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Item 3 is the tourism inquiry. Members will recall that the committee published a major report in July—before my time—on the tourism industry. We have now received a response from the Scottish Government to the report. Members will be aware that the report and the Government's response will be debated in the chamber tomorrow afternoon. I invite members to consider the Government's response and agree what follow-up action is needed, if any. We must ensure that the Government and the industry follow up and deliver on the recommendations that were agreed, and we should give some thought to how to do that. Our discussion will be useful for tomorrow's chamber debate on the report and the Government's response to it. We should perhaps come back to the issue after that to consider what the follow-up ought to be.
I have a couple of comments on points that the Government may have missed rather than on points to which it responded. Our conclusions begin round about page 55 of the report and some of them are not in bold. However, the Government has responded only to things in bold, which means that we have not had a response to a couple of points. I wonder whether we might request a response to them.
We could ask the Government about those points during tomorrow's debate. If we do not get answers, the convener could write to the Government, on behalf of the committee, asking for clarification.
It would be helpful if the default position were that we would write to get clarification unless there was an explicit response from ministers during the debate.
Yes. That is why I suggested that we would need a review after the debate to consider which points might need to be followed up.
It is probably easier to take the responses to our recommendations in order. The first that caught my eye was the response on Historic Scotland, which states that ministers were not persuaded by the committee's view that Historic Scotland's role in tourism and marketing should be reviewed. I am disappointed by that because I thought that our recommendation was based on careful consideration of the evidence, including that given by Historic Scotland.
One point that I remember raising, to what seemed to be general acclaim at the time, was the fact of poor weekend rail connections with England. I think that we came to a formulation that no train should take longer than, say, five and a half hours to reach Scotland from London at any point during a weekend. The issue does not seem to have been picked up, but it is important, because a journey of seven and a half hours or so is a major deterrent to people who might come to Scotland for a weekend.
The Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee is undertaking an inquiry into rail services and will consider long-distance routes and faster services, which ties in with what you are talking about. It will be worth raising the issue with the Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism during tomorrow's debate.
I want us to follow up the response to our recommendation on Historic Scotland. We should use the evidence that we received to press our case.
We will do that.
I concur with Lewis Macdonald. The Government misinterpreted our suggestion. As I recall, we did not say that Historic Scotland employees should jet off round the world to promote Scotland; we said, on the basis of evidence that we received, that given that Historic Scotland has a number of honeypot sites that attract millions of visitors, the agency could easily make information available at its sites, so that someone who visited a site in Perthshire or Kirkintilloch, for example, could find out what else they could do in the area. The committee thought that there was a missed opportunity in that regard. I am not sure that the Government addressed that point.
It occurred to me when I read the response that we might consider how such information is co-ordinated in England and Wales and in other countries. We might be able to learn from good practice.
In the Government's response to paragraph 268, on transport and better connections, there is no reference to the links between Edinburgh and the central belt and Inverness and the rail line further north. Improvements to the line south of Inverness have been announced, but I expected the issue to come up in the response.
The rail network on this island runs from Thurso to Penzance. It would be good if that were reflected in the response.
On the response to paragraph 270, the evidence that we had about Caledonian MacBrayne's discriminatory pricing structure came from a minibus operator, who cut his operation from two vehicles to one as a result of the charges that Caledonian MacBrayne imposed. The response is ridiculous. The Government says:
That is interesting. The Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee's inquiry on ferry services in Scotland, the report on which is available, came at the issue from the other direction. It was noted that people who are native to or resident in certain places cannot get on ferries because of the number of tourists. People have been left on the quay at Oban, for example. Evidence on the issue was given to the inquiry, but questions about CalMac's booking arrangements have not been satisfactorily answered. That would be a valid point to make in the debate.
We are talking about not a big coach but a minibus. The guy made the point that the minibus was the same size as a motor home, but the difference in ticket price was marked.
In its response, the Government states that the issue raised in paragraph 246 of the committee's report "Requires further investigation". I will explore that and ask for further information, because everyone who gave evidence to the committee said that skills, learning and training were a huge issue.
Dave Thompson made the point that a reference to improved links between Inverness and the central belt is missing from the Government's response. There is also no mention of the link between Aberdeen and the central belt, which is the east coast main line in Scotland, or of the vital connection between Aberdeen and Inverness. Tourists are much more likely to use the rail network if they can follow a circular route through Scotland. Although it was entirely legitimate for ministers to highlight specifically links in the central belt and one or two of the Highland railways, the connections that will allow people to visit Scotland as a whole were not really addressed in the response. We should raise that issue with ministers. We can have the best possible connections in Kyle and the far north, but they will not do the trick if people cannot get to Inverness in the first place. Both Inverness and Aberdeen need to be part of the picture of transport links for tourism.
Paragraph 254 of the report concerns web technology. All members of the committee felt strongly that, for Scotland's tourism industry to compete it needs to be web enabled. We were surprised to learn that only 1,000 out of 8,000 accommodation providers are web enabled via the VisitScotland.com website. We thought that it was important to get the remaining 7,000 providers—and other tourism businesses—online as quickly as possible, using products such as web in a box, so that they can compete.
That is a good point. As members know, the roll-out of broadband is still incomplete. Although the percentages show that a large number of people have access to it, large sections of the country do not. If we compare land area to population, we can see that the problem is still in the process of being solved. I am talking about this round of broadband; improvements to it are much further off. From the point of view of business as a whole, we must ask how the roll-out of broadband is progressing. Tourism is just part of the wider business picture.
Gavin Brown makes a key point. As well as the issue of capacity, there is the issue of training. In its response to paragraph 273, the Government states:
Further to Marilyn Livingstone's point about skills, in paragraph 251 we recommended
At the beginning, I suggested a three-stage process, of which this is the first stage. The debate is the second stage and the third stage will be to review that. In the meantime, given the concerns that you have raised and the fact that it might not be possible to raise them all in the debate, I suggest that we draft a letter from the convener, asking for clarification from the minister at this stage. If you agree to that approach, it will allow us to return to the matter and pick up anything that has been missed after we have had the debate.
In that case, can I add one more topic to the list of topics to raise with the minister? In paragraph 260, we asked for the secondment of staff to the London 2012 organising committee. The ministers have said that they have subscribed to a process whereby they hope to learn lessons; however, they specifically refute the suggestion that secondments would help in that. The committee came to a pretty clear view that secondments would be helpful in getting the best possible benefit for the Glasgow Commonwealth games in 2014 and the best possible access to the legacy of 2012. In other words, secondments would help to ensure that the 2012 Olympic games are of tourism benefit not simply for London and Stratford, but Great Britain.
We will have to tease that out. Some of what you suggest may be the case, and it will be interesting to see what answers we receive. Tomorrow, we will have the chance to ask such questions directly.
I have another wee point to make, which follows on from what you said, convener. Paragraph 247 deals with hotel schools and so on. There is a slight contradiction in the ministers' response. It talks about
We will clarify those points by the means that I have suggested. Is that agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
I look forward to a lively debate in the chamber tomorrow. It is a good report and I look forward to summing up on behalf of the committee.
We will be right behind you.
You will obviously take lots of interventions.
I will be speaking while everybody is piling into the chamber just before decision time. It is not the most auspicious time for that.
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