Ben, I would suggest that Mowi will be doing budgets for the next 10 years, if it is like any other business, and I am trying to work out how long you are budgeting to have a mortality rate of 20 to 25 per cent at sea. I accept that the industry has made changes, and I was delighted to go to the Bakkafrost facility—I will put that on the record—to see the wonderful hatchery that it is developing at Kishorn. I was grateful for that visit and the knowledge that it gave me. I am trying. Try to answer my question, please, Ben.

My next question is a general one about sea lice. I tend to agree with you; I do not think that sea lice are as much of a problem as they were, and I acknowledge that the industry has taken huge efforts to address that. However, people feel that there is a problem with you putting your smolts to sea when they are at their most vulnerable—when they are young and their skin is changing—after your having vaccinated them and treated them in preparation for going to sea, The problem is that people who represent wild fish interests might feel that they do not know whether the wild smolts that go past fish farms are affected by sea lice, because no one knows what happens to them—they disappear into the wild blue yonder. Do you think that it would be a good thing for the industry to work with organisations that represent those interests to try to iron out that lack of knowledge?

I think that we do learn some things from tracking projects. David Brown would probably reflect that there are wild salmon near Shetland, because some salmon go up past there on their way north.

Tavish, if I may, I note that, when you came into the meeting, you were quite aggressive to the members who challenged you on a particular point. Do you think that it is right for people to have an ability to challenge you and to question whether what the industry is doing is right? You were pretty forceful against them.

I remind the committee that my interest in salmon fishing on the River Spey is declared in my entry in the register of members’ interests. The fishery employs three people and has been in the family ownership for more than 73 years. I do not believe that it is directly affected by fish farms, because it is on the east coast of Scotland, not the west coast, where most fish farms are located.

The minister was listening. I was only questioning how many council houses it is thought that there are in the Highlands region. The council gave two different figures. That is the truth of it. They are not lost, but the council could not find them and it did not know how many it has. That suggests that the management is not great.

More than half of the houses that the council has do not reach the energy performance certificate standard that it seems will be required in 2028. The estimated cost to Highland Council of bringing those houses up to the EPC standard will perhaps be more than £300 million.

I will take an intervention in a moment, but not now.

The council needs to get those houses in order. I went on to ask it about the houses that it has sitting empty, which it needs to resolve, and I found that 356 houses across the Highlands are sitting empty. It may be said that that is a small number, but 112 single-bedroom houses, 132 two-bedroom houses, 90 three-bedroom houses, 12 four-bedroom houses and one five-bedroom house are all sitting empty. If we add up all the beds, there are 700-odd beds in the Highlands in properties that are unused by Highland Council.

I will give way now, if it still appeals to the member to intervene.

I will take an intervention on that point.

This will probably be the end of my political career, but I certainly agree with the member. I will come on to say that there should be reductions in VAT, input costs and perhaps even taxation when householders carry out improvements to their homes.

The Highland Council has estimated that it needs £618,000 to get the 356 houses that are sitting empty into a fit standard for occupation. Otherwise, they will continue to sit empty. The problem is that I am not sure how the council will work out the economics of that, because the loss of rent could amount to half a million pounds each year. I also found out that it is paying council tax for empty properties to the tune of £168,000 a year, with that money going from its housing department to another part of the council.

Those are examples of simple things that councils could do to get themselves and the houses in their stock sorted out. I am sure that that is relevant to the whole of Scotland.

I turn to the way that the Government has dealt with private landlords—of which I am one, as I clearly declared. The number of houses that are available for private rent has dropped from 360,000 to 300,000. People do not want to get involved in the sector because the Government is putting them off. It cannot be said that it is not, because it is. There is no stability in the letting laws. The Government seems to change them every time it wants to. I do not believe in rent controls, because evidence has proved that, when rent controls come off, rent prices rocket up. There is also no clarity on the EPC requirement by 2028. Landlords need more clarity on that.

My third answer is to encourage people and builders to build across Scotland. As I said to the Parliament yesterday, 10 developers have moved south because they no longer want to build houses in Scotland. I say well done to the Government on that, as it is definitely going to solve our housing crisis. The Government needs to address that.

My fourth answer—Mr Stewart stole a bit of this—is that we need to get affordable housing and housing in general back into the rented sector by making it easier for people to develop houses and make them warmer. There is a VAT reduction on a house if it has been empty for a set period of time, but there are still uninhabited homes across Scotland. With a little help in that regard from the UK Government—I understand that it is not the Scottish Government—we could bring more houses back into use.

I have made those four suggestions as things for us to talk about in this Parliament instead of blaming everyone else. I have come up with some ideas. Let us see whether anyone runs with them.

Will the member be gracious enough to take an intervention?

I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests, where I declare that I am the owner of long-term tenanted houses in Moray.

I am very interested in the debate and I thank the Labour Party for bringing it to the chamber. Opposition debates always seem to be more interesting than Government ones, because they generate some excitement and enthusiasm, and I am glad that the minister is now paying attention.

I want to concentrate on and drill down into some issues in the Highlands. I did a bit of work on the houses that Highland Council rents out, because that is one way of solving housing problems, but the responses to two FOI requests brought out different figures on how many council houses there are in the Highlands. One suggested that there are 14,494 and the other suggested that there are 15,127. That means that 633 houses have been lost. I am not sure what the council has done with them, but I am sure that it will find them.