State for Scotland, had stood up in Parliament and said, “We are setting up a development board for the Highlands and Islands, which will have its priorities and strategy decided by an economic committee of a dozen or so bodies meeting in Edinburgh and chaired by me”, we would have despaired. However, he did not say that. To great acclaim, he gave the board power to make its own strategic, operational and budget decisions in the Highlands, by the Highlands and for the Highlands. As he said, he gave the board
“powers to act at its own hand”.
That power is very precious to the Highlands and Islands, which is why every council leader in the region has opposed what is now proposed, as have Professor Jim Hunter, the very highly regarded former chair of Highlands and Islands Enterprise, and David Alston, the present chair of NHS Highland and former depute leader of The Highland Council.
The people of the Highlands and Islands feel that they are all stakeholders in HIE. They have a strong sense of ownership of it and they feel that they are in a position to influence priorities, which is why the Press and Journal campaign has been so well supported. I hope that you will read in full what Willie Ross said on that day in the House of Commons, as it still has resonance—look for the phrase “on Scotland’s conscience”, which I am sure you are familiar with.
Willie Ross also tasked the new board specifically with growing and supporting communities. That is not just an add-on; it is integral. It means that HIE has to not only attract and encourage industry to the hubs such as Lochaber and the Moray Firth—I am very pleased about the recent great news from Fort William—but work in the face of economic realities to sustain often hard-pressed communities in the northern isles, the Western Isles, the small isles and Skye, the Argyll islands, Kintyre, Lorne, Morvern, Ardnamurchan, Moidart, Knoydart, Wester Ross, north-west Sutherland, Caithness and east Sutherland. I could expand that list, but it gives an idea, I hope, of the diversity and vastness of the task.
Communities have been nurtured by being given a sense of their own worth and through the support for community projects such as village halls, community shops and cultural events. I wonder whether that nurturing will survive under the new regime. I fear that the social remit might be compromised. Would an overarching, hard-aligned, economic committee in Edinburgh have agreed to support the fèisean movement, or to build Sabhal Mòr Ostaig in Sleat? Would we have had the University of the Highlands and Islands, with its unique structure? Would such a committee be impressed that, not long ago, HIE stepped in when three teachers at Kinlochbervie school needed childcare provision to carry on working? That is a great example of HIE carrying out its social remit.
Audit Scotland did not find any weakness in HIE. Our experts are as expert as any other experts. HIE has consistently outperformed against expectations. What problem is the Government trying to resolve here?
Since my husband Michael and I decided to return to settle in the north in the late 1960s, we have seen a huge change in the fortunes of the area—not just a massive increase in population, but an increase in confidence. It would be an injustice if that was taken away by decision making being removed from us. HIE is very close to the communities that it serves and it is part of the fabric of the Highland way of life in a way that other non-departmental public bodies are not. We value the autonomy that HIE enjoys—perhaps that comes from centuries of other folks telling us what to do.
There is still work to be done. Not all areas have had that increase in population or confidence, and some are still losing their populations. Many of the remote rural and island communities are still fragile and they need a continuing strategy to support their economic and social fabric. Special attention needs to be paid to Argyll, the Western Isles, the Orkney islands, Caithness and Sutherland. Remote rural and island needs cannot be hard aligned with the needs of towns and cities. Remote and rural communities are themselves diverse and every island is unique. I fear that the proposals will be too inflexible to let those communities flourish.
The encouragement of good ideas from the grass roots might also be lost. If we consider the example of the north coast 500 route, what Edinburgh-based committee would support the marketing of a tourist trail around single-track roads up there somewhere that it has never heard of? Yet, the route has been a huge success and could create up to 200 jobs in remote communities.
There is a lot at stake for HIE and for the Highlands and Islands. HIE has never fitted into a Government department box and it should not be made to do so—that would kill it. For the good of the Highlands and Islands, any alignment should be with other regional bodies such as the local authorities, the health boards, the University of the Highlands and Islands or the third sector. A one-size approach for Scotland does not fit us. It will be a great shame and an insult if a power that was given to us by a Westminster Government is taken away by a Scottish Government.
I hope that I have given the committee some food for thought and that you will help to get the best possible outcome for the Highlands and Islands. As far as I am concerned, that would be retention of the status quo and restoration of the local enterprise companies.