Chamber and committees

I have a question on the way in which the operation of snaring offences under the bill might work. I wonder whether anyone has a view on how vicarious liability, which the committee has touched on before, might apply, and what the consequences of it might be.

Can you say a bit more about your work with farmers and others to ensure high standards in environmental and animal welfare? You just touched on that, but will you comment specifically on how that is scrutinised, reported and assessed by you?

I appreciate that you have touched on this, Mike, and that others have touched on it as well. I also appreciate that there is no law or legal framework for you to operate within yet. However, so that people who are looking in can understand what option 2 is and what compromise is, can somebody from the police, the SSPCA or anyone else say whether they have a shared understanding of who does what under that option?

How does the market share compare with that in other European countries?

This Parliament has, very understandably, had several debates in the past couple of years on ferry services. For obvious reasons, they have, completely legitimately, focused on the very real problems that services have faced. Equally legitimate, however, is the need to look to the future, and that is what the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee’s report does—and, I hope, what this debate is doing. I am therefore grateful to the committee for the work that it has done and the substantial report that it has presented to the Parliament.

As others have said, CalMac’s shore staff and crews do an outstanding job. They are not the ones we are criticising today, but there have been plenty of reasons to criticise wider aspects of Scotland’s ferry services in recent years, and I have certainly done my fair share of that. It is worth stressing, however, what I hope is the consensus that our island communities simply could not exist without the substantial and entirely merited public funding that ferry services receive. I will illustrate what I mean by that. I was genuinely shocked to discover recently what a ferry service looks like when it does not have a Government that is willing to give it that support.

Last month, I met local representatives from one of England’s very few inhabited island groups—the Scilly Isles. They explained to me that the United Kingdom Government provides no subsidy at all to their ferry service, leaving them with an operator that sails for only six months of the year, does not accept cars and charges foot passengers £200 a time to travel to the mainland.

I accept those facts, although I am not quite sure what they have to do with the point that I am making. The reason why I gave the example is to point to the importance of publicly subsided services.

Over the past 16 years, £2.2 billion has gone into Scotland’s ferry services and infrastructure. I do not point that out to detract from the genuine problems that continue in a constituency such as mine, not least the recent issues on both the Sound of Harris and the Sound of Barra, where the interisland vessels are rapidly approaching the end of their working lives. For that reason, I have made a case to the Minister for Transport for the replacement of those vessels to be brought forward.

However, the focus of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee’s report is, as I say, on the future and on real and tangible progress. Therefore, I note the substantial upgrades to vital infrastructure in my constituency that have been completed, including the piers at Stornoway, Tarbert and Lochmaddy, as well as those in Ullapool on the mainland and Uig on Skye, which serve our routes.

Those examples are relevant to one of the primary recommendations in the committee’s report: namely, the importance of increased standardisation of port infrastructure, where practical, and of vessel design. The benefits of building vessels to more similar specifications, such as the four that are variously under construction or under order in Turkey, will include lower maintenance costs and quicker repairs, with standard parts allowing easier replacement.

My constituents in the islands of Harris and North Uist have long called for dedicated vessels for Tarbert and Lochmaddy, and the Scottish Government has listened. One of the new vessels that are being constructed will be allocated to each of those two routes, improving capacity and, crucially, helping the network’s overall resilience, as well as representing a significant reduction in the average age of major vessels in the fleet.

In its report, the committee recommends that the Scottish Government considers how public ferry delivery organisations can include

“meaningful representations of the island communities they serve.”

I remain firmly of the view that significantly more seats on the relevant boards should be occupied by people who live on islands and therefore rely on ferries in their own lives. That would ensure that more decisions were informed by local knowledge and experience.

Concessionary travel for young people is another element that the committee and many others have recommended be explored by the Scottish Government. I am very pleased that action has already been taken by the transport minister, with the recent announcement of four free ferry journeys each year for all islanders under 22 years of age.

I certainly think that that goes a long way towards what the committee has recommended. I am sure that communities will continue to work with the Government to see whether more can be achieved. As I said, it goes a substantial way towards achieving what the committee seeks from the Government.

Another key recommendation in the committee’s report is the simplification of Scotland’s ferry services’ governing structures. Recent consultation with island communities showed that there was a desire for CalMac and CMAL to be merged, while the committee favours an approach that would see Transport Scotland and CMAL merged. What is clear is that there is agreement that the current tripartite structure is not working and that restructuring will help to streamline decision making, improve accountability and provide better transparency, all of which our island communities want.

I do not know how the example that I gave relates to the present law and how it relates to the proposed new law, but what might be the consequences for a land manager more generally? Would vicarious liability be taken into consideration in relation to agricultural payments and so on?

Will the concept of vicarious liability apply to snaring offences under the proposed legislation? If so, how?

Minister, you mentioned the primacy of the police in investigations. What conversations has the Scottish Government had with the police and the Crown Office about those issues? There was mention of a proposed compromise around some of the reservations that had been expressed by them. I am thinking particularly about matters such as powers of entry.