 D Stampir. Yr first item of business today is consideration of business motion 12423, in the name of Joe Fispatrick, on behalf of the bureau, is setting out a timetable for the island's Scotland Bill at stage 3. If anyone objects to the motion, please say so now, and I call on Joe Fispatrick to move motion 12423. Formally moved. No one objects, so the question there is that motion 12423 be agreed. Are we agreed, we are agreed. Felly, mae'r iawn i ddau 3 prysg orange i'r Sinoeysi Byeolol. Gysylltu i'r Pesisiad, mae'n ddweud fath gael'r ddau a'r sinoeysi Pesisiad 6 sy'n cyfwyddiad i'r lleidiadau ym M vieleol a oedd yn cyfwyddiadau a'i ddau cyfwyddiadau i'r lleidiadau i'r lleidiadau a'r prysg orange a'r prysg orange yn cyfwyddiadau i'r erioedd, ac i mi casgau ond gwokol. Y pryd cyfwyddiadwch yn cyfwyddiadwch yn cyfwyddiad ddau 30, Femben, fel canllun hwnnw, iddyn nhw yw'r cyffredin ar gael ar gyfer sefydlu. Mae'r cyfarfodd, fel oedd, os yn gyfweld, o'i ddigweld arobarthau mai comprwyd erbyn i'n g�ud i'ch gael arweinio'r cyffredin i'r cyffredin. Maen nhw yng nghymru. Gweld am weithwyr Llea MacArthur, groupd yn ddechrau mwy ffemmel 6. Llea MacArthur, ddwy i'n ddechrau mwy ffemmel 1, ac yn ei ddweud i'r gwmame inn ddechrau rhagor. It's a pleasure to get stage 3 of the island's bill underway. It feels slightly counterintuitive to start by focusing on uninhabited islands rather than islands that sustain populations and communities. Nevertheless, as the committee acknowledged at stage 2 in supporting my original amendment, the importance of uninhabited islands should never be underestimated. As I said at stage 2, while fewer than 20 of Orkney's islands are inhabited, all 70 or so play a capabilities fewni теir cofitoriaeth rhaglianeth hefyd i gael iawn inni iio gymryd wrth allan gwr beibra� hwnnw i gael allan i gael iawn i gael iawn i gael iawn i gael iawn i gael iawn i gael iawn i gael iawn i gael iawn i gael iawn idrym amd 했어요 ar ochre chiast answersheld neu codi paer temper Meeting ac mae'r cyfrifiad wedi am ребlet 很 hi innod. Da'trachwyr ddim yn ddynnu bod hyn pethiu of reflecting what it saw as, quote, the cultural, environmental and economic significance of uninhabited islands and putting this on the face of the bill. Nevertheless, I think that it was accepted by everyone that we needed to ensure that the changes properly reflected our collective intent. My amendment 1 seeks to achieve that, making more explicit the link between uninhabited islands and the uninhabited islands to which they make such a significant contribution. I am very grateful to the minister and his officials for their help in this tidying up exercise. I would also like to thank RSPB and committee members, particularly John Mason, who brought forward very similar amendments at stage 2 for their support to date. I hope that Parliament will follow suit now, and I move amendment 1 in my name. Thank you. I call Colin Smyth. Oh, sorry, I beg your pardon. I call the minister first. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am delighted to get this debate under way on behalf of the Government and, of course, on a point of consensus, I would like to thank Liam McArthur for bringing forward amendment 1. I indicated at stage 2 that the Government agreed with his original amendment to bring uninhabited islands into the bill. I also indicated that we had a technical concern about the wording and the way that it fitted into section 2 at red as if an island community could be an uninhabited island on its own. I am pleased that the member has worked with us to produce amendment 1. The proposed amendment makes it clearer that uninhabited islands fit within the common interest identity or geography of the people on islands, rather than the uninhabited islands constituting a community as of itself. I am very happy to support amendment 1. In terms of amendment 6, it is the technical amendment section 2A of the bill that was introduced into the bill at stage 2 as an amendment 29 by Colin Smyth MSP. It provides a definition of islands authority and the list of key definitions. The definition was intended to be used for the purposes of amendments that were not agreed to by the committee and the term islands authority is therefore not used in the bill as amended at stage 2. Such the definition of that term in the bill as it stands is redundant and serves no legal purpose. The local authorities covered by it are already listed in the schedule. Therefore, the amendment simply removes section 2A from the bill as amended at stage 2. As the minister says, amendment 6 removes the definition of the term island authority added at stage 2 of the bill as a result of amendment 6. At the time, amendment 6 was a consequential amendment to two other amendments that were proposed at stage 2 that were ultimately not passed and, accordingly, it is no longer necessary. I have tabled amendments at stage 3, similar to those two that were not passed at stage 2, but I have chosen not to use the phrase island authority. Therefore, there is no longer a requirement for this phrase to be within the bill. Therefore, I am content with amendment 6 to remove that definition. I also support amendment 1, in the name of Liam McArthur, which amends the current provision covering the fact that uninhabited islands can be considered island communities, and doing so rightly recognises their natural, cultural and economic value and has Labour's full support. I ask Liam McArthur if he could wind up and to press or withdraw amendment 1. I thank Colin Smyth and the minister for their supportive comments. I think that it is also helpful for the minister and Colin Smyth to set out the background to amendment 6, which we would be supporting as well as a technical amendment, but with that I move amendment 1. The question is that amendment 1 be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. The question is that amendment 6 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? I return to group 2. Can I call amendment 7, in the name of the minister, a group with amendments, as has shown in the groupings, and the minister to move amendment 7 and speak to all the amendments in the group? I will speak to amendment 7, which I move in my name, and then the other amendments in the group. There has been a wide-ranging discussion throughout the bill process about the level of detail that should be included in the national island's plan. While I have expressed my waniness of putting too much detail on specific points in the face of the bill, I have welcomed the debate and the very good discussion that we have had on this issue, but I hold to my central premise on that. It would be unfair if Parliament presents to island communities and other stakeholders a pre-populated plan for them just to tinker around the edges. We have to allow the process for developing and populating the plan to be a meaningful one. That said, there is clearly an appetite for the plan to consider and cover particular issues, and I have taken that on board. I welcome the positive discussions that I have had with members across the chamber on a series of amendments. Starting with amendment 9, amendment 7, it is a minor and technical amendment that restructures section 3 to allow for more topics to be listed. Amendment 17 from John Mason includes environmental wellbeing as a topic to be included in the national island's plan, which I am happy to support. Amendments 18, 19, 20 and 21 from Lee McArthur include improving transport services, improving digital connectivity, reducing fuel poverty and ensuring effective management of the Scottish Crown estate, all as topics within the national island's plan. I am happy to support those amendments. Amendment 22 from John Finnie includes enhancing biodiversity, including protecting islands from the impact of invasive non-native species as a topic in the national island's plan. I am happy to also support that. Amendment 23 from Jamie Greene deals with an issue raised at stage 2. Mr Greene proposed that all the objectives in the national island's plan should be measurable. I raised some concern during the debate that I think it is not possible to guarantee that every single objective that is potentially covered by the plan, especially high-level objectives, can realistically be measured. The proposed amendment 23, put forward by Jamie Greene, takes those concerns on board and places a duty on ministers to consider how to measure the improvements of outcomes, whether that is quantitatively or qualitatively, which I appreciate. It is a good amendment that requires ministers to consider the measurement of outcomes, but it also allows for flexibility where that might be difficult and so happy to support. Amendment 8 follows from an amendment that John Mason lodged at stage 2. He argued that, while the bill sets out those who must be consulted about the national island's plan, it missed a broader constituency of people who are not based on islands but who have an interest in the islands—people, I suppose, like himself and myself. The proposed amendment is straightforward and will help to deliver his aim of including the wider public interest in the national island's plan. I hope that we can agree to all the amendments in this group. Of course, I move amendment 7 in my name. John Mason, to speak to amendment 17 and the other amendments in this group. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I would particularly like to speak to amendments 17 and 8, which are both in my name and both of which concern the national island's plan. Firstly, amendment 17, the focus of this bill is rightly on island communities, therefore in section 3, subsection 3, the bill focuses on improving and promoting sustainable economic development, health and wellbeing and community empowerment. All of those are absolutely fine. However, there are more to islands than people, and I think that we already had the First Amendment about uninhabited islands, which is why the RSPB and I were keen to have a specific mention of the natural heritage of Scotland's islands on the face of the bill, which would mean that this would be embedded in forthcoming and future island plans. Using the wording environmental wellbeing is more consistent with other legislations, such as the Community Empowerment Act 2015 and the Scottish Crowny State Bill 2018, as introduced. I hope that members will support this amendment, which would mean that the three pillars of sustainable development, economic, social and environmental interests, are all included in the face of the bill. Moving secondly to amendment 8, at stage 2, as the minister said, I lodged an amendment to widen the range of those consulted on the island's plan to include a broader constituency of people who are not based on the islands but who have an interest in the islands. The bill, as it stands, does not limit those who can respond to consultation, but rather provides that certain persons and groups must be consulted. My proposed amendment 8 aims to include the wider public interest. I see it as a positive move because there is a genuine commitment to our islands beyond those who normally live on them. Should the amendment be accepted, the relevant provision in the bill would read that the Scottish ministers must consult such persons, as they consider likely to be affected by, or have an interest in, the proposals contained in the plan. I hope that members will support both of those amendments. Thank you. I call Liam McArthur to speak to amendment 18 and the other amendments in this group. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It is fair to say that the national island's plan has received fully widespread support, but there has been a lively debate about what should be contained in that plan and, to the extent to which legislation should try to set that out explicitly. I appreciate that there is a balance to be struck here if the content of the plans is too rigidly defined. It is unlikely to have the flexibility to meet effectively the different and changing needs of island communities now and into the future. Nevertheless, as I pointed out at stage 2 in speaking to amendments that I and Tavish Scott lodged, there are key areas where it will be inconceivable for the plans to remain silent and where it will be helpful for those to be reflected on the face of the bill. The examples that we cited at that stage were ferry services, broadband, fuel poverty and Crown estate powers. Others referred to other examples. I am grateful again to the minister and his officials for their willingness to work with myself and Tavish Scott since stage 2 in coming forward with ways of achieving what are shared objectives. Amendment 18 reflects the fact that, crucially important, ferry services are to our island communities. Those are not the only lifeline transport links on which our island communities depend. Similarly, amendment 19 is an acknowledgement that more than high-speed broadband, the future vitality and even viability of many of our island communities will be reliant on. I apologise to my colleague Tavish Scott, who I know has an aversion to the phrase digital connectivity that keeps pace with technological advances. Amendment 20 puts on the face of the bill the importance of island plans also addressing the scourge of fuel poverty, which continues to affect a higher proportion of households in rural and island areas than anywhere else. Again, I thank the minister and his colleague Kevin Stewart for meeting with me last week to discuss on-going concerns. I and many of those with a direct involvement in rural fuel poverty issues have that, in redefining fuel poverty, the Government risks ignoring the specific rural dimension to the problem. I hope that, by the time the Government publishes its fuel poverty bill, it will have addressed those concerns meantime by including the reduction of fuel poverty in the national island's plan. I think that we make that outcome more likely. Finally, another issue where the substantive debate will take place in the context of other legislation revolves around the devolution of the Crown of States functions and responsibilities. The standalone bill will provide an opportunity for us to debate our respective positions on where the responsibilities are best exercising for the record. I believe that they should be at island authority level where there is a desire to do so. For now, amendment 21 will ensure that the national island's plan reflects the importance of effective management of these assets to our island communities. The bill, through the island's plan, offers a chance to put in place firm commitments and safeguards to ensure that the provision of services in our islands meets certain standards as a minimum and that our island communities are not constantly left as an afterthought. The amendments that I have outlined will hopefully go some way to helping to ensure that that happens. I call John Finnie to speak to amendment 22 and the other amendments in the group. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I hear what the minister says about pre-populating a plan and I would align myself with the comments that Liam McArthur made about a general direction of travel. Likewise, I echo the positive engagement that there has been with the minister and officials on that. I particularly want to talk about—the Scottish Green Party will be supporting all the amendments in this group, and I think that they enhance—it was already a good piece of legislation. I particularly want to talk about amendment 22, which is enhancing biosecurity, including pre-opening islands from the impact of invasive non-species. It has already been said in this debate that there are internationally important populations of breeding birds in Scotland and they are concentrated on the islands. Of course, they are vulnerable to predation from gown-based predators, such as rats, mice and stoats. Those mammals are not native to the islands, and when people introduce them either deliberately or by accident, they can have significant effects because those species are unable to bleed at the same rate as they are predated upon. It is a global asset—that phrase was used—and it is imperative that we protect our seabird breeding islands from invasive species. By implementing a biosecurity in early warning, rapid response capacity— Would it be helpful if the member indicated that, when he and his amendment used the phrase invasive non-native species, he is referring to each individual island's previous eco-structure rather than something that merely is ensculpened as a non-invasive species? John Finnie. Thank you. I am grateful for the member for his question. Of course, each island is different in its own rights and there are different threats that are posed. There are indigenous species in some that are not in others. However, the colonies are facing climate change-driven impacts. They have had massive impact, particularly in Shetland and Orkney, and that has been linked primarily to the falling populations of the nutritious pre-fish, especially sanddeals, and the declines in turn are linked to warming seas. One must maximise resilience of Scotland's seabird population. People will be aware that there has been a rolling programme of island restoration, including Elsa, Craig, Canna and more recently, The Chance. Those are examples of where rodent eradications are taking place, but that ambition will be pointless without solid biosecurity arrangements for our islands in this. Protecting currently uninvaded islands is where the current amendment comes in. In July 2017, the World's Island Invasive Conference was held in Dundee. That event only happens every six or seven years. It was in Dundee because the world's leading rodent eradication project, which was in South Georgia, was now officially declared a success and was led by a team-based at Dundee University. Together with the success of past projects and the challenges of the currently unfolding issues such as Orkney Stoats, we are well placed to develop a timely and groundbreaking public policy in that regard, and I hope that members will lend their support to my and indeed all the other amendments in this group. Thank you. I will call Jamie Greene to speak to amendment 23 and the other amendments in the group. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I would like to speak to some of the amendments in this group. I will start with my own amendment 23. As the minister has just outlined, we came to this place from stage 2, where I felt as part of a stage 1 committee recommendation that stated that the committee recommends that the plan be developed with clear outcomes, targets and measurable indicators to establish performance. That is an important part of this. The plan itself should be something that we can hold the Government of the Day to account with. By doing so, I think that the introduction of specific measurable objectives where possible is helpful. I appreciate that we have come some way in the language of this amendment. I thank the minister and his bill team for an element of compromise on that. I am pleased that we will have support on the introduction of that concept. Just looking to some of the other amendments in this group, although it is fair to say that we are broadly supportive of most of them, I think that the problem here is that we are doing at stage 3 what we said we would not do, and that is that we suddenly started to create lists of items that are put on the face of the bill into primary legislation that we said and agreed that we would put in hope to see in the national islands plan. If you look at what the committee agreed, we said that there were, whilst a large number of policy areas that affected islands specifically, there were also a number of key priority areas. They did include transport and digital connectivity and a number of items. Although it is pleasing to see members bring those elements in, it is also slightly disappointing that we get to stage 3 where it is difficult to say no to some of those concepts because there are indeed things that we should be thinking about in terms of outcomes for islands. However, I am also slightly disappointed that we are at this stage starting to create exhaustive lists that do not, for example, include access to education or access to health and social care or housing or workforce and employment opportunities. Some of the other things that the committee identified as being equally key important measures that should be in the plan. We have created a very small list of things that must be in the islands plan, but we have also left it open to things that maybe should be in it that currently are not. That is my only concern about the addition of some of those. I am happy to give way to Mr Mason. For giving way, I take his point that we should not have too much detail, but would he accept that those are all fairly high-level additions that are being put in at this point? They are certainly not exclusive, but they are not going into a huge amount of detail. No, they are not going into a round of detail. They are high-level, but there are only two or three issues. Are we saying therefore that those issues are more important than some of the other high-priority areas that the committee discussed? I would hate to think that digital connectivity, transport and the other one being around reducing fuel poverty in the Crown Estate are the only issues that are of importance to us as the Parliament. I am happy to give way again. John Finnie, I am grateful for the member giving way. Recognising what he says, would he acknowledge that there was an opportunity that Hattie sought to have put amendments into that effect himself? Jamie Greene I do beg your pardon, but I could not hear the member properly in that. Would John Finnie repeat himself, please? I am grateful for the member taking the intervention. I acknowledge what he says about the list there, but would he acknowledge that, given the timeframe that there is for the legislation, had he thought that the issues that he listed himself were important, he could have put amendments into that effect. Jamie Greene Yes, we could have, but I get the impression that, both at stage 1 and stage 2, the committee collectively thought that the right thing to do was not start to create lists for the very reason, otherwise we would not be having a discussion. Yes, we could have added things in, but we could have ended up with a very long list of things that we think the Islands plan should contain. Nonetheless, I hope that, when the minister produces the Islands plan, those things will be in there nonetheless. For that reason, we will support them. I also will support Mr Finnie's amendment around the issue of enhancing bar security on the islands. That is an important addition. Again, there is very little to disagree with. The only two amendments that we, perhaps, were less in favour of the first one being John Mason's amendment around environmental wellbeing. I am welcome to the member for explaining it a little bit more detail, but the term environmental wellbeing is quite unclear and a little bit vague in that respect. What does the member mean by environmental wellbeing to put it on the face of the bill in that respect? I think that it is entirely unclear. If he could help us with that, that would be much appreciated. John Mason I thank the member for giving way again. The original wording was natural heritage. That was what RSPB, myself and the Government were comfortable with. To get consistency with other legislation, the preference was for environmental wellbeing, but I think that the two phrases are meant to mean the same thing. I do not think that they are the same thing. I still think that environmental wellbeing is a very nonspecific phrase, which to me does not have a huge amount of meaning on the face of the legislation. The other amendment is one that we had a lot of chat around in terms of the duty to consult on production of the plan. That is amendment 8, again from John Mason, that states that anyone who has an interest in islands must be consulted in the production of the plan. The problem with that, and what I would hope is not a consequence of this, is that any stakeholder with any interest would somehow get involved in the process, and that would detract from the fact that, as islanders themselves, who should be at the heart of consultation and the preparation of the plan, I think that the phrase, or have an interest in, opens it up far too much to any stakeholder anywhere in the country who has a vested interest in any matter that the plan may address. For that reason, I think that we are unable to support amendment 8. A welcome amendment 7 in the name of Humza Yousaf, which ensures that the reference to increase in population remains on the face of the bill. At stage 2, I proposed an amendment to the bill to ensure that that was included in the aims of the national island plan, and I am pleased to see the minister recognising the importance of that and his amendment by retaining that reference, albeit worded slightly differently. Depopulation is one of the key challenges facing island communities, and it is absolutely essential that the national islands plan sets out proposals to try to tackle that challenge. Explicitly stating that in the bill is an effective way to ensure that that remains a priority, not just now but also in the future. I am also pleased to support the amendment 17 to 22 from John Mason, Liam McArthur and John Finnie, which all provide more detail and a statutory underpinning to the aims of the national islands plan. I support the principle of outlining the aims of that plan in the bill as a means of ensuring that the ambition and aims of the plan are not watered down over time. The issue's reference in amendment 17 to 22 are critically important to island communities and should be included. Amendment 23 by Jamie Greene creates a reasonable and useful requirement for ministers to outline how they will measure the extent to which the aims of the plan are realised. That makes it a valuable addition to the bill, and I am happy to support it. I am also happy to support amendment 8 by John Mason, which broadens who should be consulted in the preparation of that national islands plan to include those with an interest in the relevant proposals. That is a logical amendment and serves to strengthen the consultation process and, hopefully, in doing so, the final plan. I want to talk specifically about amendment 17. I listened carefully to what John Mason just said about the definition of environmental wellbeing. The term still seems very vague to me and opens up itself to all sorts of interpretation. If Mr Mason would be any clearer in his definition rather than say, it means, I think, the same as something else, I'd be delighted to hear it now because it may be able to sway us, and I would be prepared to give way to Mr Mason if he would be prepared to defend it. John Mason, I thank the member for giving way. I am not sure—I am sorry for taking my intervention—that I can say an awful lot more than I have said already. As I said, our first choice was natural heritage. It is our intention that it means the same as natural heritage, but we were seeking to give consistency with other legislation because it seems that, if we are using those terms in a variety of legislation, it is better to use the same terms. They seem to have been accepted in other legislation. I thank Mr Mason for trying to explain that. For me, the problem is that environmental wellbeing will mean different things to different people and different environments, where the wellbeing of one environment may be improved and the wellbeing of a different environment may not. I come to this chamber with 15 years' experience as a land manager and with a degree in land management. I have never come across this term before, or the definition that, to me, seems unquantifiable. Therefore, because I believe that good legislation requires tight definitions that are explainable and definable, I believe that it is impossible for myself and I believe that the Scottish Conservatives to vote for this amendment. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It is just a short point that I would like some clarification on in the interests of good legislation and good government. I want to make sure that we get this right in stage 3, so some indication perhaps from the minister on John Mason's amendment 8. I hear what Jamie Greene has been saying, that does this throw too wide an area for interest away from the islanders, or is the government content with this as good legislation? I would be genuinely interested to see it, because it would be very helpful. Thank you, and I call on the minister to wind up in this section. Once again, this has been a good and informative debate around the content of the plan. I would try to give some reassurance to Jamie, because he is absolutely right. There has to be a balance between not producing an exhaustive list. In some respects, it could be argued that we are starting to fall down that trap. However, where we have some safeguards, where we have some of those checks and balances, is what we are discussing here are generally very high-level objectives. What I would say is a couple of points. One is that the list is not exhaustive, but also the important part of section 4 in the bill around preparation and scrutiny of the plan. Within that, island communities will be very much a part of that engagement process when we come to develop the national islands plan. Yes, others might have an input, so those who do not live in islands and those who perhaps represent the mainland, but realistically and pragmatically speaking, there will be no doubt at all in anybody's mind that we will be travelling to many island communities, hearing from them directly around their interests in the national islands plan. The point that is well made is on the record that there is no need for an exhaustive list, but we have a general direction of travel about issues and high-level issues that are of importance in relation to John Mason's amendment. Yes, we will be supporting it. Again, it falls into that category of high-level objectives. I think that we would be splitting hairs if you cannot accept that environmental wellbeing has an overarching, high-level objective. We will be supporting John Mason's amendment and, indeed, all the amendments in this group. I am pleased that we have achieved a degree of consensus and agreement on the plan. I ask you to support the amendments in my name and, hopefully, the other amendments in the group also. Thank you very much. We turn now to the vote. The first question is that amendment 7 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. I call amendment 17, which is already debated in the name of John Mason. John Mason, to move or not move. Moved? Moved. The question is that amendment 17 be agreed to. Are we agreed? We are not agreed. We are going to move to our vote, but this is the first division of the stage, so we will have a short suspension of five minutes while I call members to the chamber. It is a short suspension for five minutes. Thank you. We resume proceedings. The question is that amendment 17 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. We will move to our vote, and members may cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment number 17 in the name of John Mason, yes, 94, no, 28. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore agreed. I call amendment 18 in the name of Liam McArthur, which is already debated. Liam McArthur, to move or not move. Moved. Thank you. The question is that amendment 18 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are agreed. I call amendment 19 in the name of Liam McArthur, which is already debated. Liam McArthur, to move or not move. Moved. Thank you. The question is that amendment 19 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are agreed. I call amendment 20 in the name of Liam McArthur. Liam McArthur, to move. Moved. Thank you. The question is that amendment 20 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are. I call amendment 21 in the name of Liam McArthur. Liam McArthur, to move. Moved. Moved. Pro любов wrth hynny yn gyff holds toys, ond sefm unre army, ond profiadad gwaslwnio bydd hynny o'r gwisprudio yn llesi. Rhaid i'n meddwl i'w meddwl eveism iddo yn gyff에서는nio. Resulio'r aw tankir yn gyff Hyundai swapис. The question is that amendment 23 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are. I call amendment 8 in the name of John Mason. Already debated, John Mason to move or not move. Moved. That's moved. The question is that amendment 8 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Yes. We're not agreed. We'll move to division on amendment 8. Members make castler votes now. The result of the vote on amendment 8 in the name of John Mason is yes, 89, no, 34. For no abstentions, the amendment is therefore agreed. I'll conclude the votes in that group. We turn now to group number 3, and I call amendment 24 in the name of Peter Chapman, group with amendments as shown in the groupings. Peter Chapman to move amendment 24 and speak to all amendments in the group. I would like to move amendment 24 and speak to all the other amendments in that group, amendment 25, which is also in my name. Amendment 24 introduces the aspect of retrospective island impact assessment into the bill. Now, this concept was widely supported at stage 1 across all parties but was not supported at stage 2. This simple amendment in my name would seek to change the current wording of the bill to ensure that a relevant authority must prepare an island community's impact assessment in relation to a policy strategy or service, which in their opinion has had an effect that is significantly different from its effect on other communities. It is clear that the Scottish Government and members of the REC committee support the concept of island proofing, and this amendment would enable local island authorities to submit an assessment to the Scottish Government on any previous legislation that has significantly hindered them as an island community. It was argued at stage 2 that this simple amendment could create an over-bureaucratic exercise for local island authorities and open the door too widely to change, but this amendment is clear in that it would operate the same way as future island impact assessments and would only, if the authority feels a policy service or strategy has significantly impacted them when they have to prepare an assessment. I appreciate that the Minister for Transport and Islands has verbally committed to reviewing any past legislation that has had a significant impact on an island community, so, if the relevant authority brings it to his attention and with that commitment, I think that it is appropriate that this be acknowledged in the bill. I am moving on to amendment 25. It is subsequent to amendment 24. It also copies the wording from 8.1 as a technical change to ensure that relevant authorities do not have to publish explanations for not carrying out island community's impact assessments, unless the policy, strategy or service has had an effect that is significantly different from its effect on other communities. Moving on, we support amendment 10 in the name of the minister, Huumza Yousaf, which is a technical amendment that ensures that relevant authorities can effectively comply with the section 7 duty to have regard to island communities and therefore produce island community impact assessments as set out in section 8. We also support amendment 12 in the name of Leean MacArthur and amendment 28 in the name of Colin Smith. Those amendments also relate to the retrospective island community's impact assessments, but they are much more prescriptive than my amendment. Amendment 12 sets out a schedule for Scottish ministers to respond to requests from relevant authorities and also places a duty to publish the retrospective island community's impact assessments on Scottish ministers. That would be particularly useful for the authorities that do not have the time to carry out their own assessments. Amendment 28 also ensures that new regulations set out by ministers must be laid before the Parliament and that each local authority in the schedule and any other relevant person must be consulted. Both of those amendments add a further scrutiny to Scottish ministers' role in the process, which is important to ensure that the Scottish Government commitment is met. Amendment 33, in this group, is subsequent to amendment 28, and we will therefore support it also. Amendment 24, lodged by Peter Chapman, is a repeat of the amendment that the member brought forward at stage 2. I am afraid that I still cannot support it. I will reiterate a lot of what I said at stage 2, as it still remains relevant here. The amendment would seem to require all the relevant authorities to review all previous policies, services or strategies that I believe might have had a significant different impact on island communities from their effect on other communities. As there is no criteria or thresholds for the retrospective element, the amendments have no time limit on how far back the relevant authority we need to go. Would it have to go back years? Would it have to go back decades? I asked this question at stage 2, and the answer still seems to be that it would be mandatory for an authority to review and potentially prepare an impact assessment for every policy, strategy or service that it has ever developed or redeveloped. That is neither practical nor reasonable. It could also take a significant amount of resource to undertake those reviews that could be deployed elsewhere. Amendment 25 from Peter Chapman seems to require that, when a relevant authority does not prepare an island community impact assessment for a policy, strategy or service that is likely to have or have had a significant different effect on an island community, it must publish its reasons for not doing so. Under section 8, if there is a significantly different effect on an island community, then the relevant authority is under a duty to prepare an island community's impact assessment. It has no choice. There would be no question of the authority publishing reasons for not undertaking such an assessment, because in those circumstances it would have done the assessment. I hope that that reassures Mr Chapman that there is adequate provision already in the bill to achieve broadly the same purpose of his amendment and that we will not press it. If he does press it, I cannot support a measure that duplicates the process and requires an extensive burden on the resource of affected relevant authorities. I give way to Jamie Greene. The minister is saying that this amendment will mean that all historic legislation must be looked at in terms of its effect on islands, but the key phrase in the bill is in the authority's opinion. There is still an element of subjectivity there in terms of which historic legislation it will have to look at, so it is not the case that all pieces of legislation will have to be looked at. There is still the safeguard of, in the authority's opinion, in the amendment and also in the bill, as it currently stands. I accept Jamie Greene's point. That could, in one sense, make it redundant that what is the purpose of Peter Chapman, if the power rests with the authority to determine whether to do it or whether not to do it. I will come on to a couple of other amendments, which I think tackle the issue ever so slightly better. If I take a couple of the other amendments in this group, Mr Consmith's amendment 28 would require ministers to develop regulations to set up a scheme to allow island local authorities to make a request to amend legislation. I know from past experience that you can have one island authority that has indicated that it is having difficulty with requirements of a particular piece of legislation, but it is keen to see it changed. However, other island authorities have no issues with the same legislation, and the problem might be a more local issue regarding the implementation rather than, for example, a problem with the legislation itself. I feel that if introduced amendment 28 it could become the default starting position for island authorities if they do not like a particular piece of legislation rather than engaging proactively to seek resolution through other means. I would also argue that Consmith's amendment seems to ignore the fact that we are creating island proofing for legislation in this bill. It creates his amendment a future where no matter that the legislation has been through island proofing processes that are set out in the bill, a local authority can still put in a request and essentially re-litigate the whole process again, and it can do that at any time. Regarding amendment 12 from Lee McArthur, I think that a number of the issues that are similar to those that I have outlined in Colin Smyth's amendment 28 also apply here, but it has the benefit of creating a simple and straightforward process that focuses on requests for island community impact assessments rather than leaping to the need for legislative change. I understand the point that is being made. I have been listening and trying to work out what we can do flexibly and proportionately to respond to members' concerns and to address those concerns. I have lodged amendment 10. That is based on an amendment by Colin Smyth at stage 2, and I am grateful for his input. The amendment will put in place a requirement to have an on-going, flexible and proportionate review process that would have the same effect as a retrospective assessment process. Indeed, I would suggest that it supports better governance all round. Government and public authorities and agencies should keep policies and legislation under review. We should want to be testing how things work in practice continuously and make necessary adjustments or changes as needed. My amendment would ensure that there is a continuing need to reflect on current policies and strategies and undertake island community impact assessments when required in a flexible and proportionate way. In order to give even further reassurance to members, I agree that it would be useful to determine whether existing legislation passed by this Parliament that needs to be addressed in terms of island's interests and needs. My offer to island authorities has always been that they have an open door with me to come forward with any proposals of legislation that they feel needs to be examined. I can give a further undertaking to the chamber that I will continue to work with cabinet secretaries and fellow ministers to proactively troll their portfolio interests for recent legislation policy strategies and plans to review the impact on islands. That action would have the impact and effect that is being sought to achieve without the need for legislation. I hope that members will support amendment 10 in my name. I urge Mr Chapman to withdraw amendment 24 not to move amendment 25. I would urge Colin Smith not to move amendment 28 and 33, as it would lead to the many problems that I have outlined. I would ask Liam McArthur not to move amendment 12, but if he does, I will be happy to support that amendment. I call Liam McArthur to speak to amendment 12 and the other amendments in the group. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. The centerpiece of this bill is its promise for so-called island proofing. A commitment that policy and legislation in future will be tailored to reflect the needs and circumstances of island communities and move away from a damaging one-size-fits-all approach to governing. That is welcome, of course, but it cannot be the extent of our ambition. For years, I have highlighted examples of where decisions by Government and its agencies have failed to take proper account of the island dimension. For island proofing to be properly effective in meeting the needs of our island communities, we need to be able to look back as well as forward. That cannot, I accept, be wholly open-ended. My amendment at stage 2, unfortunately, risked opening up the prospect of legislation down through the ages being subject to some kind of island proofing MOT. Government at neither national nor local level has the time, resources or the appetite to get bogged down in a never-ending review of every piece of legislation on the statute book. Having listened to the minister's concerns at stage 2, I believe that my amendment 12 now offers a proportionate means of enabling island proofing to take place retrospectively. The authorities would be the route through which an application for review of existing legislation or strategies would be made to ministers. They, in turn, would then have three months in which to confirm or refuse any request, giving reasons in the case of the latter. Where a request is granted ministers would then have six months in which to prepare a retrospective island communities impact assessment. Those are reasonable timescales and a proportionate response to the case made by all three islands councils, the committee and many others for island proofing to be extended to existing legislation, policy and strategies. I acknowledge and welcome the steps taken by Peter Chapman and Colin Smith to address the same issue. They hope that they and their colleagues might agree to support my amendment to take forward our common objective. Previously, I have given examples of regulations governing issues as wide-ranging is building standards to home care provision that, in an Orkney contest, risk achieving the absolute opposite of the laudable intentions behind them. That is in no one's interests, least of all our island communities. The bill must prevent such situations arising in future, but amendment 12 allows us an opportunity to right at least some of the wrongs that already exist. I am grateful to the minister for the indication of his support, albeit caveated, but Colin Smith, for the collaborative approach that he has taken to this amendment, looks forward to voting on the letter. Thank you, and I call Colin Smith to speak to amendment 28 in the other amendments in the group. Amendment 28, in my name, would require ministers to establish a scheme for requests by local authorities to improve or mitigate the effect of existing legislation. That amendment is entirely in keeping with the aims of the bill. The introduction of island impact assessments recognises the unique nature of the islands and the need to ensure that protections are in place against any unintended negative consequences of legislation. To limit that solely to new legislation when the impact of existing laws could be detrimental to our island communities would not capture the spirit of the bill. I believe that my amendment complements the amendment from Liam McArthur on respective impact assessments. There is a need for a general retrospective impact assessment mechanism and I fully support Liam McArthur's amendment to that effect. What my amendment seeks to do is slightly different and indeed may help reduce the administrative burden of retrospective impact assessments. In instances where a specific problem with existing legislation has already been identified, going through the entire impact assessment process would be unnecessary. Instead, local authorities will have the ability to request legislation as amended. Throughout the bill, the Government has been keen to suggest that the inclusion of any retrospective impact assessment mechanism would be some kind of bureaucratic burden and that we would be creating scope for endless assessments of every piece of legislation. However, I do not think that that is the case with those amendments. Under both mine and Liam McArthur's amendments, local authorities are required to make the case as to why any given piece of legislation should be assessed or amended if the request is groundless it would be rejected. Moreover, we should trust local authorities not to make frivolous or unnecessary requests. Given that this bill came about following the excellent work done by island authorities in our islands or future, it would be disappointing to send a message to those island communities that we do not trust them to highlight legitimate concerns over the impact of existing legislation and we will not give them a formal mechanism to do so. Just as legislations should be subject to the new duties that are created by this bill, so too should the policies, strategies and services of relevant authorities. Amendment 10 by Humza Yousaf requires relevant authorities to review policies, strategies and services to ensure that they are compliant with their new statutory duty to have regard for island communities. As the minister said, amendment 10 came about as a result of my discussion with the minister after stage 2. Members might recall that at stage 2 I proposed an amendment setting out a requirement to review a decision not to conduct an island communities impact assessment. I did not press my amendment at that time after the minister indicated that I would bring forward a suitable amendment at stage 3, which I appreciate is done, and I would therefore hope that all members would support amendment 10. Amendment 33 in my name requires that any regulations brought forward as a result of amendment 28 should be subject to affirmative procedure. That simply adds an element of oversight and accountability to ensure that ministers bring forward a scheme that is in keeping with the spirit of the amendment as well as the letter of the law and requires the affirmative endorsement of Parliament. I have a great deal of sympathy for the intention of amendment 24 by Peter Chapman, which seeks to ensure that relevant authorities existing policies are subject to island impact assessments. I am however concerned that amendment 24, as it is worded, would create an unreasonable and unnecessary burden for the relevant authorities. Under amendment 24, it would be required to conduct an impact assessment on any policy, strategy or service that has, at any point, had a significantly different impact on an island's community, regardless of whether it continues to. Further more, I believe that amendment 24 is aimed at ensuring that existing policies must be subject to the new statutory duty to have regard for island communities is already met in amendment 10, which requires relevant authorities to review their policies, strategies and services as needed to ensure that they comply with the duty. My interpretation of amendment 25 also by Peter Chapman has a similar purpose to amendment 26 in my name, but I am concerned that it may weaken the existing provision. Under my amendment, relevant authorities would be required to provide an explanation as to why they did not conduct an island impact assessment in relation to any decision affecting an island community. Under Peter Chapman's amendment, it would seem that it would only be required to do so in instances where the effect is likely to be significantly different from its effects on other communities. That is an important distinction and significantly raises the bar with regards to which decisions require an explanation. In instances where relevant authorities do not consider an impact assessment necessary on the grounds that the policy will not have a significantly different impact on island communities, it is right that local communities receive an explanation as to how that decision was reached. That does not appear to be the case under amendment 25, so we will not be supporting amendments 24 and 25. I speak to amendments 24 and 25 in Peter Chapman's name. In particular, let us look at the wording in amendment 24, which uses the phrase, which in the authority's opinion. I read that as meaning that the authority has to have an opinion. It cannot avoid having an opinion. If it is to have an opinion and we read in amendment 24 or have had, it must have an opinion on every single thing that affects the island. It has to invest the time and effort to discover that it ends up with no material opinion on anything, but it has to have an opinion. The amendment was brought forward at stage 2 to committee as amendment number 62 and voted down. At that time, I referred to the common good act of 1491. I did so because Corly Nhan, Eilan Shire, has no common goods and therefore is differential from other islands and you would need to consider the effect of the 1491 act on the western isles compared to other islands. However, I note that the legal effect of the 1491 act is minimal. I bring forward a different example, which is not decades back but centuries back, which is the minority act of 1663, which relates to the position of miners who have property but the leasehold will expire before they achieve their majority. Is there a difference in the islands? Actually, there is, because in Orkney and Shetland, we have a property law called Eudolaw, and we only have it on those two groups of islands. Eudolaw has an effect on the way leaseholds work. For people who are miners without tutors, they are affected by that in that particular regard. Mr Stevenson, I do not really want to halt you from mid-flow, but we have allocated nearly there. We have allocated one hour for this whole section. We have got John Finnie to get in, so perhaps if you could bring your remarks towards a conclusion. You have just pre-empted me. I was going to say that the final thing that I wish to say is the phrase, significantly different. Eudolaw is significantly different, but it is, of course, significantly beneficially different to the Orkneys and Shetlands, but it would still be forced to consider whether it should continue it, even though it is beneficial under the wording in amendment 25. John Finnie. My colleague Liam McArthur used the phrase, the centrepiece of this legislation, being island proofing, and it was certainly a phrase that recurred frequently. That has led to a lot of expectations, not least with regard to the question of retrospection. Although I think that no reasonable person would expect there to be a blank check associated with this and the fact that a retrospective application for legislation is unusual, I think of the amendments that are pressed before us and I would urge Liam McArthur to press his. It is measured and it is proportionate. I hope that he does press it and I hope that members will all support the minister's amendment at number 10. Thank you very much. As we are nearing the agreed time limit, I am prepared to exercise my power under rule 9.8.4a to allow the debate in this group to continue beyond the limit in order to avoid the debate being unreasonably curtailed. However, at this stage, I want to ask Peter Chapman to wind up and to move or to press or withdraw his amendment. I am only going to state that I will press my amendment. Thank you very much, Mr Chapman. In that case, the question is that amendment 24 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? No. We are not agreed. We will move to our division. Members may cast their votes now. The result of the vote in amendment 24 in the name of Peter Chapman is yes, 28, no, 94. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed. I call amendment 25 in the name of Peter Chapman. Already debated. Peter Chapman, to move or not move? Since this consequential in 24, I will not move. We turn now to group 4. I call amendment 26 in the name of Colin Smyth, grouped with amendments as shown in the groupings. Colin Smyth, to move amendment 26 and speak to all amendments in the group. Amendment 26 in my name amends the wording of my stage 2 amendment requiring that should a relevant authority decide not to conduct an island impact assessment, it must publish an explanation as to why. The amendment clarifies that this is only in relation to policies, strategies or services that have an effect on an island community. However, I should be clear that this is not intended to weaken or limit the current provision and will only exclude decisions that are entirely irrelevant to island communities. Amendment 9 by Humza Yousaf concerns a review mechanism and island impact assessments. In the stage 1 report, the committee describes such a mechanism as essential, a view that I entirely share. If island communities are to have faith in the process, there must be greater accountability. The introduction of a review mechanism is a straightforward way to ensure that decisions can be challenged and the voices of island communities are heard. However, the wording proposed by the minister makes the creation of this mechanism a possibility. I believe that it should be a requirement and amendment 9A in my name seeks to ensure that that would be the case. Amendment 2 by Tavish Scott requires that the guidance issued in relation to authorities' new duty to have regard for island communities must be approved by the Parliament before it comes into force. I can understand fully why Tavish Scott wishes this to be included in the bill. Indeed, a great deal of the bills potential remains to be realised that its impact and scope are dependent, for example on the development of guidance, regulations and the national islands plan. As a result, there is a strong case for parliamentary oversight when it comes to future provisions, so I am sympathetic to this amendment if Tavish Scott moves it. I have no objection to amendment 11 by Humza Yousaf and, likewise, I am happy to support amendment 15 in his name. Amendment 5 by Tavish Scott outlines ministers' duties to consult island communities on changes to any relevant policy, strategy or service. Clearly, establishing island communities' rights and ministers' responsibilities in this regard is very beneficial in my view and I have no objections to this amendment. Finally, amendment 34 in my name simply edits the wording of my stage 2 amendment, including integrated joint boards on the list of relevant authorities, to help to future-proof the provision and ensure that any changes are automatically captured. I will speak to the amendments in this group. I am happy to support Colin Smyth's amendment 26, having discussed with him the impact of his amendment that puts the new section 8, 4 into the bill at stage 2. I welcome that he has lodged amendment 26. I will provide helpful clarification that relevant authorities would not be required to publish reasons for not undertaking an island community impact assessment when the policy, strategy or service does not impact an island community in any way. I am also happy to support amendment 34 from Colin Smyth. It is a technical change to future-proof an amendment that he made at stage 2 that included all the integrated joint boards as relevant authorities in schedule 1 of the bill. Amendment 9, in 15, is in my name at stage 2, in which Colin Smyth put forward an amendment that attempted to create a legislative process that would allow for a review of a relevant authority decision not to undertake an island community impact assessment. There were a number of problems with that amendment and it offered to come back at stage 3 with a revised proposition and a compromise. That was to put in place a power that would allow ministers to make regulations with respect to reviews. The approach that has been taken is that, if the experience of the operation of the new island proofing measures in the bill identifies issues and problems and that review would be beneficial, then a review process can be put in place based on the evidence. That seems to me to be the sensible approach to take to enable a remedy to be sought should one be required rather than imposing a remedy before anyone could determine if one might be needed. Taking a power to set up a review mechanism by regulations also allows greater flexibility and, although the provision is silent on that, my intention would also be to enable the views and feedback of stakeholders and communities to inform how best to implement subsections 2A to F to ensure that we get the most effective way for reviews to take place. Although amendment 31 in the name of Jamie Greene will be discussed in group 10, it can be considered as complementary to my amendment 9. That amendment will put in place a review mechanism on the operation of the act as a whole, including the provision on island communities impact assessments and for that review to take place within four years of royal assent. Taken together, those amendments will provide the evidence to reach a conclusion as to whether a separate review process is required and the means to put that into effect. On that basis, I would ask members to support amendment 9 and to support amendment 15, which is a technical amendment to ensure that the regulations are subject to the affirmative procedure. On that basis, I cannot support amendment 9A, but I forward by Colin Smith. His amendment replaces the word May with the word must, and essentially means that we cannot wait until the report and evaluation of the act, nor, indeed, to establish if any evidence emerges of the need for a review process. Instead, ministers must make regulations to set up the review process as soon as we can after the provisions come into force. That seems unnecessary and disproportionate, and it risks creating a process for the process sake without thinking through the resources. However, it is also not thinking about whether or not that process is needed. It could be that we get to the review within the act and decide that that is not needed, but unfortunately we would have to do so because of Colin Smith's amendment. However, I understand why Colin Smith thinks that that might be needed. What I can give him is an undertaking on the record that we will evaluate the operation of the impact assessments process and that we will create a review process should one be necessary with the statutory underpinning, as set out. I hope that that is sufficient to persuade the member not to move amendment 9A, and if he does, I would ask other members to vote against him. Amendment 11, as I have said in my name, is another technical amendment. The criteria under section 123 were changed at stage 2 by GMA Greene to add in a financial implications requirement for the section 12 island communities impact assessment and legislation. That means that the criteria on section 123 are now different and more onerous to those under 8.3. My amendment makes it clear that an assessment completed under the more stringent section 12 is also considered to be an island community impact assessment under sections 8, and therefore demonstrates compliance under section 7. Amendment 2, from Tavish Scott, is the same amendment that he put forward as amendment 23 at stage 2. As I said at the time, I can understand what you are seeking to achieve, but I cannot support it. The content of guidance is crucial to understanding what is expected of public bodies in practice in relation to implementing and delivering the island proofing duty. Section 10 makes it clear that public authorities will be expected to follow that guidance, which will be developed in full consultation with island authorities, island communities and other relevant stakeholders. I am determined to ensure that that is a meaningful process. However, amendment 2 would stop the application of that guidance until Parliament has considered it and approved it and has the potential to substantially slow down implementation of the island proofing duty. It would also require potentially every iteration of the guidance to come before Parliament for approval, meaning that relatively small changes or additions would be subject to a lengthy and cumbersome process. I believe that it would reduce flexibility and adaptability and would slow things down so that the guidance will need to adapt with experience to highlight good practice and caution against bad practice. It is not normal practice for the Parliament to approve what is still in guidance issued by Scottish ministers rather than guidance issued by the Parliament itself. For that very good reason, the Parliament has limited time and resources, so to look at detailed guidance every time it is changed would be quite a burden. I offer a compromise at stage 2 and I am happy to offer it. I committed to bringing before Parliament the very first version of the guidance and draft before it is published so that Parliament could contribute to the development process. That seems like the most important stage for members to have sight of the guidance rather than every single time it is altered. I undertake to do that and, on that basis, I would ask Tavish Scott not to move amendment 2 and if he does, I would ask members to vote against it. Amendment 5 is also from Tavish Scott. I am grateful for the member for putting that one forward. He puts in a further step for ministers after they have prepared an island communities impact assessment under section 8, requiring ministers to undertake a further consultation in certain circumstances when a material change takes place. I have some worries that it introduces a new term, material change, which is not used in the bill and is a process that could add another layer of complexity. However, I understand the principle behind the amendments, so I am happy to support them. I call Tavish Scott to speak to amendment 2 and the other amendments in this group. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I was terribly tempted to start with a debate on noodle law, but I think that we will spare that one for another day. I actually really exercised and introduced an amendment on noodle law, but there will be a bill at some stage where we can do that. I want to speak very briefly to 2 and 5. First, I hear what the minister says on the facts around the guidance in terms of bringing a first draft to Parliament. I also recognise what he says about this amendment slowing down island proofing, which is very much against what I would be arguing for. So, while, as Colin Smyth is rather well set out, the arguments are in favour of guidance being adequately and properly scrutinised. Indeed, this is an enabling piece of legislation, and therefore it is important that any bill constructed in that way is properly scrutinised by Parliament. I take the minister's line that that first draft that he has read on to the record this evening, that first draft being presented to Parliament, allows proper scrutiny, not just with committees and members of this place, but also, of course, with the island communities themselves. So, on that basis, I might not move 2. On 5—to be honest, let me be blunt about this—this amendment would not be here but for Highlandslands airports limited, because the principle of consultation is enshrined in numerous Government documents of all political persuasions. And yet, Highlandslands Airport Limited, who are, for those who don't know, wholly owned by the Government and always have been, have imposed or planned to impose car parking charges on Kirkwall Stornow in Sombra without consultation. They have flatly refused to consult, which no one in the islands is at all appreciative of, and nor I believe should the Government either. Highlands defence—and I won't even give them credit for having mounted one—is that they know the answer to the question, would you like to pay for parking at our airports? But can you imagine—can Government imagine—the circumstances where a council, say Shetland Islands Council, decided to close a school and said, well, I'm not going to bother consulting parents, because we know what they would say. Not unsurprisingly, the Government would say, no, you can't do that, you must consult, and here's why. There's legislation, there's all these documents, there's your own strategies and many other mechanisms in place, you must consult. So I cannot conceive of how a Government agency, in this case, Highlands Islands Airport Ltd, cannot get away with not being allowed to consult on this. And on that basis, I hope the minister, even at this late stage, will recognise that, in the context of island proofing, it is extremely important that they are made to consult and do it properly and do it in the right way, just as any other local authority or public agency would have to do. And on that basis, and that's the basis for this amendment, I ask members to support it. And I call Peter Chapman. Thank you, Presiding Officer. We will be supporting amendment 26 in the name of Colin Smyth, as it provides a safeguard to relevant authorities who may not have the time or the resources to publish reports quickly, and it gives them time and a degree of latitude with the wording, and I quote from his amendment, as soon as reasonably practical afterwards and in such manner as it considers appropriate, so I think that that is appropriate. We also support amendment 9 in the name of the minister, but only if it's amended by amendment 9A in the name of Colin Smyth, because amendment 9 adds a section to review decisions made by ministers on island community's impact assessment. And although I'm glad to see this section added by the minister, I feel that Colin Smyth's amendment 9A is necessary, which changes the word made to must, ensuring that this appeals decision must be put into the bill, is very important. That was a recommendation at stage 1, and it is important to enable relevant authorities to challenge a decision on their island impact assessment. They feel has significantly impacted their community but has not been successfully assessed. We also support amendment 2 in the name of David Scott, which ensures that Scottish ministers must lay the guidance that they propose to issue to island authorities before the Scottish Parliament, and it is subsequently approved. That ensures that there will be cross-party scrutiny and that local authorities will receive the best guidance for their community. We support amendment 15, which is a technical amendment. We are also going to support amendment 11 in the name of the minister, because that comes about as a result of amendment 31. I think that it is by my colleague Jamie Greene, which is yet to be debated. In light of the comments by the minister just now, we feel that we can now support that amendment. We also support amendment 5, which would add a new section to the bill, ensuring that island communities are statutory consultees. We also support amendment 34, which is another technical amendment to the terms of bodies listed in the schedule. Thank you, Mr Chairman. I call on Colin Smyth to wind up in this group, and to press or withdraw amendment 26. The question is that amendment 26 be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are agreed. I call amendment 9 in the name of the minister, already debated. Minister, to move formally. Move. Before we vote on that, I call amendment 9A in the name of Colin Smyth, already debated. Colin Smyth to move or not move. Let me move. That is moved. The question is that amendment 9A be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are not agreed. We move to a vote and members be pressed their votes. Now. Thank you. The result of the vote of amendment 9A in the name of Colin Smyth is yes, 62, no, 60. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore agreed. Can I ask the minister to press or withdraw amendment 9A? Moved. Moved. The question is that amendment 9, which is now amended, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are agreed. I call amendment 10 in the name of the minister, already debated with amendment 24. Minister, to move formally. Moved. The question is that amendment 10 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are agreed. I call amendment 2 in the name of Tavish Scott. Tavish Scott to move or not move. Move. Not moved. I call amendment 11 in the name of the minister. Minister, to move formally. Moved. Thank you. The question is that amendment 11 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are agreed. We move on now to group 5. I call amendment 4, sorry, in the name of Tavish Scott, in a group of its own. Tavish Scott to move and speak to amendment 4. Thank you, Presiding Officer. This amendment requires Scottish ministers to prepare an island community's impact assessment in relation to existing legislation and strategies on waste management. That impact assessment must describe the effect of the legislation and strategies on the recovery and disposal of waste in island communities. I take the arguments that Jamie Greene and other members were making earlier in relation to the list, but the specific purpose I've brought this amendment to parliament this afternoon is in relation to the waste flow in Shetland. It's actually a very simple issue. Waste is used in the waste through energy plant, which then heats water and is pumped through Lerwick's district heating system. That heating system heats the Gilbert Bain hospital in Lerwick, the care centres across the capital, many of the islands or certainly of Lerwick schools and also many homes. That is the point of recycling the way it's done there. It was built using both local and government monies many years ago and it does complete a waste loop. I appreciate that there is much that can be said about waste regulation that has changed and will continue to change, but the importance here in this amendment is simply to ensure that waste legislation and strategies that government and local government devise and adhere to does understand the dynamics of what happens in islands. In the case of the example that I've given, that isn't currently the case. I looked to the minister for some recognition of that and I hope that he might be able to find a way to deal with that in the context of this amendment. Briefly, Presiding Officer, I suspect that the one thing that would be worth saying is that islands are allowed to be different in all sorts of different ways. I've really got some technical issues about 2C, which is hooking the whole thing to Royal Ascent. It's worth looking at what the bill actually says. It only actually, on the day of Royal Ascent, only sections 1, 2, 20 and 22 come into force, so it would not include this particular amendment. There is a wee bit of a construction lacuna in the way that amendment is made. In any event, given that the Royal Ascent point for this bill only creates the housekeeping bits and does not create any powers, it will only be when a subsequent piece of secondary legislation of commencement order is brought forward that the bill in any parts of it that mattered to islands will come into effect. I have a wee bit of doubt that Tavish Scott might address in his closing remarks about the construction of the amendment that is put before us. Jamie Greene, to be followed by John Finnie. I would like to thank Tavish Scott for bringing this to the attention of the chamber via this amendment. To recap on his point, it is a amendment that is a very specific issue that relates to a very localised area on a specific island. I see what he is seeking to address with this. One could argue that this bill is not the place to address specific environmental issues such as this. However, again, I would say to Mr Scott that this is the island's bill. If this is not the place and now is not the time, then where is and when. I think that for that reason there is nothing particularly to disagree in the amendment and he will have the support of these benches therefore. Thank you very much. I call John Finnie. I think that this is a graphic example of where the geography and Mr Scott uses the phrase understanding the dynamics. Here is a very clear case of a situation where you could argue of conflicting policies and there may be an expectation that I will be rising up to say something up, but I am not going to say it. We need to be pragmatic about our approach. We need to look at everything in the round. If Mr Scott presses his amendment, those benches will certainly be supporting it. I appreciate that there are challenging issues that remote communities, including those on our islands, can face in terms of meeting our policy ambitions for tackling waste. That is why we continue to work closely with island councils through Zero Waste Scotland to assist them in achieving compliance. With regard to the existing legislation in place, I am aware that island councils are making steady progress towards achieving compliance. Shetland, for example, we expect the recycling rate to increase significantly as their new recycling services are rolled out with assistance from Zero Waste Scotland, particularly in the light of Shetland island councils' decision in 2017 to sign the Scottish household recycling charter. A retrospective impact assessment on existing legislation and strategies, as proposed by the amendment, I believe would be of little value because of a significant amount of our existing law and policy that is underpinned by European Parliament and indeed council directives. Any deviation from those requirements could result in costly infraction proceedings being undertaken. It is more constructive to focus on the practical steps that are needed to improve recycling performance and to consider waste management options, which is what we are doing through Zero Waste Scotland. However, bearing in mind the very good points that Tavish Scott has articulated on the record, I am happy to commit to review of the best practical environmental options for the collection and processing of recyclable waste in Shetland in order to assist island councils in their duties. I am happy to ask my colleague, cabinet secretary, for the environment, climate change and land reform to meet with Mr Scott to discuss this work and, indeed, to bring together the relevant stakeholders in that regard. I believe that she has given that undertaking to Mr Scott outside of this chamber, and I am happy to commit to it once again on that record. I hope that, given those assurances, Mr Scott will withdraw his amendments. I thank colleagues for speaking to the amendment in the way in which they have particularly taken John Finnie's point given his party's position on what I might call a waste energy plant and he might call something else. First, I take the minister's point about a Government review of best environmental options. I accept that concession and accept it in the spirit in which he gave it and I am grateful to him for it. The other side that strikes me is having Parliament having passed amendment 12 in Liam McArthur's name that we debated some minutes ago. There is now a mechanism in place also to pursue this issue in a different way, so those two factors to me make clear that the parties that need to come together at home just to resolve this matter in the round can do so using what Parliament said today and what the minister said, and on that basis I wouldn't move this amendment. Thank you very much. As it happens, we actually now come to amendment 12, so I am going to call amendment 12 in the name of Liam McArthur, who has already debated, Liam McArthur, to move or not move. The question is that amendment 12 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are agreed, and I call amendment 28 in the name of Colin Smyth, who has already debated, Colin Smyth, to move or not move. Thank you. The question is that amendment 28 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. We will move to a vote on amendment 28. Members may cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment 28 in the name of Colin Smyth is, yes, 56, no, 66. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed. We turn now to group 6. I call amendment 27 in the name of Colin Smyth, grouped with amendments 13, 32 and 16. Colin Smyth, to move amendment 27 and speak to all the amendments in the group. Amendment 27 in the name would require ministers to create a scheme in which local authorities can request the devolution of functions to be considered. Similarly, amendment 13 by Liam McArthur would require the creation of a scheme for local authorities to request additional powers. Amendments 32 and 16 require both schemes to be subject to affirmative procedures. Either of amendments 27 or 13 would make an invaluable contribution to the bill, and accordingly I will be supporting both. The bill was created on the basis that island communities have unique and varied needs, and it purports to strengthen those communities, yet it could do more by way of community empowerment and the strengthening of decision-making powers for those communities. Those amendments would create a mechanism whereby island authorities can request additional powers if needed. That would improve their ability to respond to specific local problems and develop policy in line with a community's own needs and priorities. It would put power in the hands of local communities and help to protect island communities against centralisation. As with the case with the amendments on retrospective island proofing requests, a case would have to be made for those powers by the relevant local authority. Those amendments are not seeking to overburden already stretched councils with powers that they do not want, nor would they create a system where any power can be devolved automatically on request. The systems being proposed are practical and balanced. There has been much debate in recent ones about so-called power grabs and which powers should or should not be devolved to the Parliament. However, what is often forgotten is local councils. As more and more powers come to the Scottish Parliament from the UK Parliament, they should not automatically rest in Edinburgh, which can often seem distant from our island communities. If the Parliament genuinely believes in local democracy, then it should support the modest mechanisms in the proposed amendments that could make this happen for our island communities. I thank you very much. Can I call on Liam McArthur to speak to amendment 13 in the other amendment in this group? Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can I start by associating myself with the comments that Colin Smyth has made? Rather than the earlier amendments on retrospective island proofing, I am conscious that he and I have our tanks parked figuratively on each other's lawns, and from the record I am not partisan in terms of which of the amendments mine or Colin Smyth's Parliament chooses to support shortly. In terms of amendment 13 and the consequential amendment 16, those are an attempt to future proof the legislation. Donald Dure once wisely observed that devolution is a process, not an event. That bill should not, must not be the sum total of our ambition to empower our island communities. We must leave open the possibility, the option and even the encouragement for local authorities acting in the interests of the communities that they represent to request additional functions and responsibilities where appropriate. Granting any such request would not be a foregone conclusion. A robust case would need to be made weighing up both the pros and the cons. By the same token, any refusal by ministers would need to be based on sound evidence and subject to an appeal. As with my approach on retrospective island proofing, I believe that amendment 13 is both reasonable and proportionate in meeting what has been a consistent demand from all three island authorities for some time and on that basis, I hope that it, or indeed Colin Smyth's amendment 27, will find support across the chamber. I rise to support, give the support of these benches to both 17 and 13 in this instance. I think that they make very important points. As a member of the Royal Economy and Connectivity Committee, we took a lot of evidence throughout this process of this bill. Much of the evidence that we got from people on islands themselves was about decentralisation of power and decision making, and the decisions that are made closer to communities are better. All those amendments facilitate schemes for requests for the further devolution of specific functions where they can be considered. It is not going to create a major new governance framework change. I do not think that the bill is the place to do that, but I think that the rationale behind those amendments is an important one for us to consider in the context of what the island's bill is seeking to achieve. For that reason, we will support all the amendments in this group. Colin Smyth's introductory remarks said that islands have unique and varied needs, and I absolutely agree with them. Jamie Greene in the remarks has just made talked about decision making being brought closer to the islands, but I have to say that, in reading those two amendments, I see quite the opposite effect in the way that they do. What they do is to prevent the islands from deciding how to present a case for devolution. They mandate and require that we here dictate to them how they must be constructed. They will inevitably require in ensuring that they are making their requests in the legal form, if they pass either of those amendments, that lawyers in the local authorities will need to verify that they are presented in the legal form. Quite frankly, I trust local authorities and I much rather they decided how to put forward amendments because they put forward requests, because neither of those amendments creates any new powers for local authorities at all. What they do by contrast is to handcuff local authorities to do things in a particular way that is prescribed in one or other of those amendments. I feel very uncomfortable about that approach. I will, yes. I think that what the amendments do is put in place a process. You may take issue with the process, the island authorities are supportive of the amendments that we have lodged, but they put in place a process that is not there at the moment. Therefore, the mechanism whereby those additional powers may be devolved to local authorities is absent. I think that without one of those amendments passing, we miss an opportunity within the bill to future proof it to allow those powers, those responsibilities, to be exercised more appropriately at a local level where that is desired. If I may preside, I disagree. There is a process, it is there and the whole bill empowers island communities and local authorities. Of course, it is communities and local authorities. It is not just about saying what local authorities have to do. Colin Smyth's amendment even goes on to say that it is specifying how the consultation has to be undertaken by a authority before it submits things. Now, recognising what Tabith Scott has to say about consultation and how, which I have some merit, I am reluctant to consider putting handcuffs and describing for local authorities and creating potential additional legal costs for them, when they can do everything. If we do not pass either of those amendments, that does not stop any local authority and any community outwith a local authority from putting a request in that the rule should be changed to benefit their community. Colin Smyth. Devolving powers that Greens are about and there is clear role for the recipients of the power that is devolved in indeed their communities. Lest we all think that this is some sort of nirvana, we did certainly hear whom we are out and about, the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee that some committees were wary of some powers going to local authorities. I am aware of on-going reviews and work with the minister with COSLA. However, I do not think that we can wait forever. This is the vehicle in which some of this can be delivered. I think that there are challenges, not least because half the recipients have landward areas, too. Most local authorities, if not all, will have some sea-born coastline where they might have aspirations. All things considered, I think that there will be a lot of work required, but that will be in the discussion over the regulations, so we will be supportive of 27 and 13. Amendments 13 from Liam McArthur and 27 from Colin Smyth seek to allow island authorities to request the devolution of functions from Scottish ministers. Those amendments were debated at stage 2, although more well that Colin Smyth has amended his version following defeat at the committee. There are two main reasons why we will not be supporting the amendments. One is because we do not think that this is the right place for it, but secondly, we also think that that could have a negative unintended consequence on island communities, as opposed to necessarily councils. In terms of the right place for this discussion, of course, in December last year we took that important step on the community empowerment journey when we jointly launched the local governance review with COSLA. The purpose of the review is to reform the way Scotland is governed at a local level. Our approach is built on work done by others on the issue, for example, on the COSLA-backed commission on strengthening local democracy and the 2014 report of this Parliament's local government and regeneration committee inquiry into the flexibility and autonomy of local government. The review's focus on local governance means considering a wide range of Scotland's public services, not just councils, over which local people may want more control. Under the joint political oversight arrangements, the Government and the COSLA leadership will meet next month to discuss an invitation to individual local authorities, community planning partnerships, regional partnerships and other public sector organisations to come forward with the proposal for place-specific alternative approaches to governance. Last year's PFG, we made a commitment to support those island authorities who want to, for example, establish a single authority model of delivering local services. We know that island authorities are already actively working with local partners to develop those concrete proposals. The review is part of a process that will include a local democracy bill that we are committed to introducing in this Parliament. That bill will provide a more appropriate legislative vehicle in which to make provisions for the transfer of powers as this will be billed on the collaborative work undertaken throughout the review. It will also ensure full and proper consultation, and such a significant issue is the transfer of powers, which was not available to us at stage 2 or 3 of the bill when those amendments have been discussed. In relation to my second point on local communities, our starting point has always been that local communities hold—is the power that local communities hold rather than the powers held by those institutions? Local communities and local government are where we ultimately want to see power transferred. I know from the many island visits that I have undertaken that local councils for some island communities can seem as distant to them as, for example, Holyrood. I would travel to many islands in Argyll and Bute, or perhaps in Baran. In the Western Isles, where, for example, they would suggest that their council for them seemed as distant as I say, as perhaps even Holyrood might well be. Therefore, we want to ensure that power is ultimately devolved to local communities, and that should not be conflated necessarily with local government. On Monday, the Scottish Government invited people to lengthen breadth of Scotland to join a conversation about community decision making to help to make public service more locally focused. That conversation is called Democracy Matters. It will run for six months. We can expect many good ideas to emerge from that conversation with island communities. As you all know, communities on islands have often blazed the trail in community self-determination, whether that is community development trusts, making use of renewables, community land owners driving inclusive economic development, or indeed the recent buy-out of Alva by the Mawl community woodlands company. Although I and my colleagues across government agree with the spirit of those amendments, we believe that it is necessary that something as fundamental as a transfer of power needs to go through a proper and rigorous engagement and consultation process, which would be best achieved through the local governance review process. Therefore, I cannot support those amendments as they stand. In particular, Colin Smyth's amendment focuses on promoting legislation, and I believe that it may be too restrictive, as there may be other avenues that are not legislative that could better meet such request from authorities, so confining perhaps as opposed to liberating. As such, I would ask Colin Smyth and Liam McArthur not to press their amendments. I call Colin Smyth now to wind up in this group and to press or withdraw amendment 27. I have to say that I fundamentally disagree with the concerns of Stuart Stevenson, and more importantly, so do the island authorities themselves. It is a strange concept for Stuart Stevenson to accuse island authorities of trying to handcuff themselves. The amendments in mine and Liam McArthur's names put in place a mechanism that does not already exist to potentially devolve more powers to our island communities. I think that both amendments 27 and 13 should be supported, and then I am sure that it would be possible to bring forward regulations to deal with both. The minister has said that there is no need for amendments that provide such a mechanism to devolve more powers to our communities, because it will be dealt with in a possible future local democracy bill. My response would simply be that if you support more power to our island communities, then vote to provide them with a mechanism to request those powers. Do not wait for a bill that may or may not include such a provision sometime in the future, which Parliament may or may not pass. We have a duty to consider the legislation before us now, not what may come at a later date. I would therefore urge members to support all the amendments in this group, and I would move amendment 27. Thank you very much, and the question is that amendment 27 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. We move to divisions. The first group is a one-minute division. Members may cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment 27, in the name of Colin Smyth, is yes, 62, no, 60. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore agreed. I call amendment 5, in the name of Tavish Scott, already debated. Tavish Scott to move or not move. That is moved. The question is that amendment 5 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are agreed. Before I turn to the next group, and we are just at the head of schedule, I am going to take a short comfort break, so we will return again at 15.50, a short comfort break of just under five minutes. Okay, thank you colleagues. If I can call the chamber back to order, and we will resume business, we are going to start again at group 7. I call amendment 3, in the name of Tavish Scott, in a group on its own. Tavish Scott to speak to him, to move and to speak to amendment 3. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. This amendment creates a Shetland mapping requirement. It would stop with a single vote, the intensely annoying practice to islanders, that they have put up with for too long, which is that of placing Shetland not in its correct place 200 miles to the north of Aberdeen, but instead in a box off the Scottish coast, whether it be the muddy coast, the Orkney coast or any other coast, it's not the right coast. We will no longer accept the lazy interpretation of a map that we have put up with for so long. I say that about Governments of all political persuasions, including Governments of a certain political persuasion that I may have been involved in. It is right to get—oh no, the best to fess up on that one, it is before the Minister comes up with an example of it—that it is right to get this right. Here's why, just after stage 2, when we debated this very fully, the Minister rightly drew attention to the fact that the Permanent Secretary had addressed the Government in terms of a circular intermating that maps were to be correct in future. I elated the very next day when reading Twitter, which I know is something one shouldn't probably do on a tweet from the energy minister. I have a copy of it here. He was quoting renewable sources—it was all good stuff, it was quoting renewable sources—but the import on the tweet was a Scottish Government news release with a map of Scotland, which excluded Shetland altogether, excluded Shetland altogether. Minister Paul Wheelhouse, I have raised that issue with my officials and it's been addressed. I'm grateful for that, no doubt. As are his officials, I'm sure I will. John Mason. I thank the member for giving way. I've got a lot of sympathy, because I don't think that Shetland should be appearing next to Aberdeen, but the reality will be that the scale of all maps of Scotland will have to be reduced so that Shetland and everywhere else will be smaller. I'm grateful to Mr Mason's intervention. That is the cartographer argument. That is the argument that the men and women of maps have made to me, and no doubt to other members as well. I just don't buy it. We have put up with this for a long, long time. The cartographers make an intellectually coherent argument, but if one lived in a different part of the country—or, for example, if one was not particularly happy with the BBC weather map, which I know that some colleagues exercised that view during the stage 2 debate—I find that members of all political persuasions tend to raise that and ask it to be corrected. I understand intellectually the cartographer argument, but I just don't accept it. If you represented Shetland, you wouldn't accept it either. I just want to recognise that the minister has worked hard on that. I recognise the manuscript amendment that he has placed in front of Parliament today. I might ask him when he speaks to clarify the sentence in that, which says that, provided in such a manner, as they consider appropriate, the reason why they cannot do something i.e. place Shetland in the correct place. I am grateful for colleagues' support across the parties in making sure that, when we pass an islands bill, we put islands in the right place. I call the minister to move and to speak to amendment 3A. I know how important the issue is not just for Mr Scott, but for many of us in the chamber. I have sympathy with the position that he sits out in the very much spirit of his amendment. I think that any single one of us, his constituency, MSPs in particular, would have a concern if our constituency was distorted on any map. I know that I certainly would not like Glasgow Pollock to be in the ship presented beside the central barrel, or Edinburgh, heaven for friend, or any such thing too. I think that all of us can have sympathy with the spirit of Tavish Scott's amendment. I think that it is important that he has brought it to the debate. What I did was, in subsequent conversations with the member, tried to highlight where I am not convinced that legislation was necessarily the best way to deal with it. We now have a standing instruction with our publishing contractor to ensure that future images of Scotland in publications published by the Scottish Government should seek to portray the geographic location of all of Scotland's islands accurately, not just Shetland but all of Scotland's islands. As far as I understand, there have been no further issues since, but in shaming, my colleague Paul Wheelhouse, he made the point that sometimes those matters can arise. Therefore, I think that I have had really useful discussions with the member and other members who represent island communities who have concerns over the issue and other ways in which we can practically reinforce that message. I recognise that there is a continued desire for recognition of the issue in statute, specifically in relation to Shetland. Therefore, I will look closely at amendment 3 and the changes in the proposal from that in Tavish Scott's stage 2 amendment, in particular the leeway offered where an authority would be unable to comply with the mapping requirement. Although some flexibility in this type of legal duty is a welcome improvement, I thought that unable to comply is still a very high bar to reach. It could have, and to hopefully answer Tavish Scott's question here, the unintended consequence of making the duty quite inflexible in a lot of cases. I know that flexibility was a specific concern of the committee at stage 2. We do not want to be too inflexible in terms of a requirement. There may be good reasons for an authority not to comply. Indeed, it may even want to make Shetland, for whatever reason, disproportionately larger on a map. My amendment 3 suggests a slightly different test for the flexibility that we are looking for. That is where ministers or a public authority consider that there are reasons not to comply, then they may not follow the mapping requirement, although they must still provide information about those reasons. I hope that that also gives reassurance to Tavish Scott. It is a small change, but I think that a helpful one will allow more discretion and flexibility where the circumstances dictate. For example, allowing different maps to be produced, where it will help the reader or the authority to make a particular point about Scotland. Compliance with the mapping requirement should remain a fairly high standard, taking into account that public authority has a duty to act reasonably and will not just be able to ignore the basic requirements without good reason. Amendment 3A also takes the opportunity to spell out more clearly who is covered by the duty, specifically identifying Scottish ministers and local authorities without limiting the Scottish public authorities, which would be covered by amendment 3A. I am happy to support amendment 3A, but I ask members to also support my amendment 3A and my name, and I move amendment 3A. Thank you very much. I call Peter Chapman to be followed by Stuart Stevenson. Peter Chapman I thank you, Presiding Officer. As a group, we know Tavish Scott's amendment. I guess that this is an issue that has aggravated many people in Shetland and beyond over the years. However, having been contacted by several professional cartographers, and we are back to John Mason's argument from a research institute in my region, that has led me to have some concern over this amendment. This amendment means reducing the size of the rest of Scotland by something like 40 per cent, as there is just so much water surrounding Shetland, thus losing much of the detail in any of the maps that we do produce. Therefore, I support the amendment by the minister, who states that this cannot be taken into account and explanation can be published as to why. That gives flexibility, which I welcome. We therefore support 3A, the amendment to the amendment by the minister, as that makes the best out of an unpractical amendment. Thank you. I very much welcome the particular amendment from Tavish Scott. He, in particular, uses the words in a manner that accurately and proportionately represents the geographical location in relation to the rest of Scotland. We might even, perhaps, for the first time, see the relationship that the Shetland Islands have to near neighbours Norway, which most maps utterly felt, given that they are closer to Norway than many significant cities in the UK. I just remember that, when I was at school, we had Mercator's projection, which was what produced globes and maps. Of course, the F is round and you have to put a map on a flat surface. I recommend to you that you perhaps consider using Lambert's size of conformal projection, which would produce not a map but a chart. The reason that is important is that it means that, whenever you lay a ruler on it, you get the correct distances between any point on that chart. Therefore, if it is a chart and not a map, it is impossible for the proportion of Shetland to be other than accurately and proportionately represented. I encourage the implementation of the issue to consider that as an option, even though it will not be legally required if, as I hope, we do, we pass the amendments. Tavish Scott, first of all, to wind up on amendment 3 before the minister in 3A. Tavish Scott. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am grateful to colleagues for their support and the Conservatives' change in position on this one. It strikes me as ironic that Peter Chapman from the north-east is opposing getting Shetland in the right place. I do not know how many times when I ran a farm in a previous life that his colleagues from the north-east had come up and buy lambs and complained about 200 miles of sea before those lambs got to Mr Chapman's neighbours in the north-east of Scotland. If we were where some of Mr Chapman's maps had us, it would be a much shorter transport distance for our lambs and he would have paid £5 more ahead, but that is for a different debate. I hope that the minister was listening to Stuart Stevenson. I did not follow all of that, but I absolutely take his point in that I did not necessarily get it all, but it was nevertheless an important lesson for us all. The serious point is that I entirely take and recognise what the Government has done in this area. I hope that the minister would accept that it will have to be a very good reason, not necessarily for me, but for those people at home who feel incredibly strongly about this, for a public agency or an authority to say, no, we are not doing it that way, we are going to do it in a different way, i.e. still keep us in a box off the money coast. With that, I certainly recognise what the Government has done to bring this issue to a sensible conclusion, and I will certainly support the amendment in the minister's name. I ask the minister to wind up on amendment 3A. Nothing really for me to add other than to thank members for their contributions, I think that we found a sensible way forward. I was going to take a kind of coin or phrase from dirty dancing that nobody put Shetland in a corner, but actually that is exactly where we were going to end up putting them in the map, so I am delighted to move the amendment in my name. Thank you very much. The question is that amendment 3A be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are. We turn now to group 8, and I call amendment 29, in the name of Jamie Greene, in a group of his own. Jamie Greene to move and speak to amendment 29. The amendment is a big part of the bill around the creation of one and two member wards within local authorities on islands. The needs of island communities can be quite different from those from mainland communities, as we know. The current rules under the local government boundary commission for Scotland in the creation of electoral wards give two key recommendations, one that local authority wards can only comprise of three or four members, and the bill seeks to address that with the potential creation. I welcome one at that from across the chamber of one and two member wards, but the second recommendation is around the principle of parity. Across each individual local authority, the number and ratio of electors per councillor shall be the same. It is not exact in all wards. The boundary commission aims to recommend that wards have more or less than 10 per cent variation from parity within each other, but there is not a standard Scotland-wide number of electorate per councillor. Councils are divided into five categories, depending on their degrees of rurality and deprivation in the council area. If we look at the councils impacted by this bill, the three island councils have a ratio of 800 electors per councillor, a Gaelin but with 2,800 and North Ayrshire in my region with 3,000. The current rules dictate that there must be the same number of electorate per councillor across the entire local authority area. The problem with that is that it fails to recognise that islands that form part of a mainland area may have very different degrees of rurality and deprivation from the adjoining mainland areas within the same local authority. That is very much the case in North Ayrshire. My amendment would seek to allow the boundary commission to alter the ratio of electorate per councillor on an island ward within a local authority that contains islands and mainland. That does not apply to all island authorities. The amendment has been carefully worded to really only affect three. That is North Ayrshire, our Gaelin but and Highlands and Islands. The effect of the amendment is to revoke the rules that require parity across the entire local authority area. It will allow the boundary commission to consider arguments based on geography and local ties, for example, for a different ratio of electorate per councillor to apply in island wards. It will also give the boundary commission power to consider that, but any decision on that will be ultimately a decision for the commission. Other remaining mainland parts of the local authority will be unaffected. The important thing to notice is that the due process in those requests must always be followed. I have consulted with North Ayrshire Council on this specific anomaly. I believe that there is broad consensus of support within North Ayrshire Council and its electorate across partisan views. I will, in a second, want to further clarify what the amendment does. I would not want for this bill to pass, which would rightfully allow for the creation of one-in-two member wards, where the net effect would be a reduction in representation, for example, on the Isle of Arran. At the moment, the 3001 ratio would mean that, if we created an iron-only ward, we would potentially have one councillor. For the people of Arran to have two councillors, they would need to change the ratio to around 1800 to 1. To do that would be such a great variance from parity from other wards in that council area. There is no precedence in doing so. In fact, the percentage of disparity from parity is such that the boundary commission would be unable to approve that. That is what the amendment seeks to achieve. I am happy to give way to the member. Gail Ross. I thank Jamie Greene for giving way. He said that he has had consultation with North Ayrshire Council, but, obviously, that also affects our Gail and Bute and Highland Council as he had any consultation with those two other councils. Yes, I had a very long conversation on the phone last week with the leader of Highlands and Islands Council who had some questions around the wording of it. I am happy to tell the chamber that one of the concerns that was raised was whether that would be an automatic change across all island authorities. If one island within one local authority made a request to the boundary commission and that rule was agreed to, would that have an automatic consequence across all other island authorities? The answer to that is no, that this would still be on a case-by-case basis. The current process of applying to the boundary commission would still take precedence. All that is doing is allowing the boundary commission the power to create that disparity that does not already exist at the moment. Yes, consultation has been made with other authorities. In the example of Argyll and Bute, for example, where there are a number of smaller islands with small populations, there is nothing stopping them at the moment making representation already to the boundary commission to create a ward that is subject to the process as normal. What I am specifically asking for here is an amendment that will allow the creation of one in two member wards where the ratio is different. I think that it would be a shame if we passed this bill and the result of that was that we had no tangible changes on some of our largest island communities, so I would ask members from across the spectrum to support it for that reason. I wish to speak in support of amendment 29 in the name of Jamie Greene, as has been indicated already. The amendment relates not just to the islands bill but also to the local government. The Scotland act schedule 6 sets out that the number of councillors per ward based on electorate should be proportionate to the number found across the local authority as a whole. However, as Jamie Greene has said, there is a strong case for ensuring that the island bill allows for exemptions to that ratio, not just for all island wards but for all wards that consist wholly or partly of one or more islands. North Ayrshire Council, which includes the island communities of Arran and the Cumbries, supports the amendment of section 14 of the act. To make the most of section 14, it says that there must be flexibility around the underlying ratio. In North Ayrshire, where 95 per cent of the population lives on the mainland, the ratio of population per councillor for the authority as a whole is driven by the mainland's profile of rurality and the mainland's demographics. However, the bill's proposals for island proofing should allow the unique characteristics of island communities to be taken into account. North Ayrshire Council believes that the Boundary Commission should be able to consider an island ratio of electric per councillor, which reflects the profile of the island, not the mainland. That will not be possible under the current wording of the bill. On its own, the amendment simply gives the Boundary Commission power to consider arguments that islands that have widely different demographics from their adjoining mainland should be able to have a ratio of electric per councillor, which reflects their unique circumstances. In practice and all other things being equal, an unamended section 14, as Jamie Kerr said, could result in Arran getting one less resident councillor than at present because of the application of the ratio. That is why North Ayrshire Council believes that the Boundary Commission should have more flexibility. As Jamie Green has said, the Boundary Commission currently only has limited power to deviate from electroparity and aim to restrict any deviation to 10 per cent. It does not have power as things stand to propose a variation from parity of 36 per cent in Arran or 63 per cent in Cumbria, which is required to island-proof the democracy of North Ayrshire and create a two-member word for Arran and a one-member word for the Cumbries. That is why this amendment is required. North Ayrshire Council made a compelling argument for this amendment. It is an amendment that will strengthen democracy and accountability in island communities in my region. I will be happy to support it this afternoon. North Ayrshire Council asked me as far away as 26 September last, as it can stick into the member-to-lodger amendment such as this, which would increase the number of North Ayrshire councils from 33 to 35 by having an additional councillor for the island of Cumbria and an additional one for the island of Arran. I declined to support the council's position for reasons that I explained and I will share with colleagues my view shortly. However, I am curious why Mr Greene is moving this, given that North Ayrshire Council Tories made a right song and dance about what they alleged to be a waste of public money when an increase from 30 to 33 councils were mooted prior to the 2017 local authority elections. Nowhere in North Ayrshire Council's briefing does it mention that current legislation already allows the local government boundary commission for Scotland to depart from electoral parity, where special geographical considerations apply. That is paragraph 2 of the relevant rules that say that the strict application of the rule stated in paragraph 1, 2, might be departed from in any area where special geographical considerations appear to render a departure desirable. I support single member wards for island communities far from the mainland and argued for that in relation to Arnott local government and community committee when taking evidence both from Joe FitzPatrick, Minister for Parliament and finance secretary Derek Mackay and both ministers expressed sympathy for that. However, I am also in complete agreement with schedule 6 of the local government's Scotland Act 1973, which states that there should be parity across any local authority area. The Western Isles is 674 voters per councillor and North Ayrshire is 3,294. What is important is that each vote within the local authority area is of roughly the same value. It would be completely undemocratic for a vote in Arran with two councillors for 3,904 electors to be worth almost twice what a soul-coats vote would be worth. A vote in Cumbria where there are only 1,098 electors to be worth three times more than a vote in Largs. Cumbria is an eight-mile ferry trip from Largs. Other areas of Scotland such as Ergyll and Bute would have their arrangements distorted if this amendment passed. I have to say that not one of my constituents has contacted me to support the view that was expressed by the previous two speakers. Both Arn and Cumbria voted strongly SNP in recent years and so backing such an amendment could actually benefit my party electorally. Nevertheless, as it breaks the principle of vote parity within a local authority, I urge Mr Greene to withdraw amendment 29, and if not, the chamber to vote against it. Notwithstanding that it could benefit us politically, I will be not supporting Jamie Greene's amendment as put forward. For a couple of reasons, Kenny Gibson articulates those reasons very well. If I go through some of what I said at stage 2 briefly, the trouble is that, for North Ayrshire, that means potentially two different ratios for two islands of Arn and Cumbria. Amendment 29 seeks to supply the rule requiring electoral parity for wards that consist wholly or partly of one or more inhabited islands. Those local authorities that have both island wards and wards are on the mainland of Scotland. I can agree that the bill as it stands does not change the priority of electoral parity in the relevant legislation, but the current legislation does already allow for the local government boundary commission for Scotland to depart from electoral parity, where special geographic considerations apply just as Kenny Gibson has articulated that. In fact, at stage 1, Jamie Greene asked the chair of the commission, Ronnie Hines, a question as to whether there should be an ability to change the ratio. I will quote directly from Mr Hines. I think that the answer is important. He said, I quote, Our feeling is that, in the spirit of what the bill is seeking to achieve, the ability to have a choice between one or two member wards and three or four member wards in the islands area would probably get us to a position comparable to what is being sought. For example, we can readily construe a means by which we would change the current representation in Arn. That might mean that a ratio applied in Arn was different from the ratio applied in the rest of North Ayrshire, but, to achieve such an end, there would be no need for a new provision in the bill that could be done by means of what is being offered in the bill. Those statements show that the local government boundary commission for Scotland is willing to look at what could be done for each local authority area and is willing to work flexibly, whether it would be able to go as far as the member in North Ayrshire Council wants. Gail Ross's intervention was extremely important, because, in her question, she asked whether there had been consultation with a Gaelan bute and, indeed, Highlands Council. The member talked about some of the concerns that were raised in those calls but did not give an indication of whether those other local authorities were supportive of that or not. If I take a Gaelan bute, for example, it has 23 inhabited islands. No doubt, many of them will, at some point, argue the case for more island councillors. The impact potentially becomes quite onerous. Some very small islands could argue their case for their own councillor. What is to stop an island that currently exists of only two people asking for their own councillor? Electoral reviews can already be a contentious and disputed process, and I am not sure that amendment would reduce the potential for those disagreements. I am also not sure that the mainland parts of a local authority area will be unaffected, as Kenny Gibson has highlighted in his contribution. If the local government boundary commission for Scotland maintains its approach of determining council size and then determining the wards, increasing the number of island councillors may result in a decrease on the mainland. Does the member think that that will happen? Does he have a view on how we should respond to that? If the commission does not have that approach, it does not reduce the size of the council. If I take the example of a Gaelan bute who has 23 islands, it could, of course, increase the total number of councillors. We could have up to 23 additional councillors in a Gaelan bute and all the cost and so on associated with that. Stage 3 of the bill process is a difficult place to bring new proposals like that, when we cannot reflect further on important questions and amend later. I think that that should be better addressed perhaps through appropriate local government legislation that I have already spoken about that has taken place. I am coming forward to this Parliament. I would urge Jamie Greene to withdraw. If he does not, I would urge members not to support his amendment. I call Jamie Greene to wind up on this group and to press or withdraw his amendment 29. I would like to thank the majority of members for their input in that grouping. Neil Baby made some very valid points and perhaps gave the argument in a slightly different way, but he made reference some important points. The minister says, for example, that the Boundary Commission is, in his view, comfortable that it can already make these ratio changes. However, at the moment, the precedent is no more than 10 or 15 per cent in that difference. We are talking here about a disparity of around 63 per cent in the example of Cumbria. There is no precedent in that and there has been no on-record confirmation that it would be willing to make that type of ratio change. That amendment would allow it to do that. The idea that every island in Argyllun butte, for example, tomorrow will suddenly request to have their own councillor, well, they can do that today if they wanted. It is not going to change the process that they would have to go through either today or after the bill passes. However, what that does is ensure that if island councils did make representation to the Boundary Commission for an alteration, that the Boundary Commission would have the ability to create those member words. Nothing will deviate from existing due processes and practices. The suggestion that those councils will suddenly want 23 extra councillors is not the case at all. I do not think that it is worth spending a huge amount of time reflecting on Kenny Gibson's comments to make cheap political points out of what is a very important bill. Frankly, it does not deserve any more of my time. Mr Gibson might not think that the votes of Arran and Cumbia are worth it, but we on these benches absolutely do. That is why I ask members to support my amendment. The question is that amendment 29 will be agreed to. Are we agreed? We are not agreed. We will move to vote. Members will be cast their votes now. The result of the vote in amendment 29, in the name of Jamie Greene, is yes, 51, no, 71. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed. I call amendment 13, in the name of Liam McArthur, already debated. Liam McArthur, to move or not move. Moved. That is moved. The question is that amendment 13 be agreed to. Are we agreed? No. We are not agreed. We will move to vote. Members will be cast their votes now. The result of the vote in amendment 13, in the name of Liam McArthur, is yes, 62, no, 60. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore agreed. I turn now to group number nine. I call amendment 14, in the name of the minister, in a group on its own. I call the minister to move and speak to the amendment. Thank you. The purpose of amendment 14 is to amend the Marine Scotland Act 2010 to allow the Scottish ministers to delegate regional marine planning to a single local authority in the three island Scottish marine regions of Orkney, Ireland, Outer Hebrides and Shetland Isles. In order to carry out the functions related to preparing a regional marine plan, as it stands at the moment, section 12, two of the Marine Scotland Act means that any council or public authority cannot have outright delegated authority on its own. There must be another person nominated by Scottish ministers. Marine Scotland has been working closely with Orkney Islands Council to consider the options for creating a partnership there and to try to address some of the issues that council has had in finding a partner for the purpose of marine planning. The difficulties in Orkney were raised by local authority in its written submission to this bill at stage 1. Colin Smyth lodges an amendment at stage 2 to try and address the issue, and I thank him for doing so. I give a commitment then to liaise with him and come back with an appropriate amendment that addressed the technical requirements of this issue at stage 3, and the result of that is amendment 14. After discussion with him on what is quite a technical drafting exercise that I have lodged in this amendment, it provides for the situation where, if there is difficulty in establishing a partner for marine planning for an island council in Orkney, Western Isles or Shetland Isles, it may be appropriate to allow for delegation to a council as a single entity. The amendment will not affect any of the other eight Scottish marine regions. Even if the local authority were to be delegated to a single entity, there is a legal requirement under section 12.5 of the Marine Scotland Act that the ministerial direction on marine planning includes a statement of reasons for delegating to a public authority instead of a group. There is also a requirement for the public authority to consult with others and have regard to any representation that is made when preparing a regional marine plan. While a local authority will take the lead in the regional marine plan, others will be able to have their say. I consider those measures to provide the remedy that is needed here and I move amendment 14 in my name. Peter Chapman, to be followed by Colin Smith. Peter Chapman. Very briefly, we support amendment 14 in the name of the minister. We support the islands having greater authority and flexibility over their marine licensing powers and the ability to allow regional marine plans. As the minister said, amendment 14 in herm's uses name concerns an issue that is raised at stage 2 of the bill. I thank the minister for making good on his commitment to bring forward an amendment to this effect. Island authorities can often face particular challenges finding the required delegate partner for the delegation of marine planning functions, preventing these local authorities from being granted the functions. Amendment 14 provides an exemption allowing Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles to carry out functions for regional marine planning as a single public authority if they are able to demonstrate difficulty finding a suitable partner. That reflects the unique problems that these local authorities can have in that regard and ensures that they are able to experience the benefits of delegating marine planning functions in spite of the barriers that they face. That will improve efficiency and promote the integration of terrestrial and marine planning. Therefore, we are no surprise to learn that I fully support this amendment. Thank you very much. The question therefore is that amendment 14 be agreed to. Are we agreed? We are agreed. We turn to group 10, amendment 31, in the name of Jamie Greene in a group on its own, and Jamie Greene to speak to move amendment 31. This amendment is about report and operation of the act. The amendment says that ministers must prepare a report on the operation of the act. More importantly, it must consult the island authorities listed in the schedule of the act. I brought it at stage 2, perhaps with a slightly onerous timeline of one year, perhaps a little bit optimistic in the introduction of a new bill, but after some discussion with the minister and his team, I am pleased to be able to bring it back with the intention that we review and report on the act after four years. It is right that the next session of this Parliament gives the bill some scrutiny and that island authorities themselves can be involved in that scrutiny to make sure that the bill achieves its intentions. Simply to say that I very much welcome this final amendment in this group, Jamie Greene lodged an amendment at stage 2 to include a report on the act, although his timescales were a little short and I was happy to agree. In principles, we had very good and useful discussions in the lead-up to stage 3, so amendment 31 requires that four years after royal assent, the Scottish ministers must publish and lay before Parliament a report on the operation of the islands act and must consult public authorities and others as appropriate in preparing that report. That is a sensible proposal with an eminently sensible timescale, and I am happy to support amendment 31. Jamie Greene gade to wind up and to press a withdraw. Simply to move? To press. The question is that amendment 31 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are agreed. Can I call amendment 15 in the name of the minister, already debated minister, to move formally? Move. Thank you. The question is that amendment 15 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are. We are. Call on amendment 33 in the name of Colin Smyth, already debated. Colin Smyth, to move or not move? That is moved. Question is that amendment 33 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? No. Or not agreed? We'll move to a vote. Members may cast their votes on amendment 33 now. The result of the vote on amendment 33 in the name of Colin Smyth is yes, 56, no, 66. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed. A call amendment 32 in the name of Colin Smyth already debated. Colin Smyth, to move or not move? Move. That is moved. Question is that amendment 32 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? No. Or not agreed? We'll move to a vote. Members may cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment 32 in the name of Colin Smyth is yes, 56, no, 66. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed. A call amendment 16 in the name of Liam McArthur already debated. Liam McArthur, to move or not move? Moved. That is moved. Question is that amendment 16 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? No. We'll move to a division. Members may cast their votes now. Amendment 16. The result of the vote on amendment 16 in the name of Liam McArthur is yes, 62, no, 60. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore agreed. A call amendment 34 in the name of Colin Smyth already debated. Colin Smyth, to move or not move? Move. That is moved. The question is that amendment 34 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are agreed. That concludes consideration of the Ireland-Scotland bill at stage 3. Before we move on to the debate—in fact, we'll have a short suspension—I have a determination to be made at this stage. As members will be aware, I am required understanding orders to decide whether or not, in my view, any provision of the bill relates to a protected subject matter. That is whether or not it modifies the electoral system and franchise for Scottish parliamentary elections. For this bill, in my view, no provision of the Ireland-Scotland bill relates to a protected subject matter. Therefore, it does not require a supermajority to be passed at stage 3. Before we move on to the debate, we'll just take a short suspension and we'll resume at 1640. We'll resume at 1640. We'll have a six and a half minute suspension. I promise it suspended. Thank you. I think that all relevant members are back in the chamber. The next item of business is a debate on motion 1247, in the name of Hamza Yousaf, on the Ireland-Scotland bill at stage 3. Before I invite Hamza Yousaf to open the debate, I call on the cabinet secretary for rural economy and connectivity to signify Crown consent to the bill. I call on Fergus Ewing, cabinet secretary. Thank you, Presiding Officer. For the purposes of rule 911 of the standing orders, I advise the Parliament that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Ireland-Scotland bill, has consented to place her prorogative and interests in so far as they are affected by the bill at the disposal of the Parliament for the purposes of the bill. Thank you very much. Cabinet Secretary, we now begin the debate. I invite members who wish to speak in the debate to press the request to speak buttons now. I call on Hamza Yousaf to speak to remove the motion. Seven minutes, please, Mr Yousaf. Thank you. I'm delighted to open this afternoon's historic stage 3 debate on the passing of the Ireland-Scotland bill. The final passage of the bill represents an important milestone for Scotland's island's communities. The bill is unique not just to this Parliament but also to any Parliament, marking the passage of one of the world's first and only place-based laws. I say one of the first because David Stewart wouldn't forgive me if I didn't mention the Remote Islands Development Act in Japan. It is one of the world's first and only place-based laws. That is entirely fitting for our islands, which contribute so much to our culture, so much to our language, our landscape, our heritage, which has inspired poets, writers, songwriters, composers, artists, which attracts visitors from near and from afar as well. They have contributed hugely to our past, to our present, and with this bill and other measures we will now have the opportunity to contribute even further to their own and our collective futures. I have been in transport and islands minister now for the best part of 24 months for two years and travelling islands, meeting island communities, I have to say, is one of the best parts, if not the best part of the portfolio that I have. Today's debate marks the culmination of a five-year journey, which at its end will see past into law a series of measures designed to improve outcomes for Scotland's islands communities. In those five years, there are many people to thank, unless the cabinet secretary on my right has been involved very much in this endeavour, as was his predecessor also, but it is important for me to recognise those who have helped shaped this journey. Back in 2013, the three island councils of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isle seized the opportunity to push for greater recognition of Scotland's island communities. With their bold, our islands are a future campaign that started us on this journey. I think that it would be remiss of me not to put on record my thanks to the three leaders of the island councils at that time, Angus Campbell, Stephen Heddle and Guy Robinson of Shetland Island. The three wise men, as I often call them and still would call them, I think that in fact Angus Campbell and Stephen Heddle might be in the gallery today, so I would like to put my thanks to them. Indeed, for the constructive manner in which they brought this through and this bill is a culmination of their hard work and their efforts, not to say, of course, but the efforts of their successors have also engaged constructively the tail end of this process. Since then, this Government has worked constructively with those three councils and more recently with those of North Ayrshire, Highland and, indeed, Argyll and Bute to take forward our commitment to deliver an island's bill. I very much value their advice and put in guidance and look forward to it as we move into the bill's implementations. I also thank the committee and, indeed, other members, particularly those who represent islands, either in whole or, indeed, part, as well. In terms of the island communities, of course, the biggest thanks is reserved to them for those that have engaged with the process and given their thoughts around the bill. In terms of provisions of the bill, of course, of the range of measures—I won't go through them at all—but I think that it's important to mention one or two, the duty on ministers and a wider public sector on island-proofing, that concept that we must take into account and the needs and circumstances of island communities in the decision-making process. That will bring an island's awareness of the needs of communities into the decision-making process, into this Parliament, but much wider than that as well. I think that the island's plan is also something that is being looked at extraordinarily carefully. We've already, of course, debated it during the amendments. It's got a few high-level objectives already within the legislation, but much more room for conversation, consultation, discussion and engagement with island communities to see what else will inform that national island's plan. In terms of, of course, any plan that will require support to deliver its key objectives. Over the last 11 years, this Government has worked really hard to ensure that we're delivering for our island communities. For example, since 2007, we've invested £1 billion into our ferry services of close introduced RET, which has led to a boom on islands in the Clyde and Hebrides. We're going to be introducing RET to the Northern Isles, as I say, in the first half of this year's wills, of course, helping to support more recently in the recent budget internal ferries for what can be in Shetland. We've maintained their discount scheme, increasing it by 5 to 50 per cent, the maximum for the level of discount available. We've established a rural and island housing fund with £30 million. We've committed £600 million to the R100 programme, the biggest public investment ever made in UK broadband project. By the end of 2020, once gone will be the only part of the UK where every single home and business can access superfast broadband. One of the objectives of the national island's plan will be to improve and promote community empowerment. We can start that now. I'm delighted to announce an award of £114,000 funding through the Scottish Land Fund for North Yale Development Council in Shetland to enable it to purchase two separate areas of land in Cullivow. The Scottish Government fully supports the role of community ownership in bringing new employment business start-up and tourism opportunities to the islands. When it comes to island's engagement as well, I'm delighted that we have very good engagement with our islands. Communities through the island's ministerial group against it are up by my colleague on the right. That engagement for me is usually, of course, important. Most recently, some of that engagement has centred around a potential island's deal. The Scottish Government is committed to 100 per cent coverage of Scotland growth deals. I know that my colleagues are very much in continued dialogue with island's local authorities on that. On the next step, I'm moving forward to try to conclude. Today's debate marks the conclusion of the parliamentary process, but very much signals the start of some vital work that has to take place following royal ascent. I give our absolute assurance to all members across the chamber that communities will be an inherent part of that. They will feel that the plan that we have now taken forward in the legislation, I hope, will be their plan and will be one that will unlock the potential of island communities right across Scotland. On my appointment as Minister for Transport and the Islands, the First Minister assured me that this job came with great views, and it certainly does, but it also comes with great people as well. I've been tremendously fortunate in the last two years to have travelled to over 34 islands, in fact, in Scotland, to meet with island communities and hear from them the air expectations of this bill. The bill, in conclusion, is not for Government nor for Parliament nor even for the agencies who will play a key role. It is about people and it is for the people, those who have contributed to our island's heritage, those who contribute to their wellbeing now and those who are yet to come for whom this bill gives them and us all a strong platform in which to build a bright future for Scotland's islands. I therefore move that the Parliament agrees that the island's Scotland bill be passed. Thank you, minister. I call on Peter Chapman to open to the Conservatives. Mr Chapman, six minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am pleased to open on behalf of the group today. As with any stage of any bill, it is important to thank my fellow committee members, the clerks, the bill team and every consultee and stakeholder that we have worked with to get to this point. In particular, we need to remember that thanks needs to go to Orkney Shetland and Western Isles Councils who started the work to get us to this point back in 2013 with their Our Islands, Our Future initiative. I hope that after today they are pleased with this bill and that it gives them the autonomy and the powers that they hoped for. I have reiterated at each stage of the bill that enthusiasm and drive from the island communities has been fantastic and has been a driving force behind members of the rural economy and connectivity committee and everyone else involved in this bill to get it right. On our visit it was very clear that there is a community spirit and a willingness to work together and support each other, which is inspiring to see but sadly is often lacking in some of our mainland communities. This bill is a positive step for the islands and we as a group support the bill believing that it can make a difference to our island communities. A recommendation that was made at stage 1, which I felt strongly about, was the concept of retrospective island impact assessment. As the term island proofing was used from the bills early stages it was clear expectations would be raised that this bill could significantly improve outcomes where islands had been heavily impacted by legislation designed for and focused on the mainland. Retrospective impact assessments would enable islands that have been significantly impacted by previous legislation to have this reviewed by Scottish ministers with the intention of mitigation. Although it was not my amendment, I am absolutely... To Mr Chapman for giving way, just looking prospectively rather than retrospectively, could I ask Mr Chapman if the Scottish Conservatives still support the position that was expressed in a letter to Angus Campbell in his capacity as leader of council? David Cameron supported the empowering of the islands to enable their renewable resources to be realised through the enormous benefit of their communities by assisting the islands in respect of granting the necessary CFDs or other mechanisms to allow the island connections to take place. Mr Chapman, I will give you your time back. I thank the cabinet secretary for that. We absolutely recognise on these benches the potential that there is on these islands for wind production. We absolutely recognise that. Although it was not my amendment that enabled this aspect to be added to the bill, I am pleased to see that Liam McArthur's amendment did pass. Stage 3 has seen an improvement in the devolution of powers to local authorities. Island communities can sometimes feel disconnected from the mainland, but having this autonomy can make a big difference. I am pleased to see amendments passed today that allow this. The main point of this bill was always to empower island communities, and this can now start on the islands through their own councils and authorities. This will be something that we will be monitoring post-legislate lively to ensure that island authorities are achieving the results intended by those amendments. Another area where I had concern at stages 1 and 2 of the bill was in regard to marine licensing. There was cross-party concern at stage 1 that existing zetland legislation would be overruled by the marine development and plans section of the bill, and the dual licensing powers would not work on the ground. At stage 2 I did attempt to safeguard those powers. However, at this stage, with amendment 14 from the minister, I am sure that the Zetland County Council Act is protected from unintended repeal, while the bill also retains provisions to enable continuity of existing development and enforcement. I have had discussions with some of the councils that currently require marine licensing powers, and I am assured that they are comfortable with the current powers that they have and the ability to increase future licensing powers. I look forward to monitoring the progress that island authorities have with their marine development and any future marine licensing schemes that they may progress. In closing, Presiding Officer, it is clear that this bill, which has been fairly consensual since stage 1, is even more so by the final process of stage 3. This afternoon has seen amendments passed right across this chamber that help to strengthen this bill and ensure that it can empower every aspect of the islands and their communities. It was a pleasure and a privilege to visit so many of our beautiful islands during the consultation process and hear the islanders' views on what this bill means to them and what their hopes for it are. I hope to hear that those views have come into fruition over the next years and beyond, and we as a group will continue to monitor all of the pressing matters that we have discussed throughout this process and ensure that any snags and difficulties in its implementation are dealt with as soon as possible. Across this chamber in this afternoon's debate, there has been a tone of hope and expectation for what this bill will achieve for our island communities. Much of the change that we want to see can be achieved by considering the needs of our islanders right at the start of all legislation, but it must also be recognised that much of the disadvantages that are faced by our island communities can only be addressed if there is unnecessary money allocated to make things happen. The members in his final words. Without that budgetary commitment, many of the aspirations contained within this bill will remain just that, aspirations. Presiding Officer, I sincerely hope that that is not where we end up. Thank you very much. I call him Colin Smith to open for Labour. Mr Smith, please, five minutes. Labour shares the ambitions and aspirations of Scotland's proud island communities. Communities that want to grow their population, protect their stunning natural beauty and environment, improve their infrastructure both physical and digital, and tackle the scandal of fuel poverty. To fulfil that potential, we need greater empowerment for those communities and more locally driven decision making. The island's bill is a positive step in that direction. Does it deliver everything that we want to see? No, of course it doesn't. Could it have been more radical? I'm sure that I'll take an intervention. When the Tories talk about cash, it triggers my intervention and now Colin has essentially triggered my intervention around population because I think that it's a fair point. Repopulating our islands is a key feature of the strategy that will be required for the economic sustainability for our islands. The member then goes on to talk about empowerment and evolution to island communities, but is it not the case that to be able to deliver the population strategy for our country, we also require immigration to be involved to Scotland so that we can repopulate the country and with it are island communities. On that case, I know that the island council leaders agree with me. Does the Labour Party? I'll give you your time back and full names, please, in the chamber. Mr Smith. Yes, I do. However, it's slightly above the remit of the island's bill before us today. The island's bill is, however, a step forward. It could have been more radical. It could have given islands more powers, but there is much within this bill that we support. The proposals, for example, for the national islands plan has the potential to be transformative, to develop local solutions to local challenges by putting the voices and priorities of island communities at the heart of policy making. Island impact assessments and the new statutory duty to have regard for island communities are also welcome. All too often, island communities are put at a disadvantage as a result of a one-size-fits-all approach to policy by many of our very centralised public bodies. The impact assessment process allows us to identify and mitigate any unintended consequences for island communities of those policies, strategies and services from those public bodies as well as within the laws that we make in this Parliament. The changes to marine licensing and planning are also a positive step recognising the importance of our marine environment to island economies and to communities. The new marine licensing powers in particular are an opportunity to empower local communities, and the exemption passed today allowing island authorities to carry out delegating marine planning functions without a delegate partner addresses a long-standing problem for some of those authorities. The provisions on improved flexibility in electoral wards and the protection of the western islands constituency boundaries also improve representation for our island communities. Labour does believe that the bill could have gone further. We would have liked to have seen the bill devolve more powers to our island communities, really empowering those communities, putting local experience and expertise at the heart of decision making and in doing so reversing the drift of centralisation that we have seen in Scotland in recent years. More and more powers have rightly come to the Scottish Parliament from the UK Parliament, yet little has been done to devolve power from this Parliament to our local councils, including those of our island communities. However, as a result of amendments to the bill proposed and agreed today and also at stage 2 to the bill, it was much stronger than it was at stage 1. I am especially pleased that today my amendments were successful to create a mechanism for island communities to request more powers and to enable and ensure that the Government must bring forward regulations to allow for a review mechanism on decisions assessing the impact of policies on island communities. Scottish Labour put forward positive proposals that have, in my view, strengthened this bill, as have the welcome amendments made by the Government that adopt some of Labour's early proposals at stage 2, along with amendments from other members right across the chamber, which have received real cross-party support. When it comes to vote later, Labour will therefore support the bill, which I hope will receive unanimous support. The priority will then shift to ensuring that the aims of the bill are realised. Many of its key provisions will rely on future work most significantly on the development of the national islands plan. We must aim to ensure that the development of that plan and likewise other guidance, regulations and schemes reflect not only the letter of the law, but the spirit of the bill that hopefully we will agree later today. I look forward to working with it, the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee, and colleagues across the chamber to ensure that the bill's aims are matched in its delivery. I also want to conclude by placing on record my thanks to those who have made this bill possible, and that is Scotland's island communities. The work of many of those communities on our islands, our future campaign, made clear that there was a real need to better support and empower our islands. My islands may only represent 2 per cent of the population of Scotland, but their value to our nation is truly immeasurable. Today, by hopefully passing Scotland's first ever islands bill, Parliament will take a small but important step forward in recognising and respecting those islands values. I thank the various people who have contributed to us getting to this point. That is our very valued staff, the witnesses who are engaged. Indeed, I think that this particular piece of legislation has been an example of excellent cross-party work that we have heard from previous speakers about the ministerial engagement on proposals at an earlier stage, and I think that that is a good template for how we should be doing business. I think that it will turn out to be a historic piece of legislation. It is certainly the direction of travel that the Scottish Green Party wants to see more about. Indeed, the principle of subsidiarity has been referred to, and that is what we want to see. However, there are no powers for power sake, there are additional powers to be used wisely, and they will be used wisely. We would of course like them to see them ultimately extended to greater tax-raising powers for local authorities so that they are creating a greater proportion of... raising revenue for a greater proportion of their budget. That is all very welcome. I have to say that it created a lot of expectations, and all those expectations have been realised, while time alone will tell. However, one of the groups that will have raised expectations among rural communities who are not associated with either of the three exclusive island authorities, or the three menlin authorities with islands, and they were quite often referred to in our evidence in places such as North West, Southland and Ardenmarch, and places such as that, where many of the problems that we discussed and hopefully have gone some way to addressing apply as well. What is very clear is that there are no two islands the same, there are no two communities the same, and we often experienced when we did get out and about, and it was a great opportunity to get out and about, particularly for you southerners who do not get up to the far north with any frequency. We also found that you get a group of people in a room and, as anywhere, you get a range of views, and I think that we hopefully have embraced the wide range there were. There are opportunities coming up, looking at crofting legislation, and I think that the wanting to sustain communities, and that is a much abused word, but in its real sense for what we really want to do, retain populations, have vibrant rural communities, some of the crofting legislation with regard to issues like new entrants I think is going to be important. UHI has shown the way with its collegiate system of delivering education to retain our population, but as it has been touched upon, immigration is something that is going to be an important consideration for our islands going ahead. I would just say, in the last session of Parliament, I represented the Ren independent green group on the ministerial group, indeed chaired by the same minister, Mr Yousaf, where there was cross-party consensus, including the Conservatives, about trying to reintroduce the post-visa, the post-study visa system. There was consensus, and it was the then Home Secretary, a Mrs May, who cut the legs out of that. We need to look at making our islands truly sustainable. The retrospection aspect is something where there was a lot of expectations built. There was a number of amendments came here today, and as others said, I think that the discussion around them showed that a proportionate approach has been adopted. We don't all in life get what we want, and that applies to legislative amendments too. I think that nothing about retrospection should take away the need that any organisation has with any policy or process to be continually evaluating that. If, as we know, some of them already have had a disproportionate impact on island communities, that should be being addressed as well. In the very short time that I have left, I think that nothing summed up the situation better than the example of waste management that my colleague Tavish Scott bought in the chamber. In the pragmatic way that that has been addressed, there will always be challenges. Hopefully, that will go some way to addressing them. Many thanks. Thank you very much. I call on Mike Rumbles to close the Liberal Democrats, Mr Rumbles. Four minutes of their abouts, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I first of all say that, after 14 years of lawmaking in the Scottish Parliament, this for me has been a very unusual bill process. I am the Liberal Democrat lead on this bill, but I recognise at the outset that the particular interests and expertise of my two Liberal Democrat colleagues, Liam McArthur constituency MSP for the Orkney Islands and Tavish Scott constituency MSP for the Shetland Islands. They have worked extremely hard on successful amendments to improve this bill, for their constituents in both Orkney and Shetland and their constituents have been extremely well represented by them both, and they have taken some of the work from my shoulders, if I may say. However, when the bill was first published, I was worried about raising the expectations of our islanders about the bill. While the bill gives more powers to island councils and communities, it does not provide any extra funding or resources and, to be fair, the Government did not set out to say that. It does not give it to the 66 public authorities for which this bill applies and are listed in the schedule. On our committee visits to... I went to Mull and to Orkney. When we spoke to islanders, I did feel that when they heard the bill was about island proofing, there was an expectation that funds would somehow be found to put things right. From the finance minister, absolutely. Cabinet Secretary. I thought that Mr Rumbles might take this intervention. I appreciate that he has. Does the member recognise that it doesn't come with a new pot of money per se, but what the bill in its entirety and in negotiation with the leaders and communities can do is make sure that our public services are reconfigured to support island communities in the way that they have been asked to do? Mr Rumbles. I do appreciate that point, but what I was reflecting was what the islanders were saying to us on the committee. One of the other major concerns was that island proofing could be no more than a tick box activity by the 66 public authorities identified in the schedule. As the bill stood, there might have been, for instance, the ability for any one of the 66 authorities to have someone sitting in an office somewhere, let's say, in the central belt, and claiming that they had indeed conducted a desktop impact assessment. This should not now be possible with the amendments that we have passed today where consultation means real consultation. There have been major improvements to this bill, and we looked at the National Islands Plan in committee. We actually did feel that what was the purpose of the bill. The islanders expected some headline activities, and I'm pleased, despite what was said earlier on, that we've got things like increasing population levels. What are the purposes of that? I'm pleased that the islanders said that we've got things like increasing population levels. What are the purposes? Environmental wellbeing, improving transport services, improving digital connectivity, reducing fuel poverty, ensuring effective management of the Crown Estate. These are all really important issues, and we've got them onto the face of the bill. That's not the state others are excluded, but MSPs came forward with these and felt they were really important, and it reflected what people were saying to us. And particularly requests for respective island communities' impact assessments, retrospective ones, was really important. A scheme for requests by local authorities for the devolution of functions, these are real changes and real improvements. I am now convinced with the amendments passed today that this is a much improved bill. I'm not criticizing the Government here, but it really does show the benefits of examination by the Parliament, where the Government doesn't automatically have a majority, and that's one of the really good things about the process that we have here. It can't just whip its MSPs to vote those things through their genuine attempts to improve the bill. I can say when, aside to the minister, when I said, how is he going to oppose one particular amendment, he said, oh, we're opposing it, does that mean you're going to support it? No, we've always said at stage 3, from our perspective, we're conscious we're making law here, I think we have got it right. It's a much improved bill and it's a bill that I'm sure we can all support. Thank you very much, Mr Rumbles. Open debate called Stuart Stevenson, to be followed by Jamie Greene, please. Mr Stevenson. Presiding Officer, it's perhaps no surprise that it should be the SNP who brought forward the island's bill, because we are the only political party here. As far as I'm aware, who has previously owned an island, Eilanmore Macormack, that was gifted to our then party leader in 1979. It's now put on a slightly different footing and there's a trust which is a registered charity that looks after that island. I look forward to the new arrangements for electing councillors, leading to one person living on Eilanmore Macormack electing themselves as a councillor and serving accordingly for that. It's worth having a wee look back in the history of how some of the things happen. 100 years ago, if you lived in Tarbot Harris, you were part of a council who had its headquarters in Inverness and if you lived in Stornoway, you were part of a council that had its headquarters in Dingwall, because one was in Invernesia and the other was in Ross and Cromarty, which was the most idiosyncratic way of looking at things, notwithstanding the intense rivalry between the people of Harris and the people of Lewis. In more modern times, when the post codes were first introduced after a trial in Norwich in the early 1960s, the post code for Stornoway was a PA post code. In other words, it was a paisley post code because the first class mail was sorted in paisley, and, of course, the aircraft came from an aerodrome, Glasgow, which was in paisley, to transport the mail up to Stornoway. Now we have a post code that reflects the character and individuality of the area, HS. I have no idea where the HS comes from, but that's for Hebrides. I've just whispered in my right ear, see, you can learn something every single day. One of the things that the debate has done is written Tavish Scott's obituary. It's something that I hope is not required for many years to come because when his obituary is published, it will have at the top of the page the man who saved Shetland from obscurity by getting the amendment that puts Shetland in its proper place in the cartographer's world. It's not trivial matter, it's not just an emotional matter. I remember in the early 70s at the Bank of Scotland we were doing an exercise, a modelling exercise, a mathematical model exercise, to try and work out where a branch network should be. Amazing how some things come back again, isn't it? We were looking at how far people might have to travel to different branches. A company in London was doing the data prep and when we did the first run of the model, the results looked a bit odd because apparently a laryg branch should be getting customers from Elgin and the coast of the Murray Firth. Of course, such a gross error you could notice because they hadn't realised in London that Shetland wasn't in the Murray Firth and they had mapped it according to its being so. There are practical effects to some of the things that we see. It's been an interesting debate. My little contribution to the islands is the privilege of being the minister who brought RET to the islands and other places. Although I gather it's not 100 per cent popular, but I haven't really met the people with whom it's unpopular. We now move, Presiding Officer, to get off the purple paper and on to the vellum, the parliamentary beehives. We're working overtime to provide cheesewax, which will create the sale on this excellent bill. I wish it bon speed and every success to our island communities. Thank you very much. I now call Jamie Greene, followed by David Stewart. Mr Greene, please. I have no idea what will be the only victory for Stuart Stevenson, but I really dread to think members. I'm sure everyone in the chamber will reflect on not just today's debate and beeswax and maps, but also the process that we've gone through as a Parliament to get to where we are at stage 3 of this bill. I'd like to thank the transport minister for bringing forward this bill and for engaging with all members from different parties on some of the amendments that we've had. It's been a very constructive process. At times we haven't always agreed on the wording of things or the concept behind things. I think that we've got to a place where some very excellent amendments have got through this afternoon, as the debate showed us. This was much more than just an academic exercise. It was very much about getting out there into the heart of islands. The minister went to number of islands. I know many of us as members, but also as committee members equally went out and met various communities. I think that, as John Finnie says, you put a bunch of people in a room that will all have different views on things. A point was raised earlier about the fact that some people don't want more local authorities to have more power, but they see that their local authorities have been far away and attracted from them equally as they do of central government in Edinburgh. There are lots of things to think about. It's not easy to produce a bill that will do everything for all people. If we look at where we got to from stage 1 to where we are, the committee recommended to have produced the final version of the bill on local empowerment and the devolution of powers on the national islands plan and how it should be consulted with on measuring the plans and outcomes and reviewing the act on putting islands at the heart of consultation on the retrospective elements of impact assessments. There are a number of areas where we have made progress. The island plan really very much will be the proof in the pudding of this. Whilst there are some issues on the face of the bill, I don't think that's quite enough. I'm pleased that the islands plan will go through an iterative process and will come to the Parliament in due course, but I do hope that it is more than just words on paper. We did talk a lot about the concept of what island proofing is and I think that we decided as a committee that we're not really island proofing in this bill. The definition of island impact assessments is not the same as mitigating the findings of those impact assessments. Impact assessments cannot just be bits of paper or box-ticking exercises. They must be genuine analysis of policy, of strategy, of bills, of legislation, of decisions that are made both at this level but also at local authority level. They cannot just become a piece of paper that says, yes, we thought about the islands but that box will move on. The finance minister is not here but this isn't about asking for more money always. It's about doing things in a different way. I think that despite our best efforts things will not change overnight on island communities. People there will still pay more for petrol than people on the mainland. They will still struggle to get hospital appointments due to the logistics of getting to mainland hospitals. They'll still struggle to fill professional posts and teaching and GPs. The things that we talk about so much on this chamber, it won't magic our roads better, it won't make our beaches cleaner, it won't suddenly create housing overnight or indeed will it create parity and access to our public services. But in the spirit of positivity today this bill is a start. What it's done is it's forced us as MSPs, as policy makers, as governments to have a very public discussion about what our islands want and what they need. I hope that discussion turns into action. We should, at the heart of every decision that we make, think what effect will this decision have on our island communities. The fact that we're thinking that itself is progress and I welcome this bill as a result. Thank you very much. I call David Stewart, followed by John Mason. Mr Mason will be the last speaker in the open debate. Mr Stewart, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. As an island member, I strongly support any and every political initiative and I want to thank the minister, my MSP colleagues and the councils particularly of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles for their tireless work on this endeavour and I welcome them today to the gallery. Of course, there's nothing new in the argument at home and abroad about strengthening our island communities and of course the minister would expect me to mention the 2016 Japanese Act for Remote Islands which was passed a couple of years ago. In that time we had the Montgomery Committee which reported in April 1984 which recommended consolidating, developing and extending the powers of island councils. Other members have mentioned the key elements of the Treaty of the European Union the key principle is the severity, taking decisions in a localised and decentralized way and of course the European Union has always had a strong and consistent policies to give special attention to the specific characteristics of territories with serious and permanent handicaps including islands. That's why the development of structural funds were so important for island communities. Those handicaps are well known to islanders limited in costly modes of transport restricted in declining economic activities and the fragility of markets and the loss of young people. However, some things have not changed and at conference I mentioned at stage 2 that was organised in the European Union regions, the 2011 Euro-island study that was looked at. That analysed island communities across the EU and it was debated and discussed and looked at common characteristics across the 28 nations that by and large islands have below-average connectivity their GDP is below the European average economic convergence is slower the number of job increase opportunities are low and services are available quality and high cost two specs sorry, which also concluded that the islands have close-nit communities. They've got high value, natural capital and the potential for renewable energies. Also noted that islands experienced higher vulnerability to climate change through heightening sea levels and increasing leg-looted storms. All this comes together to mean that policies and laws affect island communities in a way that they don't affect anywhere else. While they have some similarities with rural regions. In general, the specificity and preferably violence marks them as different. Because of that, it's important that we are not territorial blind to use the words of the EU's global Europe 2050 vision. While much of this bill is to be celebrated, it has very good detentions at a very high level and leaves much of the detail to be set out in regulations, but it also makes it hard to determine what the work in practice will look at. As the Western Isles Council has argued in a letter to me, the acid test will be strong and effective island proofing that will mark the success of the bill as well as the future of our island communities. How and when will an island's impact assessment be required? Real devolution means additional powers to the island communities. Will this happen with the bill? New powers need financial muscle. Real devolution means resource-based control, transparent control of the seabed from the Crown of State, island authorities and perhaps onward to community land and harbour trusts. New powers need strategic decision making in the planning, designing and commissioning of mainland ferry services and the recognition of island status in the Scottish constitutional set-up. I agree with what the member is saying. Does he recognise that the island's bill is part of a suite of measures that is taking into account the Crown of State measures that we are taking forward, the community empowerment measures that we are taking forward and the national island plans that will come forward as part of the bill? I agree with the point that the minister has made, but also in the final few seconds. Real devolution means public sector job relocation, as John McConnel did when he moved SNH headquarters from Edinburgh to Inverness. How about the Calomac HQ to Western Isles, Crown of State's HQ to Orkney or the Land Commission HQ to Shetland? How about single public authority status for health board local authority and high under one umbrella in each island authority? I celebrate this legislation that has been brought forward, acknowledging the different and varying needs of island communities. A journey of 1,000 miles begins with the first step. This bill is a first step and to be welcomed. To finish with the words of Salden McLean, my tail is of the ethos of our island's ebbs. Our islands have been ebbing for too long and now is the time to change that tail. How did you manage to get that in, Mr Stewart? I am delighted that we have got to stage 3 with this bill, which has to be one of the most enjoyable bills, as well as being very important and useful that I have been involved in. To be able to visit a number of Scotland's fabulous islands with the Wreck Committee and count it as work was absolutely great. When we visited Mull, I took the chance to pop over to Ulva, so I think that there is something symbolic about the fact that the community by out of that island has moved ahead so far, even as the island's bill has made its way through Parliament. Islands are a key part of Scotland's history and geography, so I believe that we all as a nation have a responsibility for them, for their communities and for their general wellbeing. Despite representing a city constituency, many of my constituents would have connections with the islands, such as families who have come from there or relatives who still live there. I do not see the bill as some kind of minority interest, rather it is of national interest and makes it clear that Scotland's islands must be in the mainstream of our thinking, particularly here in the Scottish Parliament. We spent a lot of time in the committee considering topics including what should be in the bill itself and what should be in the island's plan. Within that, there was clearly a temptation to put more on the face of the bill and I think that there has been movement on that point and we have reached a reasonable position. Then again, the question of island impact assessments have been the subject of much discussion and debate. The term island proofing has been used as well, and my concern has been that that term might suggest that we could make life on the islands exactly the same as life on the mainland of Scotland. However, that can clearly never be the case. When you are living on a piece of land surrounded by water and you cannot get on and off 24 hours each day, yes, there is something different. It is true that Ardena Merchan and other parts of the mainland can be extremely remote and residents face similar challenges to those living on the islands. However, I remain convinced that islands are uniquely different and that it is not only justified but necessary to have legislation specifically for islands as we hope to pass today. I do not believe that we can island proof in the sense that we can water proof something, but I do believe that island impact assessments can make various public authorities, including ourselves in Parliament, think more carefully and consider more often what the impact of our actions is on the island. When the committee visited various islands, the subject of ferries was always high on the agenda, and just this morning we had CalMac at the Wreck Committee to discuss capacity, RET and a host of related matters. The committee is well aware that ferries are central to island life, but we cannot expect topics like that to appear in the national islands plan rather than in the bill itself. I am particularly pleased that an impact of our actions passed at stage 2 included uninhabited islands in the bill. Just because no one lives permanently on a particular island today does not mean that that will continue to be the case, and even if no human being lives in an island at all, it can still be vitally important for birds and other wildlife. In that regard, I am particularly grateful to RSPB for their commitment and assistance in framing amendments around national heritage in the environmental wellbeing, et cetera. Now that we have the ball rolling more seriously for Scotland's islands, I am planning to spend my summer holiday visiting some of England's islands, and I will maybe report back on that as to how they are doing. However, for now, I commend this bill to Parliament and very much hope that it will pass at decision time. I thank the councils and communities who work to shape the bill. The bill needs to empower rather than protect. Protecting assumes that the Scottish Government knows best, and this is seldom the case. The people on the ground know best. They need to be empowered to make decisions that affect their future. I thank the councils and communities who work to shape the bill. The bill needs to empower rather than protect. Protecting will need to be empowered to make decisions that affect their future. That was the vision of the three islands councils when they brought forward our islands, our future. We have strengthened the bill, but much work still needs to be done around the island's plan if it is going to meet expectations. Colin Smyth said in his remarks that the bill could have gone further. Of course, that is true, but he and his amendment 27 and a similar amendment from Liam McArthur allow Scottish Government powers to be devolved to island authorities. That allows islands to make decisions that suit their needs, because too often we have seen that islands are handed down policies and targets that run contrary to their needs. David Stewart said that powers need to also come with resources, and I think that that is very much the case. If those powers are to be devolved, the resources that make them happen need to be devolved. It allows those policies to make a genuine difference to our island communities. There were also amendments on retrospections passed today, which are very important to the legislation. I do not think that every law should be reviewed to see how it works with regard to islands, but there are policies and there is legislation in place that damages our island communities. We have seen recently with the Highlands and Islands airports limited, a wholly owned Scottish Government company, looking to centralise their air traffic control. That could move those jobs out of islands and out of the Highlands and Islands altogether. That would be a retrograde step, so hopefully those amendments with regard to retrospections will make Highlands and Islands airports limited and will look again at what they are doing. As Colin Smyth said, other Government bodies and indeed arms length authorities will look at centralising policies that have damaged islands by removing jobs from the communities that very much need them. We need to strengthen those communities, and we need to build them. The amendment with regard to deep population, I believe, is crucial, because that will be the real barometer of success of the act, whether the populations of our islands grow and they become much more sustainable. We need more people in the whole of Scotland, but the need is much more urgent in our island communities. People will come back, people really want to come back and others want to relocate for a better quality of life, but there has to be jobs and there has to be opportunities to allow them to come back. David Stewart said that fragile communities lead to the loss of young people, and we have seen that throughout our island communities for many years. We need to stop and then we need to reverse this trend to make our islands grow. The bill has the potential to do that if the national islands plan is right. As Jamie Greene said, the plan will be the proof of the pudding. Much of the powers in the act will be contained in the plan. How it is brought forward is crucial. There should be very clear outcomes and targets and measurable indicators to track the performance of this so that we can see if it is working. The committee must also be able to scrutinise the plan, look at the annual reports and the like, and to have an input from stakeholders to make sure that it is working, because this really will make the difference to our island communities if it works right. The bill has shown how the parliamentary process can improve legislation. The original bill was timid, and while we know that it could have gone further, the finished article is much stronger. That is a tribute to Colin Smyth, my colleague, who put a lot of work into this, and also to the communities and the councils who work alongside us to strengthen the bill, especially the three island councils for starting the process in the first place with our islands, our future. Hopefully, through this bill they will have a greater say in that future. Thank you very much. I call Donald Cameron to close the Conservatives. It's a generous six minutes, Mr Cameron. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. At the outset, I should note that the Scottish Conservatives have always welcomed the islands bill, and we are pleased to add our support at stage three. From a personal perspective, as a Highlands and Islands MSP, I'm under no illusion how important this legislation is to the communities that I represent, and I hope that their expectations are fulfilled. In a way, I think that one of the most important amendments was actually one of the final ones, which was the one that Jamie Greene introduced and was supported by the minister, which is the report, because I think that the four-year report is actually going to be a fundamental aspect of how well this bill or this act, hopefully, is performing and whether it is indeed empowering communities that we've spoken so much about. So I'm very pleased to see the consensus around that amendment. It is perhaps sad that this islands bill has always been an enabling bill, first and foremost, when it could have done more, but to be fair to the Government, they've always been clear that that would be the case. An enabling bill it is, and we accept that. It has, as many have mentioned, I think, been strengthened considerably at stages two and three, and if it hadn't been amended, I think that it would have fallen short of our islands' expectations. I spoke in the stage one debate, but then I felt slightly removed from the process because I'm not on the REC committee, and it's with great pleasure to return to it now in its final version, and it is much improved. I would also join Jamie Greene commending the minister personally for his engagement. Even at the very start, I recall a meeting with him and other members of my party before the bill was publicised, and he has engaged throughout this process. I'm also glad that other Opposition party members have helped to strengthen the bill to unlock its true potential and to deliver what campaigners have called for, which is an islands bill that might truly empower island communities. I think that the phrase tick box exercise has become overused, but the essential point remains that it must achieve tangible, meaningful change rather than, yes, indeed. I'm grateful to Mr Cameron for coming away. Would he confirm to me that one substantial way of empowering the island communities would be by campaigning with all other parties to unleash the potential of their renewable energy and support the connection to the islands to enable that? Earlier, Mr Chapman said that he recognised the potential, but he stopped short of actually committing the Scottish Conservatives to continuing to support those projects. I'd be most grateful if Mr Cameron could now confirm that the stories still do support that, as did David Cameron. You weren't going to get your time back, Mr Cameron. Do you want to get confused with Mr Cameron's being mentioned? We fully support renewable energy on the islands, and I would point the cabinet secretary to our manifesto commitment in the general election last year, where we made an explicit commitment to remote island wind, which has now been honoured and has allowing projects across the western isles to get into the auction in 2019. We have put our money where our mouth is, cabinet secretary. To continue, it is the islands who must take credit for campaigning tirelessly for an island's bill, especially the local authorities, and they have been mentioned. I'd like to mention them by name, the western isles, Auckland, Shetland, Argyll and Buton, Highland Council and North Ayrshire. As others have spoken about five years ago, Scotland's three island councils, if I could call them that, started our islands, our future. They were soon joined by other councils with islands and smaller communities, and together they have lobbied and lobbied until it was accepted that change was needed. I first came across our islands, our future. I was a candidate in Auckland, Shetland, in the 2015 election three years ago, and even then there was a huge amount of excitement around the campaign. One of the great pleasures has been to witness it building momentum. For too long, this Parliament has felt too remote to islanders. With this bill, islanders can no longer be ignored. Their voices will now be heard and that is vital. It is refreshing to see for once the Government looking to enable devolution of power away from the centre rather than the other way around. I have said before that one of the great aspects of being a Highlands and Islands MSP is the ability to visit the islands across the Highlands and Islands. Last Friday I was on Bute and it was a wonderful day, but it was quite interesting to talk to people there. Simply being on an island does not necessarily mean that you are treated exceptionally. Hopefully, the bill will change that. As others have spoken about in debates before, we have to be very careful about how we characterise islanders or island communities. Others have mentioned that those who live in remote areas of the mainland, which are very like islands but are not technically islands, deserve to be kept in mind going forward. In conclusion, this bill must be the start and not the end of empowering island communities. Rhoda Grant and Jamie Greene both spoke about that the national islands plan will be critical in that regard. Those on the islands are watching carefully. They want the practical devolution of power. They do feel remote and ignored or dealt with inflexibly. If this truly is an enabling bill, it has to be the catalyst for further change. It also has to be set in a wider context. The minister realised that he spoke of a suite of measures. It has to be set in a wider context of islands with issues relating to transport, the tourist industry, infrastructure and the devolution of the Crown Estate to mention just a few things. Finally, this bill must not be empty words, but must affect real change to the benefits of all on our islands. Thank you very much. I call on Humza Yousaf to close the debate for the Government. Minister, seven minutes please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I want to thank everyone who has contributed to this afternoon's debate. That has been an excellent debate. I have rarely applauded every single contribution in this chamber, as I have today. Stewart Stevenson threatened to take us down to a dark place when he started talking about Stewart-Tavish Scott's obituary at one point, but I am pleased that we have managed to get it into this debate into a much, much more positive place. I want to try to address a few of the points, some common themes coming out from everybody's contribution. I want to join the chorus of other members who have said that the parliamentary process has been a really great example of how we should do legislation undoubtedly in this Parliament. There have been really good constructive ideas coming from right across the chamber. I am delighted that many of them have made it into the islands bill, which will hopefully be passing in just a few moments' time. The constructive nature of that, and I thank all members who have been involved in that process. In terms of where we have come to in the past five years, I just want to make the point that this is a journey, this is the culmination of a part of the journey very much that we are on. I would just say to Colin Smith and others who made this point that it is this Scottish Government that I am very proud to be a part of, that has brought forward the Lerwick Declaration, that has brought forward the prospectus for our islands, that has now brought forward this island's bill that no other Government and Administration previously had. We are taking forward community empowerment legislation, and I have brought that forward. Of course, the Crown and State legislation as well. As Donald Cameron has just reiterated, part of a suite of measures that are going to empower our island local authorities, and I am unashamed that I am proud to be part of a Government that has delivered that suite of measures. I hope that many, many more measures will come to help to empower our island communities. I thought that John Finnie made a really good point about the diversity that exists in our islands. I think that all of us, including myself, at times, have been guilty of talking about that our islands is one homogenous block. They are not. Anybody who has travelled to our islands will know the differences amongst those islands. In fact, amongst neighbouring islands, whether it is Yellen, Unster, or whether it is Papua West, or whether it is North-East or South-East, those rivalries that sometimes exist, but those cultural differences that exist in islands that literally neighbour each other. John Finnie was right to make that point about diversity. The national islands plan must make sure that it reflects that diversity within the measures that come forward. We are delighted, as I said, with the measures. In this bill, I think that some important measures are being taken forward. Clearly, the concept of island proofing will undoubtedly be watched closely by members, local authorities and communities. I thought that Mike Rumble's point on this was a very good one. I think that island communities have an expectation of what the bill will deliver. What it has on the paper is one thing, what it will practically and pragmatically deliver to our island communities will be watching with great interest in island proofing. I am sure that it will be tested very early on once the bill is given royal assent. Other key measures are well. I want to thank Tavie Scott. The Shetland Islands can now be assured that no public authority gets to put them in a box on a map in the future. Although we sometimes spoke about— I mean, it is a serious issue, but I think that sometimes it has to be spoken about, perhaps even in the media a little bit flippantly— it goes to a really, really serious issue around how we perceive our island communities. People might have thought that when they put them in a box next to Murray or the coast in Aberdeen, that island communities out there do not matter that we can just move them, shift them, do what we want with them. We are sending a very clear message that that cannot be done, should not be done, because we value our island communities just as much as we value our mainland communities. I think that that is a really important point to have raised. In terms of Roda Grant's contribution, I will just again gently say to Roda Grant that we have delivered to our island communities. Having powered our island community, I have talked about the Crown Estate measures that we are taking forward, I have talked about the community empowerment legislation that we have brought forward. I would also say that, as our colleague just sitting behind her, Jackie Baillie, who often asks me to centralise and take ownership of the good at Kilcregan ferry, so of course there are times when local authorities will ask us to take those powers to the centre, and of course I am happy to have that discussion and conversation with them, of course, like if we... Jackie Baillie. Thank you, Presiding Officer. On the basis that the minister mentioned, the most important ferry service in Scotland, which of course is Kilcregan to Gorog, can I ask him when is he going to take this over? Minister. Of course those constructive discussions with the SPT are continuing, and of course, by principle, I will look at that request very, very favourably. That would be, of course, an example of centralisation that she is asking me to take forward. I just put that point gently because it has been a very constructive debate, a very, very good debate. I just want to end, Presiding Officer, by saying that, you know, I think that I have certainly learned from my travels to 34 islands across Scotland that they play a huge role in our lives collectively as a nation. There are people that have fought to keep that island's heritage very much alive, such as John McCormack, Ian Crichton-Smith, Solli McLean, George McCannibraun, women like Naomi Mitchison, Isabel McCaskill, Mary Vaughan Norton, which of course translates, if you do not speak Gaelic Big Mary, of the stories. So there is a rich scene also of modern island writers and works to draw on, as well as Kevin McNeill, Peter May and Cleaves, Amy Liptrot, amazing musicians which many of us will have heard of, of course, Capa Caleigh, Stornoway, Ali Bain, Blazing Fiddles. In fact, almost every day, every year, there is a new generation, I think, a whole new generation of talent appearing. We have the Majesty of Peter Maxwell, Davies, work inspired by the life that he made on Orkney, the traditional, the modern melded in music and cultural festivals on Shetland, the Hebrides and indeed on Millport as well. And then of course, and I maybe should be wary about talking this 14 days into Ramadan, but the great taste of our islands as well, the taste of Arran, the distilleries of Isla and Jura, the seafood of Mull, the black pudding of Stornoway, food and drink on our islands is absolutely flourishing. And then there is, of course, the diversity on our islands as well. We've spoken about the diversity of our islands from one neighbouring island to the next, but also the diversity of our islands have changed in terms of the demographics as well as delight in fact this month that Stornoway became the place where we have the first ever islands mosque open just in time for Ramadan. I don't think I'll be going to Stornoway for Ramadan because I think sunset will be quite a bit later than it is where I am on the mainland, but I'll certainly intend to visit sometime in the future. Presiding Officer, I'm delighted that we have passed this historic islands bill, which I hope we will vote for shortly unanimously in a cross-party fashion. During that time, I'm not ashamed at all to admit that I've learnt a lot about Scotland's islands, about a fundamental part, I think of Scotland's soul, which hither too was hidden from me, having visited many of our islands, I have a much better understanding of who they are, but also consequently who all of us are and why our islands matter, why they mean to all of us, and to quote Andrew Gregg from his poem about Orkney this life, it is the way you lean to me and the way I lean to you as if we are each other's prevailing. That sense of prevailing is very deep rooted, is vital and I'm confident that this bill we passed today will help our islands and the communities not just to prevail, but hopefully to thrive. Thank you very much. That concludes our stage 3 debate on the island Scotland bill. The next item of business is consideration of business motion 12484 in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick. On behalf of the bureau setting out a business programme, if anyone objects, please say so now and I call on Joe Fitzpatrick to move the motion. Moved. Thank you very much. No one objects. The question therefore is that motion 12484 be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. There is one question to be put as a result of today's business and because it's legislation at stage 3 we will hold a division. The question is that motion 12437 in the name of Humza Yousaf on the island Scotland bill at stage 3 be agreed and members may cast their votes now. The result of the vote on motion 12437 in the name of Humza Yousaf is yes, 122, no, zero, abstain, zero. The motion is agreed and unanimously and therefore the island Scotland bill is passed. That concludes decision time. We'll move on to members' business in the name of Joan McAlpine but we'll just take a few moments to clear the chamber of some members and for ministers to change their seats.