Chamber and committees

Patients can travel long distances to access healthcare, and it can be really expensive, especially if an overnight stay is necessary. At the moment, they can claim back £50 for an overnight stay, but budget rooms in Inverness can cost in excess of £400 in the summer. That means that constituents are cancelling treatment. They are also not able to take family with them because the criteria are unreasonable.

The situation is now urgent. Will the minister make it a high priority to review this as soon as possible?

Given the strength of feeling around HPMAs, will the minister listen to the consultation and withdraw the proposals, or does she see them as a red line in the Bute house agreement?

The demand is there and it is urgent. However, affordable housing policy is made with urban, not rural, areas in mind. Will the cabinet secretary review housing policy with an eye to what works for rural areas? Young people are being forced away from home and essential services remain unstaffed because of a desperate lack of housing.

I, too, welcome the minister to his new post.

It is absolutely unacceptable that there will be no ferries from Lochboisdale for six weeks. Uist has already borne the brunt of recent disruptions. The mitigation put in place means that the small isles will also be left with only one ferry a week—again, that is absolutely unacceptable.

Disruption is now so common that the Scottish Government has devised a disruption management traffic prioritisation framework. The framework can cancel bookings and relegate hauliers to the end of the queue, making their businesses and the businesses that depend on them absolutely unviable.

Will the minister procure a freight ferry to bring into service for those periods? What assistance and compensation will he give to all those who are impacted? Or is he just another in a long line of failed transport ministers?

Vessels need to be fit for purpose and comfortable for the travellers and crew. However, the lack of standardised designs leads to a domino effect of service changes in order to cover breakdowns. Just today, CalMac Ferries has announced service changes over six routes due to a domino effect, culminating in no services at all between Lochboisdale and Mallaig for six weeks and only one weekly service to the small isles. That is absolutely unacceptable.

Will the minister say what the Scottish Government is going to do to mitigate those effects? Instead of vanity projects, will he ensure that it builds ferries that are interchangeable, provide resilience and are fit for purpose?

The minister will be more than aware of the chronic issues that young people in the Highlands and Islands face. They have no choice but to leave in order to access jobs, housing and childcare, and that is having a devastating impact on the Gaelic language and our culture, as well as on local services and economies. The young people want to stay, but they have no choice to do so, because they are priced out of the area. They also face transport disruption, which makes it difficult to access health services and recreation. When will this Government take action to provide affordable homes and boost the economy for the people who live across the Highlands and Islands, in order to protect our culture and language?

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to protect the culture of the Highlands and Islands. (S6O-02033)

I thank Jamie Halcro Johnston for bringing the debate to the Parliament. When we last debated the A9 in the chamber, a petition had been lodged with the Parliament, and I hope that it will help to place a focus on the A9 and get some clarity on progress and timescales. I hope that the relevant committee will ensure that there is a full inquiry into what has happened and what action needs to be taken to ensure that the road is dualled as soon as possible.

Even the SNP-led Highland Council has agreed a motion calling for immediate publication of a new dualling timetable for the A9. It also seeks a public inquiry into the long delay that is now faced.

As others have said, all candidates in the SNP leadership contest agreed that the A9 dualling is a failure of Government and must become a priority. Edward Mountain mentioned Ash Regan’s commitment to publish an updated timetable for the work on both the A9 and the A96 in her first 100 days, should she win the leadership election. I hope that the other candidates will match her ambition, because waiting until the autumn is simply too long. That said, we should not have to wait for a new leader to point the way ahead. It was a manifesto promise back in 2007, more than 15 years ago. It is a promise that has been broken, and the SNP Government should be making every effort right now to make good on it.

The SNP seeks to blame the pandemic, inflation and the war in Ukraine, which are all things that would not have impacted on the project had it been at the right stage of development at that time. It is clear that the SNP never sought to meet its 2025 timescale.

Of the 11 stretches of road that need to be dualled, only two have been completed. This project went wrong long before the pandemic, but the Scottish Government hid the truth from us. The Scottish Government needs to get the project back on track, come clean about what went wrong and be truthful with my constituents.

The Scottish Government has committed £5 million for short-term improvements to the A9 to improve safety. Although that is welcome, it is no substitute for dualling. Last year, there were eight deaths on the 25-mile stretch near the Slochd in just three months. The total number of deaths between Perth and Inverness in 2022 was 13. The average cost of a fatal accident investigation is £2 million—that is £26 million last year just on the A9 south. That puts the £5 million on short-term improvements into proportion. Sadly, we cannot account for the heartache of families who have lost loved ones on that road.

The A9 does not stop at Inverness; the road north is also in a woeful condition for a trunk road. Despite that, the Scottish Government continues to centralise services, especially health and maternity services, to Inverness. That journey is always hazardous, and it is worse when made under stress due to illness or childbirth. The road is also treacherous in bad weather and can often block with snow. Only eight women gave birth in Caithness last year, compared with the 202 women from Caithness who gave birth in Inverness.

Much of the A9 runs through the Highland Council area. In that area, there are 178 road projects needing attention, but the council does not have the money and can look to fixing only 13 of them within its current budget.

It is little wonder that people are frustrated with the A96, the A83 and the A82—the list goes on. In addition, the promise of shortened rail journeys from Inverness to the central belt has not materialised. This Government is high on promises but low on delivery.

The minister will be aware of the devastating consequences of the proposals and their impact on rural and island communities. Banning sustainable fishing and marine activity that has safeguarded our waters and their future for generations is nonsensical.

Harris Development Ltd summed up the views of many island communities when it said:

“It is sheer arrogance for desk bound ‘experts’ to suggest that we are not looking after our environment and protecting our stocks. The whole basis of the HPMA is that locals are clearly not doing what they should and need to be told how to look after it. You take no cognisance of the evidence that is available of sustainable fisheries and local, voluntary measures put in place before marching in wiping out our communities.”

Will the minister listen to our communities and support their work in protecting their marine environment rather than taking a top-down approach?

What is the public interest in churches having to conform to the legislation?