Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Official Report 634KB pdf

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Islands (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

I welcome Liam McArthur, who has joined us to observe the session on the Islands (Scotland) Bill, which is the subject of item 2. This is the first evidence session on the bill, and I welcome from the Scottish Government Ian Turner, who is the team leader for community empowerment; Darren Dickson, who is a policy officer; and Kirsten Simonnet-Lefevre, who is a solicitor.

The committee has various questions. The first, which will develop theme 1, will be asked by the deputy convener, Gail Ross.

Good morning. To start us off, will you comment on the development of the bill, including the involvement of the our islands, our future campaign?

If whoever wants to answer looks at me, I will bring you in. It looks as though Darren Dickson has been nominated.

I will take the question, given that I have been involved longest with the Government’s islands policy work. I will try not to repeat what is in the bill documents and the helpful Scottish Parliament information centre briefing.

The bill’s origins date back to 2014, when the Government produced the prospectus “Empowering Scotland’s Island Communities”. That was the first time that the Government signalled its commitment to look at bringing forward an islands bill. It led to the consultation in 2015, which talked about the provisions that would be in a future bill. In 2016, we made a programme for government announcement that committed the Government to introducing the bill that we are discussing today.

It is probably fair to say that the catalyst for the work that we are doing through the bill was the launch of the our islands, our future campaign by the three wholly island councils back in June 2013. Since then, the Government has worked closely with those three island councils—first and foremost through the island areas ministerial working group. Latterly, we have brought into the new islands strategic group the other three councils that have responsibility for island communities—North Ayrshire Council, Highland Council and Argyll and Bute Council. That is where we are today.

The Government is keen to ensure that the bill is about all inhabited islands. That is partly why ministers decided, last August, to bring the other three councils round the table. We have worked closely with them through the islands strategic group, and they have helped us to shape and develop the bill. That work will continue as the bill progresses through its parliamentary journey and beyond in the drafting of regulations for the implementation of the national islands plan.

The current islands minister, Mr Yousaf, and his predecessor, Mr Mackay, have spent a great deal of time in not just speaking to the councils but getting out and about around the country, meeting island communities and speaking to them about the bill as well as engaging with them on wider island issues. I know that the committee was recently on Mull, and it was useful to read the information about that on the committee’s web pages. We are getting out and engaging with people on the bill as much as we can.

Quite a lot has changed, given the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union. Has the approach to the bill changed since the Brexit vote?

It is probably fair to say that the approach has not changed. The Brexit vote was last summer and the bill was announced only in September last year, so it has been running alongside the Brexit process. I imagine that the bill process will conclude in advance of any Brexit outcome, so it will be difficult to see any impact on the bill. We do not expect any significant or dramatic changes to the bill because of Brexit, although I do not want to prejudge any amendments that might be lodged at stages 2 and 3.

If the bill is passed with commitments to provisions for island proofing and a national islands plan, those are probably the areas in which the outcomes of Brexit might be addressed, as future legislation that is required will have to be island proofed and commitments will be made in the national islands plan.

Are any issues that were raised in the pre-bill campaigning not in the bill as it has been introduced?

The bill is pretty much what was consulted on. The 2014 prospectus made a commitment to consider extending the powers under the Orkney County Council Act 1974 and the Zetland County Council Act 1974. Having looked at that with solicitors, colleagues across other offices and Marine Scotland, we think that it is clear that extending those acts would be difficult, partly because they are private acts and partly because how we handle legislation has changed over the past 40 years.

The provision in the bill is for a marine licensing scheme. I imagine that the committee will have questions on that, so I will not go into further detail now.

I have just a minor point. When the bill was prepared, was it a unanimous view that Skye should be included? The bill says that bridges should be ignored, but surely Skye does not have the problems with ferries and other transport that real islands do.

Members: Oh!

I will let the witnesses gather their thoughts on that and how the bridge was taken into account. I am sure that we all agree that Skye is a real island.

This is quite a surprising issue. We have been asked three times whether Skye is covered by the bill, so people must not be reading the explanatory notes, which clearly state that Skye is included. The basis for that is that it is an inhabited island—according to the 2011 census, there are about 993 inhabited islands, and Skye is on that list.

I will follow that up. Really remote areas on the mainland have all the same issues as the islands have—particularly Skye, given that it has a road bridge. Someone who is on an island relies on the ferries to get from A to B, but Skye does not have that problem. Many remote rural areas on the mainland have problems that are equal to those of the islands, so where do they fit into the bill, if at all?

Not at all is the answer to your question. It is a bill on the islands—that is what we were asked to draft and introduce and that is what we have done. I acknowledge your point about issues for remote rural locations on the mainland, but we are working within the scope of a bill that addresses the islands.

The point is made.

I understand that the bill relates to the islands, but do you envisage it having any positive knock-on effects for the rural communities that Peter Chapman mentioned?

I imagine that it will. Island proofing and the national islands plan are key elements of the bill. Island proofing will have implications for our health boards, and many of our islands health boards have close links with mainland health boards, so it will probably tighten up that working relationship. It is not for me to comment, but the success or otherwise of island proofing may lead the Government to consider its approach to other areas.

Before we move on, I remind the committee that when we have taken evidence, a lot of remote communities have said that they feel that they are islands, just as much as island communities are. That issue is specifically outwith the bill’s scope, but I am sure that there will be questions on it as a result of the evidence, which we will direct to the minister when he comes to the committee.

After Stewart Stevenson comes in, we will move on to the second theme, which Rhoda Grant will lead.

In planning, there is a series of definitions of communities. I will focus on remote rural communities, which, if I recall correctly, are defined as communities of fewer than 10,000 people that are more than 30 minutes’ travel away from a community of more than 10,000. That captures every island that is proposed to be covered, but it would also capture places such as Campbeltown.

In drawing up the policy and drafting the bill, what consideration was given to using existing definitions that are used for a wide variety of purposes in local and national Government? That would mean that the word “island” was not wholly appropriate, but it would suggest a similar policy intention of protecting remote communities and supporting them in a proper way.

I apologise to Darren Dickson—I am going to be rude and jump in. Stewart, I totally take your point, but can I ask you to hold that question until the minister comes? It is important that he is the one who answers such questions.

I am entirely content to do that because the question is now on the record, but I point out that I framed it in relation to the formulation of the policy.

I totally understand. Christine Grahame said when somebody asked a question yesterday that that was a clever way of doing it. I accept the premise and will make sure that you get a chance to ask the minister.

Thank you very much.

The bill is largely enabling legislation but, as I speak to constituents, I know that there is a huge amount of expectation about it. I fear that it will be a huge disappointment, because I can see nothing tangible that will come out of it. Everything will follow after, but the bill will make no real difference when it is enacted. Is that the case or will people see something tangible as an outcome of the bill?

You are right to say that the bill provides a framework for action in the future in relation to national islands planning and particularly for island proofing. Island proofing is designed to ensure that the interests and needs of island communities are placed at the centre of future legislation, policies, strategy, and service design and delivery.

Although the bill is hard to connect to tangible local actions, it will certainly have an impact. It will ensure that island communities are involved in the decision-making processes early enough to have an impact on what happens in their communities. What that impact is and what the future policies and strategies will be is obviously hard for me to say, but that will come through the actions that are taken over time.

The national islands plan has the potential to make a difference, but would it have been possible to have a plan without the legislation?

We could have had the plan without legislation—that would have been the alternative to legislation. However, we thought that the rigour, transparency, scrutiny—particularly by Parliament and others, including island communities themselves—of the work being undertaken by the Government and the consultation that legislation would require would produce a different level of impact from that of just having a national plan that was designed by ministers. Having the plan in statute means not only that the Government will have to prepare the plan following the passage of the bill but that it will have to review the plan after five years and keep it going.

The bill is not just for now; as Darren Dickson said, it will maintain the momentum that arose from the our islands, our future campaign. That led into the different groups that ministers formed and then into the bill, which will keep the momentum going so that island communities continue to be a focus in the future. Moving away from having a bill could mean that the priority changed and that the Government moved on to something else. With a bill, that cannot happen, because the statute means that the measures must be in place.

09:15  

What do you envisage will be in the national islands plan? What additional powers will there be for islands in relation to, for example, transport, digital connectivity and control over the marine environment? What is the expectation?

As the bill says, the purpose of the plan is to set out

“the main objectives and strategy of the Scottish Ministers in relation to improving outcomes for island communities”.

We do not set out in detail what should be in the plan. That is partly because one of the first things that we will need to do is consult the people who are interested in and will be affected by the bill. In doing that, we will find out people’s priorities, which we will get into the plan.

There will be all the big issues that we would expect to see in the plan—transport, health, digital connectivity and so on—but what that will mean for powers or commitments that might be given will come up during the consultation process. It would be wrong for me to sit in Edinburgh and say, “These will be the priorities of islands in the future.”

I get the impression from speaking to folk in island communities that, although people were excited about and welcomed the bill’s introduction, there is, as Rhoda Grant said, a great deal of disappointment about the lack of content and specifically about the lack of an overall objective in the bill. Will you comment on that? For example, is it the bill’s purpose to grow the population or facilitate economic regeneration? People have commented that there are few overarching aims or ambitions in the bill. Given that we could do much of what the bill does without having a bill, is it just a bill for a bill’s sake?

I do not think that it is just a bill for a bill’s sake. The national islands plan is about

“improving outcomes for island communities”.

Just one aim, such as increasing the population, might not capture the different needs of all the islands across Scotland. Not all islands necessarily have a depopulation issue; some do and some do not.

Rather than prioritise one overriding issue over others, the national islands plan needs to cover the issues that arise across the islands and to ensure that the Government and its partners in local authorities and health boards are part of the plan. It is about bringing the partners together so that there is an overall strategy and an overall objective.

Things might change over time. An objective that is relevant now might not be relevant in 10 or 15 years’ time and might need to be changed. The bill’s purpose is to make sure that we maintain a focus, now and in the future, on islands issues.

Is there a worry that we are missing a trick by not specifying the issues that affect island communities? Those issues are long standing and will not go away overnight or even in 10 years’ time—I am thinking about access to healthcare, affordable transport, affordable housing and all the other things that we have heard about from people who have given evidence to us.

Do we have a unique opportunity to use primary legislation to ensure that the minister or Government of the day will address those issues, rather than leave things wide open by referring to a strategy, the contents of which we have no idea about? Do island communities not deserve an opportunity to have such issues properly addressed through the bill, rather than left to the minister?

The bill could contain a list of issues that must be included in the islands plan. It would have to be a non-exhaustive list, because issues that we do not anticipate now could arise during the consultation or in the future.

I think that you are right to expect transport and digital connectivity to be in the plan, but I am not sure to what extent requiring their inclusion would change things; this is about what ministers say about the issues and the objective of bringing things together as a whole.

The minister has always made it clear when he has talked about the bill that he is open to ways in which it might be improved. If the committee feels that particular issues should be in there, he will be more than willing to consider them.

I will bring in Liam McArthur, briefly.

Thank you, convener. I will follow up the comments made by Jamie Greene and Rhoda Grant. I do not necessarily have an issue with the legislation being enabling—it is about enabling island communities. I am happy to share with colleagues my perspective on why islands are different from mainland remote communities and how the benefits of island proofing could spill out to the ways in which policies develop and legislation impacts those remote communities.

However, there is a sense of expectation about what the bill will achieve. Rhoda Grant is quite right to say that there is a serious risk that the legislation will not match that expectation. People have a clear view of how island proofing would be valuable in dealing with the problems that they face because of the way in which policy and legislation have been developed and implemented. What capacity will there be through the bill—from the minister’s intentions, based on your dealings with him—to look at existing examples of how legislation and policy work against the interests of islands, and to take early measures to address them? Promises on what will happen in the future can best be evidenced by a demonstration of a willingness to use island proofing and the purposes behind the bill to address some of the concerns that are real and present now.

The bill is not retrospective, particularly in terms of island proofing; it is about future legislation, policies, strategies and services. That does not just mean when new policies are being developed but when they are redesigned or revised, so that other issues can come in—there are already many different routes. The bill raises the profile of a lot of the issues that members have talked about and how they can be addressed. The Government is willing and open to look at whatever we may do to bring forward the issue of what might be the appropriate route to make those changes. For example, if a health issue on a particular island needs to be looked at because the regulations do not quite work for the island, ministers are more willing than ever to look at how to adapt and change what is there.

The idea of island proofing is that one size will not necessarily fit all in future, particularly with regard to legislation. We might need to tweak legislation or make sure that it focuses on island issues in a particular way. That applies not just to primary legislation; it includes secondary legislation, where a lot of the detail of how we deliver policy is often given. Ministers are more than willing to consider what options might apply, but the bill as it stands is about the future of island proofing; it is not retrospective in the way that has been raised.

The more that I hear, the more puzzled I become. The three island councils are clear about being empowered and getting decision-making powers that they do not have at the moment. They have the infrastructure to deliver decisions about transport, connectivity, planning the marine environment and so on. The island councils can preside over such matters and deal with them. Smaller islands, such as Barra, Westray, Unst and Mull—which the committee visited—are talking about being empowered over such things as education, care in the community and healthcare.

I do not know how you can draw up an islands plan that meets all those expectations in those very different areas. Some island groups have the infrastructure to deal with such things, but how can small islands that do not have a council and are perhaps lucky to have an active community council take those powers and use them? If they cannot, does that mean that no island community will get those powers?

From the evidence that we have heard about islands, that question cuts to the chase.

The bill needs to be seen alongside a lot of other work that is being done. For example, I do a lot of work in community empowerment and implementation of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015.

You mentioned Mull. There is a fantastic development trust there, which is doing a lot of work in and for the community. The bill is not necessarily what the trust needs to enable it to do things; it is about it owning its own land and making decisions in its own way. Members are right that, whether the trust uses participation requests through the 2015 act to get involved in the council’s decision-making processes or the asset transfer powers to get more land that it can develop for its own purposes, the bill will not in itself matter too much. However, the overall strategy on the islands probably will matter to it.

If we talk about the Crown estate, which will be addressed in a separate bill, or the local democracy bill, which was mentioned in the programme for government last week, the question is what powers will be relevant to local authorities and communities in future and how they will be used. Ensuring that islands have their voice in those processes and ensuring that the Crown estate bill and local democracy bill are island proofed will be essential in ensuring that the powers go down to the people who can use them.

Mike Rumbles will start us off on our next theme.

The theme is about island proofing. When we took informal evidence on Mull, communities told us that they were concerned that island proofing must not turn into a tick-box exercise. How will you ensure that that does not happen?

Looking at the 60-odd organisations that are mentioned in the schedule to the bill, I can imagine a situation in which one of them—let us not name any particular organisation—simply says, “Right, how does this affect the islands? Oh, that’s fine,” and ticks the box. The people on Mull suggested to us that the only way in which we can really island proof is that, when any of those organisations wants to do something, it should consult the islanders. That does not seem to have been highlighted in the bill. Would a good way forward be to put something in the bill to say that those organisations should consult islanders on new initiatives?

The bill sets out the general duty on those organisations to have regard to island communities when they exercise their functions. That is the overall duty and, if there is going to be a significant difference, they must do an island communities impact assessment.

The bill also provides that the 60-plus public bodies in the schedule must have regard to any guidance from Scottish ministers on that duty. We need to consult on that guidance and go through the process of putting it together, which will include islanders. We expect that the guidance will set out what the authorities will need to do consistently and transparently, including publishing information and consulting islanders. That is how they will need to comply with the duty.

There could be a lot of detail in the guidance, including about how public bodies might comply with the duty. We will always want a degree of local discretion for public authorities in how they do that. We do not want to say that they must do it in a certain way at all times because that may well lead to a tick-box approach. We need to be able to provide authorities with the ability to innovate, do things differently and consult islanders when they need to.

We expect consultation to be a key part of the process. We always consult when we do legislation. We always consult before we do a bill. Therefore, we expect the guidance to highlight when consultation will need to take place with islanders, including the need to ask the initial question whether a proposal will make a difference to islanders, before the public body even needs to think about doing an impact assessment. That will enable islanders to get in at the start of the consultation.

I am not suggesting that you should be prescriptive about how it has to be done. You say that consultation could be part of the process, but should it not be a necessary part of it when those 60-odd organisations implement change? Some of the residents on Mull from whom we heard expressed their fear that the impact assessments are made in Edinburgh, Glasgow or wherever and do not deal with what happens on the ground in Mull. That is the experience of members of the public on Mull.

09:30  

Yes. Partly because that is the current experience, you would hope that, when island proofing comes in, it will not only put a legal duty on organisations but will also be about a culture change in how they do business. Community empowerment is often about ensuring that communities have the ability to participate in the decision-making process, and this is part of that. However, we do not want to make it overly complex for public bodies to do things—as you say, to be too prescriptive—because that tends to lead to more of a tick-box process in which they can just say that they have done what is required and think that, because they have sort of spoken to the communities, they can go ahead. That is not what this is about. Putting the requirement to consult in guidance gives us the flexibility to take a case-studies approach and show people what best practice is, which will come out during the process.

Will the guidance say that public bodies must consult local people in the islands?

At the moment, I cannot say what the guidance will say.

That is the problem, is it not?

That is partly because we have to consult on it and ensure that what is in the guidance is what people want.

I understand, but that is the crux of the problem.

When the bill was being drafted, the bill team and the minister must have considered the implications of island-proofing decisions, and any person who considered those implications must have considered their cost and would have had an idea of how much it was going to cost to island proof future legislation. However, I have not seen any indication of what that cost will be. What will it cost the Scottish Government on an annual basis to island proof its decisions? Do you have an estimate of that, or will the cost be met by councils as they implement decisions? I think that councils do not find it easy to estimate that cost.

Does Darren Dickson want to answer those questions, or is it still Ian Turner?

I think that it is still me.

Darren is probably thankful for that.

The financial memorandum sets out the cost of the bill’s implementation and the on-going cost of incorporating island proofing into the decision-making process.

I understand that, and we are going to ask questions about that, but that is not what I am asking about. You have asked people to come up with an islands plan and they are going to do that. You must have had some idea of what was going to be in the islands plan. I am asking you how much it will cost the Government to ensure that the islands plan is implemented.

Given the process that we have to go through, there are too many variables to say what the implications will be. The bill requires that, in producing any new legislation, policy or strategy, the Government must consider whether it will have a significantly different impact on the islands. If it will have, the Government must carry out an impact assessment that will draw out the features of that impact.

I cannot predict what the future plans will be—what the Government will do each time—therefore, I cannot predict what the impact assessments will find. However, as part of an impact assessment, the Government will have to set out whether it can improve or mitigate the outcomes if the policy could have a negative impact on the islands. That will be part of the process. It is very difficult to predict what the outcome—and, therefore, the cost—of every new policy strategy or piece of legislation will be. In fact, it is probably impossible to do that.

I understand that. The danger is that people on the islands will expect the Government to island proof its policy, which is going to cost a lot of money, but at this stage we have no indication of what that is going to cost.

I do not think that it will cost a lot of money if we do it properly—if we incorporate it into the consultation process, which we have just discussed, and if we figure out what impact the policy will have on the islands through an impact assessment. We do a lot of these things already; we just do not talk about the process in quite this way. The bill will make the process much clearer and more consistent, and how we reach decisions will be much more transparent. Whether that will incur additional costs in what we do is hard to say at the moment, but it should just be part of the process.

Okay. However, I stand by the fact that people on the islands will expect to have the same ability as people on the mainland to receive medical care, for example, and that there will be a cost to that.

I would like to pursue the theme of island proofing. Will consideration be given to looking retrospectively at previous legislation, plans or anything like that, or is this purely about island proofing going forward?

As I mentioned to Mr McArthur, as it stands, the bill is about the future and there is no retrospective element to it.

You said that it was impossible to judge whether it would cost any more money. However, as the convener said, there is an expectation that, if the policy is to make any difference rather than being a tick-box exercise, there will need to be extra funding for the islands, which will not be needed on the mainland, to implement the policy in regard to certain issues. In the forthcoming Scottish Government budget, will there be a budget line for the bill with regard to island proofing, other than in the financial memorandum?

I cannot say at the moment.

I have one further question before we move on. If a model is developed for island proofing to encourage a consistent approach to be taken by all public bodies, what do you envisage would happen to a public body if it failed to comply with the approach that is laid down in the bill and in the plan?

With regard to compliance, each public body will be under the new legal duty to perform island proofing on all its functions as it comes through. Public bodies that fail to comply with their legal duties will be held accountable through their normal accountability arrangements. For example, ministers are accountable to Parliament and to the electorate; in performing their functions, local authorities are accountable to their councillors and to local communities; and, with regard to the accountability arrangements that will come through, other bodies are the same. That is where the compliance aspect will come in.

We move on to the next set of questions.

Good morning. You have heard about the themes that everyone is talking about. I will turn to constituency boundaries.

Under schedule 1 to the Scotland Act 1998, Orkney and Shetland are fixed as two of the 73 Scottish constituencies. The parliamentary constituency that takes in the Western Isles does not currently have that protection, but section 13 of the bill will provide it. However, there are islands in different local authorities where the people feel overlooked and forgotten about. They feel that what has happened on the mainland has not been replicated or taken care of in the islands.

If we have councils of varying sizes, why can we not have a further islands authority? Has any thought been given to the constituency and local authority structure of island groups? One of my colleagues is going to ask questions about members shortly, so I would like you to contain your reply to the islands. People in Mull feel that they are forgotten about, so should we not have another authority that would take in all the islands? It would be stretching it quite a bit, but people would then feel that their particular island was being looked after.

The commitment for the Western Isles stems back to the prospectus in 2014, and it was a specific ask of the Western Isles at that time. For the past couple of years, the Scottish Government has not had the power to act on it, but, under the Scotland Act 2016, the power has been transferred from Westminster to Holyrood and we now have the ability to deliver on the commitment that was made in 2014. That is why the focus is on doing that for the Western Isles. Some would say that it is an anomaly that Orkney and Shetland have that protection at both Westminster and Holyrood but the Western Isles has it only at Westminster, and that is why the Government is delivering it.

I will deal with the question of constituencies first and will come on to local authorities. The Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland undertakes reviews of constituencies for the Scottish Parliament, and I believe that it will carry out another review of the Holyrood boundaries in the not-too-distant future. It might make recommendations for changes in that regard, but I am not sure about that. The committee will speak to the boundary commission soon, and you might want to raise that point.

I take your point about local authorities, but my current understanding—this may be more a point for the minister to answer—is that the Government has no intention of considering local authority boundary changes at present. Ultimately, it would have to be a Government decision.

Have you ever dealt with the Electoral Commission?

Do you mean the Electoral Commission or the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland?

I mean the boundary commission in relation to changing boundaries. I dealt with it several times and it is not easy to get it to go along with a change even when a boundary passes down a street and then goes off at a tangent. However, I will park that issue. Is there no thought of creating an islands authority?

No, not under the bill.

Fulton, do you want to address that local authority point?

My questions follow on from Richard Lyle’s point about constituency boundaries, but I will move on to the member wards. We heard a wee bit of evidence on the issue when we were in Mull and had quite an interesting debate with the local authority there. Do you have any indication of how that idea might work? There is talk of having one or two councillors for an island if it is populated. From what I heard, that might be a good idea. Have you any idea how that system might work in practice and how long it would take to implement?

At this time, we do not have any indication of that. The main reason for that is that, assuming that the bill is passed, the Local Government Boundary Commission will be asked to undertake reviews of the six local authority areas that will be impacted and bring back recommendations for ministers. The expectation is that the recommendations could be implemented in time for the next local government elections, in 2022. The Local Government Boundary Commission would have to do that work, and we would get an indication from that.

Are the recommendations likely to include considerations such as the number of local councillors, whether that number is likely to change, the practicalities of how councillors might travel between islands and so on?

Yes. The Local Government Boundary Commission would make the recommendations, and I assume that it would take into account the logistics of travel. I might be wrong about this, but I think that, although Mull has a councillor at the moment, Tiree does not. We met the people from Tiree—the minister was there recently—and the issue was quite close to their hearts. They felt that they lacked a connection with the local authority because they did not have a councillor on Tiree. However, Tiree has a very small population. We will have to look at that as well.

Yes, we met the councillor who lives on Mull and she took part in the evidence session that we held, which was good.

We will move on to the next theme. Peter Chapman is going to lead on that.

My questions are about marine development. The bill provides a regulation-making power for Scottish ministers to establish a marine licensing scheme for development activities. I wonder what “development activity” means in practice and what powers are envisaged. Will the provision for marine development licensing apply to all Scotland’s islands?

Section 16(1) of the bill sets out what “development activity” means:

“(a) construction, alteration or improvement works of any description (either in or over the sea, or on or under the seabed)”

and also

“(b) any form of dredging (whether or not involving the removal of any material from the sea or seabed).”

That is the encompassing form of what “development activity” means. The regulations can provide for exemptions within that, and specific exemptions that are not development activities are set out in section 16(2). That covers the specifics.

On whether the provision will apply to all Scotland’s islands, the bill provides for an iterative process. It requires a local authority that has inhabited islands to apply for a designation to be made to ministers, so it would be for the local authority that wished to have more control in the seas around its islands to apply for that designation. That would kick off a process that would include the requirement that ministers consult before bringing any draft regulations for Parliament to look at.

In theory, the provision could apply to all Scotland’s islands. However, in practice it will often depend on whether the local authority wants to take on the new powers.

Obviously, there will be further consultation. What is your timescale for that process?

That would depend on when the application for designation was made. When a local authority submitted an application, we would have to consult on that, and there could be six different applications coming forward at different times or there could be more coming forward at the same time—we do not know. It would depend on what the local authorities wanted to do.

Will it be possible under the new powers for local authorities to say something about fishing activity around a particular island, or is that outwith the scope of the bill?

09:45  

The provision is specifically about construction, alteration and improvement works; it is not really about fishing. However, anything that is built in the sea could cause navigation issues, and that is where fishing might come into it. Fish farms are also excluded from that activity.

Fish farms are excluded.

Yes, because they are covered under the planning regime. They are also excluded from the Zetland County Council Act 1974, which is where we took the process from.

I accept that they are two completely unrelated issues, but I wonder whether you have had regard to the experience of marine protected areas and how they might interact with that provision.

In this part of the bill, we have tried to give a practical impact to what we meant by extending the powers of the Zetland County Council Act 1974. Once the regulations are in place and the consultation is done, the provision will have to be developed in relation to all the things that already exist, including the national marine plan, marine protected areas and any local marine planning that might already be in place. It will need to fit into that structure, but I cannot say at this stage what will need to be done, because we need to work through the process.

Let us move on to the financial implications of the bill with a question from John Mason.

I realise that we have already touched on finance through questions from the convener and from Mr Rumbles, but I would like to press the officials a little more on what the financial impact of the bill will be. I understand, from what I have heard so far, that there will be a plan and that there will be more of an onus on the Government, local authorities and others to consider the impact of decisions on the islands. However, if that is as far as it goes, I struggle to understand how the people on the islands will be greatly advantaged.

I was impressed by the representatives of Argyll and Bute Council when we met them. They know that there is no care home on Mull. They have thought about that and realise that there would be a cost to putting a care home on Mull. They know that the situation is having an impact on the community, because when people want to visit their relatives in a care home they have to go to the mainland. Nevertheless, having thought about it, the council has decided that the costs prohibit it. I therefore struggle to see what difference there will be in the future if there is no money to put a care home on Mull and all that we are telling councils to do is think about putting a care home on Mull.

People are aware of the care issues on Mull and their implications. Island proofing is also about ensuring that other issues that might not be quite as clear or as thought through are thought through. However, you are right to say that the bill does not require local authorities to do something as a result of that. It would be quite onerous for them if, once they had done an assessment, they always had to do what they assessed was necessary. There could be quite a lot of cost involved in that. The bill puts a clear, transparent and—most important—consistent system in place so that people are at least aware of those issues and can start to tackle them in different ways.

That answers my question. Thank you.

That will be an interesting issue to deal with.

My question follows on from what John Mason has said. It is about a worry—which has probably been picked up over the course of this evidence session—that the bill does not require anyone to do anything other than create a plan and that island proofing does not require anyone to do anything other than consider. There is no budget indicated anywhere in the bill or the financial memorandum that would benefit the islands in a true and proper sense, nor does the bill empower local authorities to do additional things that they are not able to do at the moment, either through legislation or via additional finance.

That relates back to my earlier point about whether the bill goes far enough. Is the bill just enabling legislation or should it go further? Is there an opportunity for us to propose further measures to make the bill stronger, so that it will bring meaningful change to the island communities?

I am sorry, Jamie, but I am going to do the same as I did with the previous question. What you have asked about is something that we need to push the minister on, because it goes to the nub of the problem. If Ian Turner or Darren Dickson wants to offer a short answer to Jamie Greene’s question, I am happy to take it, but they might feel that the minister is a better person to answer it.

I think that the issue is what consideration might be given. The minister is probably the most appropriate person to ask about that because what Jamie Greene asks about the bill relates to the framework for providing that things can take place. The future actions that there will be thereafter are not necessarily a matter for the bill, because there are wider considerations. There is other relevant legislation, and other processes are taking place that the bill’s provisions will impact on, because it will make clear what needs to be done in those processes and how that might be done. There will be plenty of opportunity to talk about the finances that might be required within the Crown Estate or within local democracy for any changes and power shifts that might come from the bill.

I have a direct question on the financial memorandum. There is an estimated cost of £142,000 over the first five years of the implementation of the bill’s provisions to draw up the islands plan—have I got that right?

Yes. We estimate that it will cost £100,000 every five years to prepare the plan, which will involve staff time and administrative costs. The annual progress update will cost £8,400, and adding the cost of that over five years to the £100,000 gives us the figure of £142,000.

What strikes me about the consultation is that, although there might be overarching issues for the islands, each island has individual issues that are critically important to it. Given the number of inhabited islands that there are around Scotland, £142,000 will not go very far—especially if the Government gets to use the residue of that money to come up with an overarching plan.

That is the administrative cost of the plan, but it is not necessarily the cost of any actions that might arise from it.

I understand that that cost is nothing to do with the actions. Nevertheless, if you are going to use consultants or experts to prepare the plan, the money will amount to a lot less than £10,000 per island. That is not a big figure, and some of the bigger islands will have more complex problems and will require a more complex plan. Are you sure that you have got those figures right? My personal experience of drawing up plans in the private sector tells me that that figure is way off target.

We base the figure on the costs of the national plans and other large plans that the Government has costed in administrative terms.

I understand your answer, but I reserve my position on that.

I invite Liam McArthur to make a final point.

I have heard the discussion about the financial memorandum. From my perspective, island proofing will expose the issue and, if there is a case for additional funding, it will make that case more compelling. I therefore have less of a problem with the figures in some respects.

However, the bill will need to demonstrate its mettle in those areas where there is not necessarily a financial cost and the irritation is that the way in which legislation has been formulated and enforced, or the way in which policies have been developed and implemented, has a cost for island users—whether island businesses or households—because, although it makes sense in a mainland or urban context, it makes no sense in an island context. The notion is that the bill is only about developing things that will cost money, but, from my perspective—I presume that this will be part of the development of the bill—there is an expectation that the bill will reduce costs in some instances by making policy and legislation apply in a more rational and commonsense way in island communities and, indeed, remote communities on mainland Scotland.

I think that that is the case, but it is a difficult case to make because we do not have any examples to use, which is why it is not referred to in the financial memorandum. I do not think that we could provide a reasonable estimate of what any savings might be. However, as I said previously, the bill is getting away from the idea that one size fits all.

If, at the moment, there are costs that can be adapted and changed for the islands so that the cost to the authority or, in particular, the cost to service users or whoever the policy, strategy or services are affecting is lower, that is a good thing. We may reduce those costs and that may have an impact on those people’s day-to-day lives.

Thank you. That is the end of our questions. I just want to clarify something that I said about the amount of money that will be available for each of the inhabited islands. It is not £10,000 per island for each plan, but £1,000 per island. To me, that will not even scratch the surface.

I thank Ian Turner and Darren Dickson very much for their attendance. I am afraid that Kirsten Simonnet-Lefevre did not get in, but I thank her very much for attending.

I suspend the meeting for four minutes to enable a changeover of witnesses and to allow the cabinet secretary to take his place.

09:56 Meeting suspended.  

10:01 On resuming—