Chamber and committees

They achieved a change in policy on the part of the Scottish Government.

It could be frittered away in consultants’ reports, which would be farcical and rather grotesque.

I am a bit puzzled—maybe I have misunderstood something—but, in his previous evidence to the committee, Mr Sweeney said:

“rough and ready cost estimates suggest that it would cost around £500,000 per annum”.—[Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee, 20 September 2023; c 18.]

Given that £2 million is enough to fund the whole caboodle for four years, what is happening to that money? What is the point of saying, “Here’s £2 million,” if it would cost only £500,000 a year? Why does the Government not just do it? I do not quite understand. If that money has been set aside, it cannot be used for anything else. It has been allocated from the budget, and it seems that it would be sufficient to run the thing for four years. What is going on?

I would like to raise two issues that the Scottish Government has not addressed satisfactorily throughout the petition’s history. I will not refer to any particular businesses in the Highlands, but I will raise two points of principle.

First, earlier in the passage of the petition through the committee, I suggested that funding might be made available for things called aires, which are serviced areas that can be used for the parking of camper vans. They are frequently found in France, for example, and are designed to provide a safe and secure place for camper vans to park—with water and toilet replacement facilities, which are obviously needed—and to stop the antisocial behaviour that results from camper vans being parked illegally overnight in lay-bys and so on, blocking single-track roads.

The reason why I mention that is that, in its reply, the Scottish Government said, “Yes, we’re looking into this.” That was positive, and I think that it was agreed that aires should, indeed, qualify for funding under the rural tourism infrastructure fund. However, at about the time when that was agreed, the fund ran out of money.

We learned from the clerks that VisitScotland’s capital budget, from which the fund is derived, was reduced from £7.9 million to £2.6 million last year. If those figures are correct, that is, according to the Scottish Tourism Alliance, a fairly swingeing cut, given that the overall capital budget was depleted by 8, 10 or 12 per cent. This particular tourism budget seems to have been axed in a savage manner.

The sad thing is that I have just learned in response to a letter that I had written to Malcolm Roughead of VisitScotland about funding for maintenance of the south Loch Ness trail—that is a constituency matter that has been raised with me, and I have sent a copy of the letter to the clerks in case it is required for the record—that no less than £20 million has been provided through the rural tourism infrastructure fund, which has allowed many good things to be done, but that, sadly, things are now difficult.

I am sorry that I am taking so long, but I want to set out the details. We should ask the Scottish Government, given the new regime, to reflect that a 67 per cent reduction is just absurd and to consider adjusting it.

Incidentally, I think that aires should be run commercially. The Government’s role is to provide the servicing of the plots, but aires should operate commercially so that the Government does not provide an unfair subsidy that would disadvantage existing camping and caravan sites.

The second point that I want to raise relates directly to overnight stops of camper vans. I understand that that will not be covered under the visitor levy but that camping sites and fixed caravans will. That seems to be anomalous. It will almost provide an incentive not to have a fixed site but to have a camper van and move around. I am not a wild fan of the visitor levy anyway, but it seems that that will create an obvious anomaly that will cause a great deal of upset, especially in the Highlands and particularly among people who run camping and caravan sites. When I was the tourism minister, I went round a great many such sites and developed great admiration for people’s professionalism, hard work and diligence, as well as for the high standards of cleanliness and safety that were maintained at almost all the sites. For them to be discriminated against in this way seems to be prima facie unfair.

If committee members agree that that is a fair point, given that the Visitor Levy (Scotland) Bill is at stage 2, we could ask the Scottish Government whether it has any intention of removing the anomaly. If it does not, the matter will come back to bite it, as so many things do when there is ill-considered legislation.

Yes. The industry is of huge benefit to the Highlands, so I have a particular interest. However, the funding benefited a huge number of projects all over Scotland, and most of my colleagues at the time regarded the fund as very popular, successful and simple to operate, relative to many others.

Thank you.

You mentioned that you had to implement pre-existing commitments from the previous Administration, such as, I think, the trams in Edinburgh. Therefore, in your early years from 2007, the capital budget was substantially committed in advance to see through what had been either started or committed to. Is that right?

In 2011, the estimated cost of both the Highland roads projects together was £6 billion, out of £14 billion or £15 billion of capital, so it looks as if the availability of capital was not the issue at that point.

Possibly a more difficult question is whether enough was done in the three years between 2011 and the end of your time as First Minister, in 2014, to advance the project. What would you say to those who might say that more could have been done during that period? Would there be any merit in such a claim?

Indeed. Getting back to the A9, I note that Alex Neil said that around £15 billion of capital was not allocated—that was estimated in an exercise that was carried out in 2011, I think—and that the figure for dualling both the A9 and A96 was estimated at £6 billion. It was clearly affordable within the £15 billion figure.

I have one final question. Let us fast forward to 2024 and look at the situation now. As of yesterday, there is a minority Government, with 122 MSPs representing parties that favour the dualling of the A9 and seven MSPs representing a single party that is opposed to dualling the A9. Do you think that that will accelerate the completion of the dualling of the A9? Would that be a realistic and achievable objective, should the new First Minister so determine?