Chamber and committees

I thank the cabinet secretary for prior sight of the “Carbon Neutral Islands Project Progress Report”. I am glad that the report mentions fuel poverty, because all our islands suffer from that, in common with other off-gas-grid areas. During this cost of living crisis, we must ensure that all islanders get the assistance that they require to tackle that.

In Barra, which is one of the islands in the project, six new affordable houses were built at a cost of £1.4 million. That is a true reflection of the building costs for affordable homes throughout all our island communities. Renewing the housing stock on the scale that would be required is therefore not an option. Existing housing stock needs to be retrofitted.

Although the Scottish Government has adopted Alex Rowley’s Passivhaus bill, which will make a difference to the fabric of new-build houses, more work and more research need to go into retrofitting property to help towards net zero goals and fighting fuel poverty.

The project is also looking at the net zero skills gaps. That is welcome, as the lack of those skills is a very real problem, which I have raised with the Government before but to little effect. It needs to look at how it accredits builders to do the work that is required. For example, currently, all training for retrofitting is available in the central belt. That involves a huge expense for small one-person or two-person operations—the average size of a building company on the islands—to attend. They have no way of recouping that investment. Without that training, they cannot be accredited and they cannot carry out the required retrofitting work. That is not a just transition.

That example highlights the need to island proof all policy decisions. I hope that the Scottish Government will look at that. If, due to the project, island proofing comes to the forefront of decision making, it is most welcome.

The progress report goes into some detail about auditing and overseeing but, as has already been said, it lacks detail on how it will deliver. Although we need a clear view of where we are—a measurement of the current position—there needs to be an indication of the vision that is required to make the goal a reality. For instance, who is part of those partnerships? How will communities and private enterprise be included? Which public bodies will take part? All such organisations must be included, given their impact on island life. When will the cabinet secretary be able to put more detail into the public domain?

I ask also about energy generation. I spoke about fuel poverty because island homes are largely off the gas grid, yet many of our islands have the ability to generate renewable electricity. In many cases, island communities are prevented from generating renewable energy because they cannot get a grid connection to distribute that energy. Will that be one of the challenges that is looked at during the project?

Orkney is a case in point. Its grid is full, yet it is at the forefront of renewables development. It is unable to reach its full potential because of grid restrictions. In addition, when Orkney constructs public buildings, those buildings cannot utilise the renewable energy that is available at low cost in Orkney, because they need to use wood-fired boilers, in line with Scottish Government policy. There are few trees in Orkney, so fuel needs to be transported on island, and is probably procured from abroad, which has carbon generation consequences.

We also hope that the focus on islands in the project does not take the focus away from all our other islands. Again, I go back to Orkney, which recently missed out on having a green port. Orkney has very ambitious harbour redevelopment plans for renewable generation, which need to be realised in order for Scotland to meet its climate targets. I would welcome reassurance that Orkney will be assisted to develop those harbours.

I cannot speak about islands without mentioning ferries. I understand that the carbon generated by ferries will not be included in the carbon audit, despite the fact that everything that comes on island comes by ferry. The reason given was that interisland ferries are run by local government. However, for many of the islands, their ferry provider is Caledonian MacBrayne, whose ferry-building programme is directly in the remit of the Scottish Government. Ferries must therefore be included.

It is also impossible to reach the carbon neutral goal without the input of local government. Indeed, every organisation with a locus on the six islands must be involved, including the United Kingdom Government, as well as the Scottish Government. On ferries, we must look at tried and tested technology to work towards new ferries being run on clean energy. The Government was warned that the dual-fuel ferries that it is attempting to build will not be any greener and will possibly even be less green. If we are to meet our goals, we cannot afford such design mistakes.

Scottish Labour welcomes steps that take us closer to net zero, but those projects must have a practical impact and not simply be window dressing. We will vote for all the amendments, because they add to the motion.

I move amendment S6M-07558.2, to insert at end:

“; recognises that the cost of living crisis is hitting some of the islands’ communities hardest, including fuel poverty being highest among some of the islands that are not included in the Carbon Neutral Islands Project, and therefore awaits Scottish Government plans to assist all islands during the energy crisis; calls for guarantees that a just transition for workers is included in all areas of the strategy, and believes that the Scottish Government, UK Government, local authorities and all other island-related agencies must be involved to truly reach net zero.”

Yes. I am a wee bit disappointed with that response from the Government, because it means that there will not really be any change in policy until much later this year, or possibly next year, to be more realistic. In the meantime, I think that Caithness Health Action Team should be recognised as a community organisation under the 2015 act, because it spends a lot of time representing its community.

I understand that NHS Highland is now working with CHAT in a much more positive fashion. The committee could consider writing to NHS Highland to ask whether it will now be willing to recognise CHAT and to give it the input and status that it would have had if it had been recognised under the 2015 act.

CHAT is coming to me with issues from its community more and more often. The organisation is well recognised and people turn to it for guidance and representation on health issues. It could only help NHS Highland and indeed the wider community if CHAT was round the table. I ask the committee to consider keeping the petition open until we get some form of resolution, because the work that the Scottish Government is doing will not resolve the issue in the near future.

I am grateful to be able to speak to the petitions. I have been involved with the campaign to improve the Stromeferry bypass for many years—probably for much of the time since I was elected—and I am really pleased that Mr Noble has brought the petitions to the Parliament.

As you said, convener, parts of those roads, which link the current trunk roads on the route to Skye, are single track. However, the big issue is the Stromeferry bypass, which is subject to landslides. At that part of the road, the road and the rail line run side by side, so the landslides impact on both, and there is a risk to life. Children use that road daily to get to Plockton high school, which is also the National Centre of Excellence in Traditional Music, and ferry traffic for Uist and Harris uses the route that goes up to Uig on Skye.

When there is a landslide, the road can be closed for months, and it impacts badly on the community and commuters. I am concerned that the road is not recognised as a trunk road because it links the Highland Council mainland to the Western Isles via Skye.

The road is also essential for secondary education and medical cover. The local hospital that serves the whole area is in Broadford in Skye, but it can become cut off from the community, creating stress and disruption to care. You can imagine what it must be like for families who cannot get to a loved one who is in hospital. Closing the road also cuts children off from their high school, which is unacceptable. The only alternative route involves a 130-mile diversion, which is impossible to take on a daily basis.

The cost of improving the road is beyond the financial reach of Highland Council, which already has the greatest mileage of road to cover. Going by the mail from constituents, it would seem that most of it is falling into disrepair. It is pretty grim in places, and finding that amount of money for repairs is impossible.

I am disappointed by Transport Scotland’s response. It says that one of the ways in which it gauges whether a route should become a trunk road is that it must

“Provide the users with a coherent and continuous system of routes, which serve destinations of importance to industry, commerce, agriculture and tourism”.

The route is part of the north coast 500, which is an internationally recognised tourist route. Indeed, there has been a lot of concern about how busy that route is. It is the main route between the Highlands and the southern Hebrides and Western Isles. It is the main route to the National Centre of Excellence in Traditional Music and it is critical to industry, farming, crofting and aquaculture, and also to the renewables and decommissioning industry because of the yard at Kishorn, which I hope is set to grow and provide a much-needed economic boost in that area.

I therefore believe that the route fulfils Transport Scotland’s criterion. I ask the committee to raise that directly with the Scottish Government to persuade ministers of the merits of the route becoming a trunk road. It would serve well an area of Scotland that has largely been ignored in the past. We really need to create jobs and repopulate the area, which is under a lot of pressure from tourism and holiday homes. We need get people back to the area to make sure that it grows.

From last night’s cross-party group on human trafficking, it was clear that countries that do not hold sex buyers accountable for their abuse are attractive destinations for traffickers. We also heard from Mr Richey about the clear targeting of Ukrainian refugees by traffickers and exploiters for the sex industry, which makes the issue even more urgent.

I ask for clear timescales for when legislation to hold sex buyers to account will be introduced. In the meantime, what steps is the Scottish Government taking to protect Ukrainian refugees and other vulnerable groups?

The minister will remember that I wrote to her about some of the employment practices of Serco, especially with regard to staff based in Inverness. Serco was making staff redundant, with no hope of any redeployment and without consultation with the unions. Will she give that some consideration when she makes her decision?

I congratulate Fulton MacGregor on securing the debate. I also acknowledge the work of Shared Parenting Scotland, which helps parents to work together despite their differences, to share the care of and responsibility for their children, and to provide them with the stability that they require.

It is inevitable that children will face difficulty when their parents part, and there can be a great deal of animosity between parents when a relationship breaks down. The children can feel that they are being pulled in different directions because of that. Therefore, sensitive handling can ease their distress and reassure young people. It is, therefore, important to support parents to make the right decisions for their children and to reach amicable solutions that put their children first. We see cases in which parents put aside their personal hurt and anger in order to ensure that the children’s relationship with the other parent continues.

We also need services that recognise the importance of shared parenting—for example, in relation to access to housing. Both parents need access to adequate housing in order to provide a home for their children. Too often, when they share parenting, we see the mother being given access to adequate housing, while the father is not housed adequately to allow the children to come to live with them.

In the majority of cases, the best outcome for the child is that both parents are involved in the child’s life and future. However, there are exceptions. It is clear that abusive parents, for example, should not have an automatic right of access to their children. Far too often, family courts are used by one parent to continue to perpetrate domestic abuse of the other parent. I have many cases in which abusive fathers use access to their children to identify where the mother is living in order to continue physical abuse. That is absolutely unacceptable—and neither is it acceptable to place the onus on the child to keep that information secret.

I also have constituency cases in which abusive fathers use the system to continue to exercise control—even when no physical abuse is involved—by making arrangements to see the child only to cancel at the last minute when they become aware that their ex-partner will be doing something else while they have the child. In such cases, they cancel the arrangement or return the child early in order to scupper those plans and to exercise continuing control over their ex-partner.

Parents who use their children as weapons should not have access to them, and parents should also not have access to their children when they cause damage and there is an abusive relationship. We know that the life chances of children who are brought up in abusive households are severely impacted. It has an impact on their ability to learn and on their self-esteem, which goes on to impact other significant aspects of their lives. Such problems are a direct result of domestic abuse. Abusive parents should not have access to their children until they can prove that they are no longer abusive and that the wellbeing of their children will come first. I hope that the minister will address those concerns and advise how she will prevent abusive parents from continuing to damage the lives of young people even when the relationship has broken up.

I would like a system in which such parents go through a process of training and acknowledgement of their wrongdoing in order to ensure that they no longer continue to perpetrate abuse. They should have to complete that process before getting access to their child. In that way, we would protect young people.

For far too long, I have been seeing in my casework the impact of domestic abuse on families, and how children are abused and used in such situations. We should not allow that to happen, so I look forward to the day when family courts no longer allow themselves to be used as a weapon in domestic abuse cases.

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what it is doing to improve and maintain the road network in Scotland. (S6O-01732)

As the minister said, local authorities are responsible for their road networks, but it was recently reported that Highland Council might slash its road maintenance budget by more than half, from £20 million to £9 million, next year. If that goes ahead, the amount will be completely inadequate, especially given that Highland Council manages the largest road network in Scotland. Those roads are considered to be some of the worst in Scotland, so will the Scottish Government intervene and ensure that roads that are a lifeline in remote areas are adequately maintained in the Highland Council area?

I congratulate Douglas Ross on securing the debate, and I congratulate Keep MUM and the other campaigners who ensure that the issue is not forgotten. Like Edward Mountain, I want to highlight the similar plight in Caithness for the community there. I hope that they will not be ignored when fighting for similar services.

No one looking at the photos and film footage in the past week could be anything other than horrified at the prospect of driving in those conditions, yet that is the reality for pregnant women in Moray and Caithness. Imagine having to drive those roads with someone who is in labour, trying desperately to get to a suitably equipped hospital. Where there are enough births to warrant suitably trained staff, there should be support for complex labour and births.

Those of my generation remember the tragic case when a midwife, paramedic and baby died when being transferred from Skye to Inverness on icy roads. It can still happen, and we cannot let it happen again, especially when we have the ability to provide services much closer to people.

Members of the Moray community do not have faith that NHS Grampian will implement model 6, which would reinstate maternity services at Dr Gray’s hospital in Elgin. They do not believe that NHS Highland has the resources or the staff to implement the interim model 4, under which women can elect to go to Raigmore hospital in Inverness rather than Aberdeen. As Douglas Ross pointed out, those concerns regarding model 4 are shared by clinical staff in Raigmore. I take their intervention very seriously.

Keep MUM has asked for independent oversight of the project to reinstate services at Dr Gray’s, by somebody outside the NHS Grampian board. Keep MUM would prefer someone from the community who understands the issue, and I believe that that would be helpful in rebuilding trust. Oversight from someone with the authority of the Scottish Government who can act on behalf of the cabinet secretary might also be required. Such oversight would give comfort to the community, campaigners and politicians such as ourselves that the reinstatement of services was being pursued with sufficient urgency. I ask the cabinet secretary whether he will consider that request and address it today, or undertake to come back at a later date with his thoughts on how it could happen.

Members of the community believe that the basic information on which the models are based is not robust. They believe that many more births will be moved to Aberdeen and Inverness than is suggested.

One of the reasons for originally withdrawing maternity services from Dr Gray’s was staffing, and we have heard about the lack of junior doctors. That is an issue in all rural hospitals and communities and, because of it, we miss out on fully trained staff. We all know that, where people train, they put down roots and stay. If junior doctors are not placed in rural health locations, we lose them forever. That concern applies with regard to all health professionals in rural areas, and it will continue until we ensure that rural areas have an adequate supply of trainees and junior staff.

I have raised the issue with NHS Education for Scotland. I ask that, in summing up, the cabinet secretary says what steps the Scottish Government is taking to ensure that it is addressed.

The NHS Grampian board report is full of caveats, and I share concerns that it might never reinstate full maternity services without a concerted effort. I am also concerned to learn that NHS Grampian does not normally invite elected representatives from Moray to its regular MSP briefings, nor does it brief regional MSPs on progress on these issues, which is absolutely unacceptable. That the board does not believe that it is required to brief elected representatives, especially at a time such as this, gives a sad indication of the importance that it places on the Moray community. I hope that that will change, because it does not give me confidence in NHS Grampian.

Can I vote no, please?