Chamber and committees

You mentioned designations and working with communities. An issue that has arisen in the past, at least in some parts of the country, has been the move towards more local management of marine designations. That has happened in some places but not in others. Is the Government seeking to make real the local management of designations wherever possible?

A consultation is under way on the Government’s policy on islands bonds. I am sure that the Government will be open to what comes from the consultation. What scope is there to refine the policy to ensure that it meets everyone’s needs?

I appreciate your point that Brexit is not the only factor in all the issues, but I have had businesses phoning up to tell me that Brexit is a very big factor—one did so just yesterday—and I am sure that other members have had the same experience.

You make a good point about training. You will appreciate that, in some parts of the country, we are getting to the point at which there is no workforce to train because there is nowhere for a workforce to live. What can you do in your role as islands minister to bring together different parts of Government to ensure that we address that question, particularly in parts of the country where the second-home and holiday-let market is having a huge impact on the availability of places to live for anyone?

Will the member give way?

I will not rehearse again the complete list of problems that arose around island ferry services this summer. I realise that the Minister for Transport is well aware of those difficulties and has, to his credit, been in regular contact with island MSPs about them since he took office. I know that he is, nonetheless, aware of the significant human and economic impact that those problems have had and it would be remiss of me not to mention briefly some of the problems that reached an acute point during the period when social distancing impacted most on vessel capacity.

Islanders were, in many cases, simply unable to travel for work, caring commitments, business or to visit family members, not even, in the most extreme of situations, seriously ill family members. Although CalMac Ferries staff tried hard to accommodate individuals when cases were brought to their attention via MSPs, I have to be honest that it was an extremely difficult situation. I am sure that the minister will want to say something about the solutions, but we know that CalMac needs more vessels, particularly a better choice of relief vessels; a better booking system; a fares review; and better communication with customers.

I know that the minister will mention some or all of those things in his summing-up speech, but I want to add to the wider debate the point that is the subject of my motion. In my view, CalMac needs to be more grounded in the communities that it serves than it presently seems to be. As far as I can establish from looking at the board of CalMac Ferries Ltd, which runs the services, and the board of Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd, which holds the vessels and some of the piers, not a single board member currently lives in any of the island communities that depend on CalMac ferry services. That situation is not unique to CalMac and CMAL though, because there are, to my knowledge, few members of the Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd board who live in the Highlands and islands.

I emphasise that I point that out with no disrespect to the existing CalMac board members. However, in an era when lived experience is rightly prized in public appointments, it seems to me and, I can assure members, to most islanders, as the minister will be aware, that the current situation cannot be allowed to continue forever. CalMac would be better managed if its board members had to face the travelling public whenever they went to Tesco in Stornoway or the Co-op in Daliburgh or, if things went wrong, every time that they set foot outside their house. That would be a healthy accountability that, in my view, would help concentrate CalMac’s mind.

I am convinced that it would improve services if at least some board members ever had to feel the direct personal consequences of what happens when a ferry does not appear for 10 days in a row, which has happened more than once in the past couple of years on the isle of Barra, for example. Due to new technical issues with one of CalMac’s vessels, for over a week now there have been no services operating between Mallaig and Lochboisdale, and services only every other day from Tarbert to Uig. Those are the kind of problems that board members resident in the islands would experience.

As I mentioned, my comments apply also to HIAL and my views on the issue to which Mr McArthur referred are a matter of record.

I realise that appointing board members is no simple task and that the criteria used for appointment become key in this case. However, in communities where so many people have professional seafaring experience as well as more general experience of living on an island, plenty of people are well qualified for board membership. As the Uist economic task force pointed out in its petition to the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee, increased community participation would be in keeping with the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018 and the national islands plan. I also realise that not everyone is willing to put their head above the parapet when it comes to board appointments—the islands suffer from unfilled job vacancies of many kinds—but we have to start making the boards more representative somehow, so I hope that the Government will consider my proposal.

Councillor Donald Manford, who represents the islands of Barra, Vatersay, South Uist and Eriskay, has long highlighted the need for stronger input into decisions about ferries from the communities affected. He is talking not about communities owning ferries, but having a more recognised way into decisions. I hope that the Government might be able to consider some of Councillor Manford’s ideas. Certainly, having some CalMac board members live on the islands that the ferries serve would be a positive start.

For CalMac, some of those points apply to more than only the board. Everyone is reassessing working patterns after Covid and we are looking at ways to disperse more public sector jobs. We should therefore give thought to how best disperse more of CalMac’s central shore-based staff to the many local offices that the company already has around the country. Organisations such as Transport Scotland should also consider whether they have positions that could be based closer to the communities that they serve.

I have tried to concentrate in my speech on one practical measure that I believe could help improve ferry services in the years ahead. That step would of course not solve every problem faced by ferry users, but I believe that it is a step that would improve matters and is worth our considering. The oft-quoted unofficial paraphrase of Psalm 24 says:

“The earth belongs unto the Lord and all that it contains,
Excepting for the Western Isles, for they are all MacBrayne’s.”

I believe that reassessing the composition of the CalMac board to include islanders would reverse some assumptions about where power lies and give a much healthier sense that MacBrayne answers to a much greater extent to Scotland’s island communities.

The member and I are probably not a million miles apart. He probably agrees that although it would not magically solve problems it would certainly make things better.

The member mentions all that as if it were never made clear, either in the manifesto or in the election result, that the SNP is in favour of a referendum on independence.

Welcome to the committee, cabinet secretary. You have mentioned some of the new constraints that are being put on this Parliament by UK legislation such as the 2020 act. What are the Scottish Government’s options for engagement and for putting its views across? At the moment, we have a number of inadequate mechanisms such as joint ministerial committees. How do you intend to use them to make your point?

I am not sure that they will be very localised, but they are on a subject that you will no doubt have heard me go on about before.

Cabinet secretary, you have talked with great enthusiasm, quite rightly, about the production of culture. I was interested to hear your views on the consumption of culture, in the sense of people’s access to and enjoyment of it. I am particularly interested in a subject that I have raised before. There is a body of Scottish literature that exists out there but, as academics and others point out, people in Scotland, compared with people in most other European countries, seem to have an abnormally small opportunity—although things are getting better—to get immersed in books, both old and new, that are produced in Scotland. I appreciate that you are not the education minister, but it would be interesting to hear your views about the promotion of Scottish literature.