 Lleonidol, everyone, and welcome to the fifth meeting of the next Zero Energy Transport Committee for 2023. The first item on the agenda is the consideration of whether to take item 6 and 7 in private. Item 6 is the consideration of evidence that we will hear today as part of our inquiry into a modern and sustainable ferry service for Scotland. Item 7 is the hynny ond o'r casenfosedd â回p Beriggant ti wedi wneud i g recommendurau ymlaen sefynt... Hefyd ddim wrth iddynt i'w gromod ymlaen, o Ruwion прошfysgwrm greu Gragorysiaeth newydd onboard bbandwbankio, esgwydlanteur o'r byw sydd yn 2023. Felly wrth fy cent gyniwr 170 o'r cydweptyn argyfyniad ac fudcioedd fryddysg, finn multiplied ar gyfnodaeth. Bill oedd am hycywr car Introdu усerfiwn hynny mathematics. Caroline Boyd, a Slyster, Charles Holmes, head of extended producer responsibility and Tyrion Rhys Davies, senior policy officer for the extended producer responsibility, all from the Scottish Government. The instrument is laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that the Parliament must approve it before it comes into force. Following this evidence session, the committee will be invited at the next agenda item to consider a motion to approve the instrument. I remind everyone that officials can speak under this item, but not the debate that follows. I am now going to invite the minister to make a short opening statement. Thank you very much, convener. We want to reduce packaging waste in Scotland and make sure that what packaging we do need is easier to recycle by introducing extended producer responsibility or EPR for packaging. This is a UK-wide initiative and we are working with the other UK Administrations on this. You are here to consider an order that makes provision for civil sanctions to be used by SIPA and to consider regulations that require producers to collect and or report data. Before I say a few words about those, I wanted to provide some information about and some context around EPR. When packaging EPR is fully in force, local authorities will receive the full net cost of running efficient and effective collection and disposal systems for household packaging waste, and that will be paid for by producers. Standardised labelling, with a clear do not recycle message, will make it easier for people to dispose of their packaging responsibly, and producers will have an incentive to make their packaging easier to recycle. On the data regulations, I will refer to the packaging waste data reporting Scotland regulations of 2023 as the data regulations. Those will make different producers collect and or report on data about the amount and types of packaging they handle, and that will apply from March of this year onwards. Those data will be used to calculate the fees that they will have to pay in 2024, which is when we intend packaging EPR to come fully into force. Producers' data collection and reporting obligations will depend on the nature of their businesses, their turnover and how much packaging they handle. Most large producers will have to report data twice a year, smaller producers will not be required to report until 2024, and the smallest will not have any collection or reporting requirements. Similar instruments are being considered by the other UK parliaments right now to ensure a consistent approach. The intention is that they will all be revoked at the end of 2023 by a UK statutory instrument that will establish the scheme and make provision for data reporting for the future years. The other matter is the enforcement amendment order. The environmental regulation, enforcement measures Scotland amendment order 2023, which I will refer to as the order, is unique to Scotland. It provides SEPA with access to civil enforcement measures such as fixed and monetary penalties for two instruments. The data regulations, which is what we have just discussed, which you are considering today, and the amending DRS regulations passed last year, which added a new offence. That gives SEPA a flexible and proportionate set of tools to enforce those regulations. In conclusion, packaging EPR will help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 2.2 million tonnes by 2023 and will provide an estimated £1.2 billion across the UK each year to local authorities for managing packaging waste. Those instruments are a crucial step in making that a reality, and I urge you to support them. Sorry, Minister, I missed that bit. My notes say that this is going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2.2 million tonnes by 2023, but I do not believe that that can be correct. I think that that is the type of minister. It is over the course of the 10 years that it has been established for, so that would be 2024 to 2033, but we can check that. Thank you for clarity on that now. Questions from the committee. Liam, you would like to start. I am very grateful, convener. Good morning, minister. I am trying to understand this order, by which I mean the environmental regulation enforcement measures order, called the order. You are here asking this committee to advise Parliament to pass an SSI, which allows penalties to be levied on a scheme that is not yet in place, that has been delayed twice, maybe further delayed, has changed already and has been subject to reports this week of significant concerns and in the reports flaws. If that is all correct, are you therefore comfortable that this is the right way round to do this? Shouldn't the actual scheme be addressed to get that right before you start bringing in legislation to enforce in the breach? The member is referring to the deposit return scheme. The deposit return scheme, when the regulations were passed, needed the order to go along with it to enforce them. Parliament has already passed the regulations to make this in offence, but SIPA now needs the powers to be able to enforce that. I can go into this in some detail if the member would like. The committee will recall that, last February, Parliament passed the deposit return scheme for Scotland amendment regulations of 2022. Those regulations made a number of amendments to the original DRS regulations to support delivery and operation of the successful DRS. In particular, they created a new requirement for persons selling drinks in Scotland in in-scope packaging not intended for sale in Scotland to a person other than a consumer to disclose at point of sale that the items were not intended for sale in Scotland and cannot be returned for deposit. Failure to do so would be in offence. The new requirement was brought in after industry raised the possibility of a grey market operator sourcing products not intended for the Scottish market and therefore they have not paid the deposit, but then selling them to Scottish retailers fraudulently charging the deposit and pocketing it. In cases where a distinct label is not adopted, that could pose a risk to the finances of the scheme as well as undercutting honest wholesalers who declared where their goods would be sold. Minister, forgive me. The question is about, so you talked about labelling there, for example. My understanding is that there is still some ambiguity over what labels might have to look like and my question therefore is isn't it better to deal with things like those ambiguities rather than address the fines that will be levied when you haven't even done the upfront basics of sorting out ambiguities like labelling? The regulations that are passed by Parliament do not specify labelling at all in any way. That is entirely for industry to decide. We don't have any regulations or legislations about labelling. Minister, you mentioned labelling. I'm simply pointing out that there are ambiguities about the scheme and yet you are turning time to dealing with enforcement and fines at the moment. Are you going to respond to that point or shall I move on to another question? The members of the scheme may choose to put in labelling, which would defeat the fraud. If they don't put in labelling, then there is a risk of a grey market developing. When the regulations were passed last year, industry asked us to put this into the regulations. This already exists, it's already an offence, but to have an offence you need somebody to enforce that offence. The offence already exists, it was already passed by Parliament, but it's no good having an offence without an enforcer and this gives SEPA the power to enforce it. The reason why we're doing this now instead of at that time is merely of efficiency bundling it together because we're bringing the other order at the same time. We knew when creating the regulations that we would need to make the matching order to go for SEPA at the same time. We just waited until this moment when there was another order coming through for efficiency. The second question I have, can you help me understand what your projections show will be the number of businesses that will be caught and potentially fined under this? Do you have any projections as to how much money you will raise as a result? Is the member asking about deposit return or extended producer responsibility? I'm staying with the order. Sorry, what you called the order, the environmental regulation enforcement measures? I don't have any numbers in front of me of exactly how many businesses we expect to fall foul of the offence. The offence is quite specifically sourcing products that are not intended for the Scottish market and not paying the deposit and selling them to Scottish retailers fraudulently charging and pocketing the result. It would be people who are committing an offence, who are implementing a grey market in these goods, who are effectively doing fraud, who would be caught up by this. This is an offence that we don't anticipate. We very much hope that no businesses do, but if any businesses do operate fraudulently they would be guilty of this offence. Final thing for me if I may convener at this stage. The order amends the substantive DRS regulations. In the order, I can find nothing about what the penalty will be. In the substantive DRS regulations, the penalty is expressed as being not a penalty quote, not exceeding the statutory maximum, but it does not go on to particularise that statutory maximum. Can you help the committee to understand what the penalty therefore is that cannot be exceeded? There are two separate things there. The penalty was established by the regulations, so that has already been approved by Parliament. That is why the order does not mention it. The order simply gives SEPA the power to enforce those penalties that already exist that were described in the regulations. Yes. What is the figure that the penalty will not exceed the statutory maximum, please? Do we have that data in front of us? I can help the member with that. I would say two things. The first is that the regulations for DRS set out a criminal penalty. What this order does is allow SEPA to use a civil penalty instead, which is often a more flexible tool than going down the criminal route. The 2015 order that this order remains sets out the values for the fixed monetary penalties. Those are set at £300, £600 or £1,000. That depends on how serious the offence is assessed at whether it is low, medium or high seriousness and that is set out in the order. It provides for a variable monetary penalty where SEPA can set the value of that when they impose it and that is up to a maximum of £10,000 in this case. There is also the option to accept an enforcement undertaking that would be made by the person. You have got the criminal sanctions, fine up to £10,000 on summary conviction or an unlimited fine on conviction on indictment, and then we are adding the civil penalties so that the more flexible ones that I have just spoken about. I understand. Thank you. Thank you, convener. We all agree that we want to move towards a circular economy at pace, so I welcome some of the clarification that we have had already this morning. Liam Kerr has probably covered a lot of that in his questions, but minister, in your opening remarks you talked about the flexible and proportionate set of tools that SEPA needs. I have just been listening carefully to your exchange with Liam Kerr. In terms of setting the order, what discussions has Government had with SEPA about how they intend to use those tools in practice? Often, when we hear flexibility, that can sometimes mean uncertainty for businesses, especially when there is a scale here of what could be non-compliance. How much discretion will SEPA have in making those assessments? SEPA has extensive experience in acting as the regulator for existing packaging producer responsibility scheme, which has been in place since 1997. Those new orders are part of a phased implementation approach to packaging EPR. Only producers with a turnover of £2 million per year in handling more than 50 tonnes of packaging will have reporting obligations. That is not the same threshold as the existing system, so there should not be a significant number of additional producers for SEPA to regulate. It is more or less within what they are already doing. Smaller producers will have reporting obligations from 2024, so SEPA will be stepping up their operations to prepare for that full system so that they can accommodate the additional members. Once the packaging EPR has gone live, SEPA will be able to recover from producers the cost of regulating the scheme so that they will be fully funded to discharge their duties. It is more of an extension of what they already do rather than anything particularly new. I appreciate today that we are speaking about the order, and that is what we are looking at. However, as MSPs, we are all getting emails and inquiries from businesses and producers who still feel uncertain about some parts of the wider legislation. They are not sure entirely what they need to do to fully comply, but here we are today talking about potential fines. What would you say to reassure businesses that they will have clarity and guidance and that they will have support so that we are not just talking about punishment, which is a place for that enforcement, but how are we going to make sure that people have the knowledge and the tools to fully comply? I assume that the member is talking about both deposit return and the EPR for packaging, but in both cases there already are criminal sanctions available to us. What we want to do with the order is to put in place civil ones, so we have that other layer of enforcement so that our only recourse is not to go straight to those sort of criminal sanctions and to have this other layer in between to allow SEPA some discretion in terms of minor fines and make that more efficient. In terms of both those schemes, extended producer responsibility will be coming in in 2024 in terms of what businesses have to do, so we are going to start the data collection this year so that we know what businesses, what materials they are producing and then they will pay the fees on those starting in 2024. Further guidance for producers on their reporting requirements is going to be published in advance of these regulations coming into force and we are developing a digital platform that will allow producers to register and report their data, so that is for the EPR scheme. Governments and regulators will continue to engage with key stakeholders to increase awareness of these new reporting requirements so that we can get the EPR off the ground ahead of the regulations coming into force. With the deposit return scheme, which as you know is accelerated, it will be coming into place this year, August 16th. We have extensive engagement going on with businesses right now at stakeholders both on the retailer side, so that is the collection of scheme articles side and producers who are producing those. I am meeting with stakeholders and businesses regularly, as are my officials, to work through the details of that. The regulations for deposit return were deliberately made quite broad to allow industry to find its own solutions, that is what industry had requested and that is what they have done. This is industry and ourselves and SEPA working together to make sure that we have the operational schemes for this coming into place. However, I want to be clear that those enforcement orders are providing that sort of middle level of civil enforcement. They are not adding any new, I guess, because the criminal sanctions would always have been there. Final question, just to get it on the record. I think that I heard your official charles at home say that the fines are £300,000 to £601,000. Is that correct? Can you give an example of the type of non-compliance that would result in those amounts? I cannot give you an example for that. SEPA has the expertise here to enforce it. I do not know if Charles has any additional information there. What I suppose I can do to help the member is that the order sets out for each offence whether the fixed or variable monetary penalties or the ability to accept the enforcement undertaking apply and they set out whether the fixed monetary penalty is set at low, medium or high. We have consulted with SEPA when we have set those. It tends to depend on things like to what extent is dishonesty an element of the offence. To take an example, it is at the very top of the line on the data regulations in the order. Regulation 28.1, contravention of regulation 14.3, which is the obligation, I think, Caroline, to report to SEPA if a producer becomes incapacitated, can't do its job anymore, fixed monetary penalties and variable monetary penalties are available, enforcement undertakings are available, that gives SEPA a lot of flexibility in how they respond to that, but the FMP is set at low because that's something that's maybe more unlikely to carry an element of dishonesty with it. You might compare that to recklessly furnishing false or misleading information to SEPA, which is regulation 28.4b, which comes with a high fixed monetary penalty because that's more likely to be obstructive and to obstruct the functioning of the scheme and maybe to contain some dishonesty as well, so I hope that's helpful. I might be also helpful for the member to note that this order in relation to DRS is not about the whole DRS or compliance to it, it's very specifically about this new requirement for this grey market operation, which was identified when we passed the amendment regulations last year, so it is this today the order is just about that one particular piece, this sort of, I guess, new requirement because industry raised the possibility of the grey market. We've closed the loophole on that, but then we now have to pass to SEPA the powers to keep that loophole closed. That's helpful, thank you. Just before I go to you, Mark, minister, I've got to ask a question. SEPA came in to the committee the other day and we talked to them about their roles and responsibilities. It was clear to me and I guess many other people that after the data hack they suffered, they have never really got back on their feet again and they're struggling to do the regulation on various parts of the industry and also to retain the data and use the data that they've got because they can't access it. Are you happy giving them a bit more power to do something else that they've got the resources when I haven't seen their budget go up? It's just a question. It seems no more money, under pressure, can't do the job they're doing at the moment, give them something else. Does that work? We've already passed the regulations, so those things are offences. If you're going to have an offence, you need a body who can enforce that offence. That body is SEPA. In terms of deposit return, there is a dedicated team at SEPA for this. As I've mentioned already, in terms of the extended producer responsibility, once that's gone fully live, SEPA will be able to recover the cost of that scheme and therefore they can use that money to resource themselves and fully discharge their duties there. There's a huge amount of supposition in there that they're going to generate funds to fund the organisation. What I've just said to you and you've just said back to me is that they've got to do it because they're the ones that need to do it, but they don't have the resources and they don't have the capability of doing their current job. So you can say one thing and the fact of the matter is another. Can you just clarify that for me, please? Absolutely. The packaging EPR scheme, the point of that is to be a sort of self-sustaining scheme to allow SEPA to fund themselves from that. They will be able to recover the cost of doing the enforcement from the scheme. That is built into the EPR scheme, but I'm happy to pass to Charles for more details. Thanks minister. You're quite right. The one thing I would add is that we're taking this opportunity as the four nations on behalf of the four regulators to build a new IT system for the reporting of these data, so replacing the national packaging waste database, which has been online for some time with a new system, which hopefully is a bit more state-of-the-art, so hopefully that provides some reassurance as well. Thank you and I'll keep my views to myself about Government IT schemes, having seen them in the six years that I've been in the Parliament, but Mark, you wanted to come into some questions. So I wanted to ask about the equivalent UK regulations. I think that the UK Government decided to not go down a several penalties route. Can you explain why the thinking has been different with the Scottish Government? Absolutely, I can explain what our thinking is. I don't understand myself why the UK Government hasn't taken this option because it seems to make sense to me. The data regulations create various offences and already have provided for criminal penalties where they can be prosecuted through the court, so that's baked into the regulations. Using the enforcement powers for the data regulations alone, that means that SEPA's only option is to go straight for those criminal offences and refer things to the Procurator Fiscal. That would mean that any person convicted of offence would be fined up to £10,000 on summary conviction or if prosecuted by indictment and unlimited fines. That's a big jump to those heavy enforcement measures. Criminal courts are a powerful tool to address serious wrongdoing. However, they can be time consuming and resource consuming to pursue the conviction and results are uncertain. As members have suggested today, it is possibly disproportionate if someone commits a minor offence to go straight to the criminal prosecution. The civil penalties that we are introducing provide an alternative to criminal prosecution, and that means that SEPA can take a much more flexible and proportionate approach reflective of their expertise as Scotland's environmental regulator. Is that something that industry fed back on then? I'm happy to pass to Charles on that. Have we had feedback? I don't think that I've had any specific feedback, but certainly from my experience working on deposit return industry always welcome this kind of proportionate engagement with SEPA. I can't speak for contacts in industry, but I think the idea that SEPA has a more flexible toolkit and doesn't have to jump straight to the criminal sanctions that can be a bit more agile in how it responds to non-compliance is something that industry tends to follow. It reflects the circumstances of how the offence came to be. It's a very technical regulation, but I think that that exhausts me. Thank you, Mark. I'm not seeing any other. Liam, one more. Just a couple of things that arise, Minister, if I may. Can you clarify for me on this civil penalty what happens to the money raised in fines then? Did I hear you tell the convener that SEPA retains it to fund itself? That's not correct. What I was referring to is the extended producer responsibility for packaging will require that everyone who produces packaging pay a fee into the scheme, and that money will go to fund the scheme. It's not the money from penalties. What happens to the fines? The fines are paid into the consolidated fund, so they're available for general public spending. I think that there are three parts, so there are the fines. Forgive me, Charles. First of all, Minister, did you just say, I don't know when I asked you what happens to the fines? Just to be clear, interesting. Charles, you said that it goes into the consolidated fund. Can you just explain for the committee what that means in terms of where it's gone and who gets to use it, please? I might have to come back to the committee on that, I would have to be honest, unless Caroline R. Solister would like to answer the question. I think it's the same as saying that they're just available as part of the Scottish Government budget, but I wouldn't swear to that. No, I can certainly say that the funds do go into the Scottish Consolidated Fund in terms of providing any further information. It is something that we may need to come back to and write to. How happily right does the member on that? I would just say quickly that there are the fines. There are the producer fees that are charged from 2024, which are paid to the local authorities for running their systems, but the third sum of money is the charge that CEPA and the other regulators can levy on producers to fund their operations. That's what the minister was referring to when she was talking about funds occurring to CEPA. I understand, thank you. The key point that it feels to me, and I appreciate that we'll go to debate in a minute, is that the funds that the fines raised do not come back to the DRS scheme specifically perhaps to help that scheme or help producers or whatever. The final question from me, convener. Can you just help me to understand who is the arbiter of whether a breach on the order is a criminal prosecution, merits a criminal prosecution, or requires a civil prosecution to the wrong word? Is that CEPA who will be the arbiter of that? Correct. Thank you, convener. Thank you. I guess the question is then how do you appeal it, but that will come out probably in further legislation. Anyway, let's move on to agenda item three then, which is the formal consideration of motion. Can address the question of appeal if the convener would be interested. Sorry? We can address the question of appeal if the convener is interested. I'll go back to agenda item two, thank you. You can tell me how you appeal it. I'll quickly make one point before I pass to Carolyn. The point I would make is that CEPA's got guidance, which is issued by the Lord Advocate, which gives them guidance on whether to go down a criminal route or a civil route, so the Lord Advocate is the head of the prosecution system. That guidance says if it's a particularly significant offence, it would be appropriate to report to the Procurator Fiscal to pursue a criminal case. I'll pass to Carolyn on the question about appeals, if I may. Yes, I can address that. Where CEPA has made a decision to impose a civil sanction in accordance with the Lord Advocate's guidance, it would relay that intent to the party, who can then make written representations in relation to that. That goes to CEPA. If there, after CEPA continues down the enforcement route and imposes the penalty, there is then a right of appeal to the Scottish Land Court in relation to that. I think that's helpful, thank you. On that basis, we'll move to agenda item 3, which is the formal consideration of motion S6M-07583, calling for the committee to recommend approval of the environmental regulations enforcement measures Scotland amendment order 2023. I invite the minister to speak and move the motion. Formally moved. Any contributions from members? Just a very brief contribution on this. I find myself pretty uncomfortable with the idea that we might put this forward to Parliament for approval today. I've heard this morning that we seem to have a DRS scheme, so I'm talking about the order here specifically. A DRS scheme is, for whatever reason, been beset with challenges, and yet here we are dealing with what happens in the breach before working out the details of the scheme. I'm troubled that, what I heard earlier, the minister doesn't know what specifically the civil penalty attaches to, has not projected how many will be caught by this, has not projected how much might be raised by this, so doesn't know the impact of the scheme. I appreciate the subject to clarification. The fines will be going to the Scottish Government pot rather than specifically to help to improve and amend the scheme to make it a better scheme going forward. For all those reasons, convener, I will struggle subject to the rest of the debate to vote for the approval of the SSI. I think that the minister has been helpful in setting out the specific requirements for this order. I think that the issues around fines going to consolidated fund is not unusual for such circumstances. I think that in terms of the explanations of the attachment of this order to previous legislation that has already gone through Parliament makes sense. I think that for any new scheme or operation, you need to get your powers in place in advance of it, which is what this order is, particularly in relation to what the minister has helped to explain about the concerns that industry had about a grey market. I think that the fact that super good will then have civil penalties rather than just if we don't pass this order, all you've got left is criminal basis. That explanation was very helpful to explain that this is in response to industry. I think that the points that Monica Lennon raises—the minister, no doubt, because she's had correspondence from me and others—about the wider DRS scheme are still issues that will need to be addressed to give confidence for six months' time when that scheme goes live. However, in terms of the specifics of this piece of legislation in terms of the SSI, it does address industry's needs. It's responsive to industry's needs because the grey market will harm industry. The other explanation of the applicability of the more wider scheme to the rest of the UK in terms of the packaging was, I think, helpful to set out as well. I, similar to the member, did have some queries of clarification, which I think that the minister, in response to your questions, had set out very well. In terms of whatever your views are of deposit return more generally, that is a helpful housekeeping piece of legislation that provides powers to super as relevant authority on civil matters, which I think is very helpful. For the fine levels that were described of £300, £600 and £1,000, I think that that's helpful in terms of the response and proportionality that we would expect from such a scheme. I don't see any problem in supporting that. I don't have too much to add. I think that we're all aware that we're having a discussion when we're aware that public perception and confidence is really important, so I think that we did hear some robust Q&A there, but I think that that's important. However, as I think that the deputy convener has touched on, it is quite a technical order and it might seem counterintuitive that we're talking about sanctions when we don't have all the later details, but we know that we need to have robust enforcement and deterrence as well, but also opportunities where stakeholders do need guidance. The key thing is flexibility and proportionality. I think that we've had some reassurance on that today, but I'm sure that the committee will continue to keep a watchful eye on things. I don't have much more to add to those points. I think that there is a proportionate approach within those regulations. I think that the introduction of civil penalties makes sense. I think that it is in line with the approach that industry would want. I think that the critical thing right now in my mind is about building certainty with DRS. Clearly, some of the public narrative is about undermining that and trying to attempt to show that the scheme would perhaps not be introduced, but I have confidence that it will be introduced and it will be a success. I think that this is an important part of putting in place another part of the scheme to ensure that there is that business certainty and that business knows what's coming and what the penalties will be if there's a failure to apply the scheme adequately. I have some comments to make. One is that I'm deeply concerned that we're asking Ceper to take on further responsibilities when they don't have the resource and the staffing to do it. We're also asking them to take on the responsibilities of, in the minister's word, funding their operations from within the scheme and also becoming the judge jury and, as it were, the implementer of the fine when it's put in place. I have problems when you ask Government agencies to take on all those responsibilities, especially with the criminal offence. As far as regulations are concerned, the minister has made it clear that the offences will be known. It's up to producers to work out what they do to avoid the offences, but here's the regulation to punish them if they don't do that. That, to me, is putting the carp for the horses, and I struggle with that quite a lot. I have real problems understanding how this is going to work, and therefore, if I have problems understanding how it's going to work, trying to legislate on a small part of it makes it really difficult for me, and it puts me in a corner which I'd rather not be in. Those are my comments. I'm very happy to take it. I disagree with what you're saying in regards to SEPA. I know that SEPA had difficulties in the past, and I've got my own views on that. I think that's maybe muddying the waters a little bit of what we're trying to do today. The minister said today that we're looking at a small area that needs to be tightened up in a loophole. I was pleased to hear that the industry has been engaging with that, and what I can gather from the minister today, they are a lot happier with what's being suggested. I think that we do have a fair way to go for the whole scheme to come into place, but I think that today is just a small part. What I've been hearing, I am more reassured now after what the minister said today than I was before. I'm happy to support no, because that's me just finished. I'm sorry, Mr Kerr. If you want to come in, Liam, it is a debate, and I take your comments. I guess we may be at opposite ends of the spectrum on SEPA, but that's where we are. I'm very happy if there's no other contributions to ask the minister to sum up and respond to the debate. Thank you very much. I suppose that it is maybe complicated for all of us to have both of those orders at the same time, because one of those orders is about the enforcement measure for the data gathering regulations, which we've spoken about today, and the other order is the order that matches a loophole that we closed in the DRS regulations. That is not an order to enforce the whole DRS, but when we amended at industry's request the DRS regulations last year, that did three different things. It changed the date for the DRS and pushed it forward to this year. It closed this grey market loophole and changed how we handled crawlers, which is a very specific industry issue. Those were industry requests. We implemented that regulation last year in Parliament, and this is merely the order that joins up with that. We chose to bundle them together for efficiency, but I'm afraid that it's maybe added a bit of complication to our discussion today. In terms of extended producer responsibility, there is already in place a UK-wide extended producer responsibility scheme called PRN, which SIPA does manage. That does exist. That's been in place since 1997. SIPA already does that. As the four nations of the UK, though we want to improve our recycling measures and improve how we fund those so that it isn't local authorities who are having to fund picking up the litter and implementing recycle schemes, we want the pollusers to pay. As four nations, we have agreed to improve our extended producer responsibility for packaging. The first step to that with the regulations today is to collect data on what packaging is out there so that when those come into force we know where to start. That's what these conversations today are about. They are about implementing the civil penalties. The criminal penalties are already there in the regulations, so we're not adding anything new. We're adding this more proportionate intermediate layer. Thank you all very much for your time today. Incidentally, I agree with you that it is unhelpful that we've got both of these together, or unfortunate perhaps. On the first one, the order—this was the intervention, I was going to put to Jackie Dunbar—how do you deal with the convener's point about SIPA and resourcing and becoming judge and jury on that? What's your response to the convener's challenge? The order today covers two matters of enforcement. One is this very particular loophole that was already closed on DRS, so SIPA already have the job of enforcing DRS. That's already with them. All we're adding today is this one loophole closed, if you like, one tiny bit of it because that was added last year with the amendments. They already had that, and SIPA already have the enforcement responsibility for the existing EPR scheme, which is called PRN, and has been in place since 1997. We're not adding to SIPA's burden here. All we're doing—because we have to follow the proper procedure—is matching up what their powers do with the new regulations, because they have the powers to enforce the old regulations, which they do adequately and well. If we're creating new regulations, we have to give them the powers to do those. It is a very technical process. Parliament's already passed the regulations. We just need to put in place all the pieces to make them work. Thank you, Minister. Now we come to the question, and the question is that motion S6M-07583, in the name of lawness later, be approved. Are we all agreed? Yes. No. So we're not agreed, so we're going to move to a division. So the choices that you have are yes, no or abstain. So we're going to have to do it by a share of hands, I believe. So the first question, those that agree, please raise your hands. Do we do no or abstain? No. Okay. So those who don't agree, please raise their hands. Okay, thank you. And those who wish to abstain, please raise their hands. So the decision, therefore, is there are five votes for, there's one vote against, and there's one abstention. Therefore, the motion is agreed. Now, the committee will need to report on the outcome of this instrument in due course, and I would invite the committee to delegate authority to me as convener to finalise the report for publication. Are you all happy with that? I think it would be helpful to see what that report says before it is published. Okay, the report will be circulated to all members of the committee once the clerks have drawn it out. Thank you. Yes. What the timescale will be for circulation of the draft report? I'll just check, Ms Mark. The aim would be to have the report completed by the end of this week. I would appreciate the opportunity to have a look at that. I have said that the committee will see the report in draft before it is signed off, and you can pass a comment on that. Thank you very much, Minister, and thank you to all of your officials for attending today. I'm now going to suspend the meeting to allow for a change of witnesses. Okay, and welcome back. Our next evidence session is part of our inquiry into a modern sustainable ferry service for Scotland. I refer members to the papers for this item. This is our seventh evidence session for our inquiry. Today, the committee will hear from two panels of local authorities who either operate ferries or have important ferry services in their area, or indeed both. Our first panel will explore two key issues—the inter-island ferries within Shetland and Orkney groups, and the Northern Isles ferry service, which is led and managed by Scottish ministers, which links the Northern Isles to the Scottish mainland. I'm very pleased to welcome councillor Morag Lyle, chair of Zet, trans and chair of the Environment and Transport Committee, Shetland Islands Council. At some stage, when we can re-establish connection, David Hibbert, the technical superintendent for marine services, Orkney Islands Council, thank you both for accepting our invitation. Morag, I guess that as you're here in person and on your own at the moment, Shetland will dominate our lines of questioning, which I'm sure you'll be delighted for. It is a lonely shift sitting at that end of the table on your own, but there are various questions from committee members. I'm going to ask the first question, if I may. It's a very simple question, I guess. Are you happy with Northlink and does it provide the services that is expected on your islands? Good morning, and thank you very much for the invitation to present here today. As you've indicated, Shetland depends very heavily on two very different and contrasting ferry services, and I'm glad that we're going to have the opportunity to discuss both. Northlink is our external link to the mainland. It's a 12 or a 14-hour crossing nightly. It is, in many ways, a very reliable and dependable service, both on its freight side and its passenger side, but it has three main issues. There is the capacity, the issue of the cabins and the cost. The vessel is able to bring in to Shetland approximately 600 people on a daily basis. If we were to contrast that with Orkney, there's an island group of a similar size with a very similar population, but across the three external services that they have, they are able to bring approximately 4,000 people into their islands every day. Shetland, when it talks about the constraints of the capacity, is not looking for special treatment, but something that even begins to approach parity would be very welcome. We have a very buoyant economy. We have our established fish and aquaculture sectors. We have our oil and gas and increasingly renewables. We have the space centre being built. That's not to mention tourism and agriculture. All of those depend highly on our Serco Northlink service, bringing all the goods and people that we require into on top of all the day-to-day movement of our population for work, for education, for health appointments in Aberdeen and other places. Those all put a huge strain on the existing capacity of the ferry service. Pinch points in the year during the school holidays and the livestock shipping season are particular issues. We've asked for a number of years now for additional capacity to be found, particularly on the freight side, but Transport Scotland consistently says that there is nothing available and that the system can cope. That doesn't allow for the fact that many people within my island group, constituents of our wards, come to us regularly saying that they needed to get booked on the ferry and it was impossible. They could get on one night but not their car. They could get a cabin today but not a car. The idea of having a ticket and a cabin and a space for your car on all three nights is a regular problem. That's the first issue, capacity. The cabins are insufficient to cover all the travellers. This may not seem like an issue, but for many of the users of the service, the leg of 12 or 14 hours down to Aberdeen is only the first leg of a journey. They will drive off in the morning and often have several hours of driving to get to their final destination. That is not safe if you've had to sit up all night in a chair. The requirement to have a cabin to sleep for the night is very important. The problem has become worse since the Covid pandemic. Obviously, they were not allowing sharing of cabins, and that has not been reintroduced since the Covid pandemic. There are a number of reasons that have been given for that, but it has just made the situation with the cabins much worse. The third issue, which makes it easy for you all to remember, is the cost of the capacity cabins cost. It is a return journey for a family with a cabin and a car. There is little change from £500. That is not possible to be done for some families at all. Even for families with maybe more resources, it is not possible to do it on a regular basis. We are attempting to stabilise and increase the population of our islands, but encouraging people to move to and crucially stay is difficult when people become aware that the cost and ability to travel freely between the island group and friends and family on the mainland is very difficult and costly. It is a barrier to us in achieving that aim of growing our population. Our business and haulage companies are regularly in touch with the transport group that they have with Transport Scotland about the capacity issues on the cabins, but they have always been thwarted in their endeavours. I think that that outlines for you the main issues that, as a council group, we see with the ferry service as it stands. As I say, many positives about it. It is a regular, reliable service. It just is not big enough. It is too expensive. Thank you very much, more regular and reliable words we like to hear. David, now that we have managed to re-establish connections, Dangerous Shetland got the first in on the fact that they needed the ability to have more people to come to Shetland. My question, which sparked that, was, are you happy with the Northlink service to Orkney and is it doing all that your island communities need? I think that the Northlink service is reasonably adequate for our islands because, to differentiate from Shetland, we have the pen and for the short sea crossing as well as the Labardine route that is capable of delivering the freight and the passenger service that we need. However, I would echo the Shetland colleagues' viewpoint of the availability of cabins on the southbound legs, particularly at the high seasons. It is quite a challenge if you want to use that route. You can find yourself having to select the short sea route into the additional driving rather than you may prefer to use the longer route in that case. There are lots of questions. I am going to come to Monica first. Thank you, convener, and good morning to our panel. We have heard a little bit in the opening contributions about some of the challenges. I am interested to hear how you would characterise your authorities' relationship with Northlink, Seymal and Transport Scotland. Councillor Lyle, if I can turn to you first. I would say that we have quite a good working relationship with Sergo Northlink. We have a quarterly external transport forum, in which we meet representatives of it, a public meeting, but there is often a private meeting beforehand to discuss other issues. I would say that probably relationships with Transport Scotland, while still friendly, are less productive. Usually, there does not appear to be much response from them to the requests that the islands make for any changes to be made to the service. Sergo Northlink is the operators of the service, and they operate it as it is set up. They do so as I say generally quite well. Transport Scotland is the one who set down the way in which it is to be operated and to try to get any variation. It is often very difficult. Just to ask a little bit more about Transport Scotland. Clearly, it is good that there is friendly relationship there, but you said that it is not as productive. What would make that more productive? What would that look like? At the external transport forum meeting, approximately 18 months ago, we were discussing the new freighter plus vessels, which are due to be coming to Shetland. It was quite clearly stated then that they would be in the islands working in 2026. Since then, it has emerged that, while the design work is progressing, there is no money in the budget identified for the construction of those boats before 2026. That will be the point at which they are designed, but not even begun to be built. We are looking much further down the line before we begin to get those boats in service in Shetland. That is one time and a different message. Another time is difficult to work with. It is difficult for the hauliers and the other businesses that depend on the service who are pushing hard to get additional capacity to work with. I think that we will come on to some funding questions later on. David, can I ask you the same question about the relationship with Serco, Northlink, Seymal and Transport Scotland? Yes, I will start off with Northlink. We have a good working relationship with Northlink ferries, with regular technical and transport meetings, with the route plans, their operational needs for the year and the variations of timetabling. The only concern with the Northlink operation is the removal during refit of the short sea route of the Strombus Grubster, which continues to be a bone of contention with transport users. I know how Australia was on that route for two weeks in the year that they just removed the service and without any form of backup on that route. Moving on to Transport Scotland, the engagement that we have had is pretty much looking for internal ferry funding. It has been clouded with a lack of progress or engagement on how that can move forward. I would say that that relationship is possibly not as good as it could be. On Seymal, we have a very good relationship with them. We have been working with them on a number of the hydrogen vessel projects, and we have looked at some of the designs of the battery ferries that all of those other technical items are doing. That sums up where we are at. In your view, what should there be done to improve the relationship with Transport Scotland? A bit more flexibility, possibly, on some of our needs. At the moment, they are not really taken on board. Our internal ferry replacement programme, as I said, is pretty much clouding the relationship a bit with them. Whether we could have a bit more transitions with that matter would help things no end. Are you both happy that the Shetland-Orkley grouping for tendering is done to one company? Are you both happy with it going out to one company? Is it the natural fit? Maureen, do you want to ask on that? It is not a question that I anticipated. I do not have an answer prepared for it, but I would not have said that I have ever felt that the linking with Orkney impedes in any way the service that we have. Obviously, there are people from Shetland who want to travel to Orkney, so having that connection as part of it on some nights of the week is helpful from that perspective. However, when we lose a significant proportion of our capacity to Orkney who have alternatives, when we have no alternatives, it becomes unhelpful. Obviously, there are good points and bad points about having that link. Sorry, I did not want to put you on the spot. I was just trying to say that when the tendering for the non-niles, as it were, is put together, it is in one bundle. It was put out and Northlink got it. It just seems to be a logical fit. You have answered that. David, do you agree with that, or do you disagree with that? It is quite difficult to say that you have unbuttoned all that. When there are two distinctive community groups that Northlink do serve, if you had two separate ones, there may be some jeopardy in the Orkney to Shetland link, which, particularly in the summertime, is widely used. You can see quite a number of travellers coming to doing both island groups as a leisure trip. I would not like to see that being lost. If there is a risk of that being lost by unbundling it, I would say that it is probably better staying where it is. David, you talked about unbundling and tendering there. Do you have any thoughts on the structure of how we procure and deliver ferry services in Scotland, particularly in your own jurisdiction? Do you have any views on the Transport Scotland CML circle in this case matrix? Is there a better way that that could be structured, or is your view that that structure is the right one? It is quite difficult to make a comment on that, because that is the norm that we see coming forward. I do not know what the alternatives would be, whether there would be a separate ship owning company or whether there would be dangers there that you would get inappropriate vessel types or what for the route, or whether you would be more on a commercial footing with the whole thing and what the risks that new ones would bring to the table there. It is difficult to comment on that one without looking at it in depth. What alternatives would you be considering if you do not do it this way? Which other way is it going to be done, whether it is in the ship owning, the ship operating side or on the funding side of the thing? I will throw you the same question, but add to it that one of the things that the committee has heard about is the possibility of, I cannot remember exactly how it was described, the operator of the service bringing its own vessels. Do you have any further thoughts from what David has just provided or not? I think that the most important thing when vessels are coming onto a route is that there is adequate consultation and interaction with the communities that they are going to be serving to ensure that the design and the capacity and things meet what it is designed for. So that large projects such as those in oil and gas renewables, the space port etc. are taken into consideration when the vessels are commissioned and constructed so that they are not only dealing with the day-to-day passenger ferries, but the freight side is well taken into account as well, so that there is sufficient capacity there to meet all the requirements for coming in and out of the island. I do not, as I said earlier, see much wrong in the way in which they operate the external ferry service at the moment with the vessels and the structure as they are. It seems to work quite well, and I think that unbundling the ships from the operators and things might lead to further issues. On that final point, a very useful answer, thank you for that, and I will stay with you more, I give a may. You just said that you do not see much wrong with how it is being delivered, and yet you talked earlier about the capacity for cars and the cabins and the cost. Do you take a view on whether you would like, and if it would be practical, for the North Link to provide a separate service, so Aberdeen Kirkwall and then separately Aberdeen Lerwick? Would that be desirable? If so, presumably, while that could address the cabins and the capacity issue, it would also have a negative effect on the cost issue. What is your view? The link with Orkney is important, so we do require to retain that within the contract. The separation of the two services, I would imagine, would have some positives, but, as you indicate, would probably lead to higher costs. Since cost is already a factor, it is probably something that we would not want to build into the system. When I said that I do not have much problem with the way that it is operating at the minute, I suppose that what I was meaning is that it is a reliable, dependable service and that the company who is running it seems to be able to do so in a way that keeps things operating. When it comes to the transport Scotland side of things, when you are looking to make changes for the future, that is where the problems arise. There does not seem to be an awful lot of opportunity for the islands to have input into that process, or, when we do attempt to, we tend to get knocked back most of the time and just told that there is no possibility for changes. For example, when there was a fairly clear need for additional tonnage during the livestock season last year, some of the college companies and the fish producers and things identified a vessel that they felt would be absolutely ideal that was available for charter for that period. Transport Scotland dismissed it as a possibility unsuitable for the route, but that is very much contested by those who have seen that vessel operating in similar situations. In fact, I believe that it might be coming into Lerwick next later this month on a separate charter. The fact that it was thought to be unsuitable is not probably able to be held up. Thank you very much. Jackie, I think that the next question is yours. Good morning, and thank you for coming along today. I would like to ask a couple of questions to you both, if you do not mind, regarding your inter-island services. Sorry, I am going to see Councillor Lyle, because I am old fashioned and I cannot get out of that. Can you tell me what impact has been had on your local authority in regard to the rising fuel costs, staffing costs and material costs? What is the impact on your authority being able to maintain the current levels of the inter-island ferry services that you currently have? For the past couple of years, we have had, following a campaign, an agreement with the Scottish Government to fully fund our internal ferry services. For the past two years, that has held. Over the last year, as you are aware, the cost of wages and the cost of fuel have increased substantially. We have an ageing fleet of vessels. The average age of our fleet is about 30 years old. With age comes increased maintenance. The maintenance schedules are under regulation with the MCA. We have to do those things to ensure that the vessels get the certification that they require to put to sea. None of those things is easily cut back on—the fuel, the wages or the maintenance. Our ask, then, of the Scottish Government this year was £5 million more for running our internal ferry network in the coming year than it was last year. As of now, we have only been allocated exactly the same figure as we were last year. That £5 million gap leaves us in a critical condition. We are staring down a hole in our finances that we do not know how we are going to fill. Short term, if we do not secure that, we will have to make some very difficult choices. The problem is that you have a ferry, you are paying for it, you have a staff, you are paying for them, so just cherry picking out one or two sailings in the day will slightly reduce the fuel costs, but it does not, overall, seriously reduce the costs of the service. Not being allocated to that full £5 million requirement will leave us in a very difficult position. David, have you got anything to add? All I can say is that I echo the points that are raised by my Scotland colleague here. The only difference between Ireland and Scotland is that our ferry services run pretty much to the minimum levels of service provision, so there is no scope for reducing services whatsoever. Where the extra funding comes from to cover the fuel costs or the wage costs is yet to be. It is one of the things that we need to work on quite seriously, but as the point of making reduces the service, it is just not a possibility, so that funding will have to be found either from additional revenue funding or it will have to be looked at internally somewhere. I want to say that the ferry service in Shetland is akin to Lothian buses in Edinburgh. It is not something like the west coast, where people will maybe travel to the mainland once in a while. Within the Shetland network, people travel every day on these ferries. It is how the students get to college, it is how people get to their work, it is how everyone goes to the supermarket and the doctor's appointments and things every single day. Therefore, this is a service that we cannot cut without having serious implications for all sorts of other aspects of our life in the islands. I talked earlier about the issues of trying to increase the population of the islands. Even within Shetland, the smaller islands are facing that much more acutely than the mainland of Shetland itself. Doing something that would reduce the ferry network would be devastating on our smaller islands. What David said is that cutting the ferries will be the last possible or the last thing that you would do. Is that what you have just said? You cannot afford to cut the ferry services, so something else will have to suffer? Yes. I do not want to speak on behalf of Orkney, but Orkney's service is already much less frequent and people do not generally commute using the ferries very regularly. We have people using them as a daily commuting service because the way in which our island group has developed is that freedom of movement between all the islands on a daily basis is a part of our life. I am sorry to have followed in on that. Jackie, back to you with your questions. Following on from what you have just said, can you tell me how you engage with your island communities to find out how the ferries can or do you meet their needs? I have since taken on this role had meetings with community councils in the islands and some of the business users there like the halliers. That is the main way in which we engage with the communities that we have travelled into the islands and met groups of community representatives to discuss their requirements. I can also tell you that I very regularly receive correspondence on the issue of the ferries. In my wider role as a councillor, I receive far more correspondence on the issue than everything else put together. Thank you, I can totally understand that. David, what Orkney authorities do, please? It is very, very similar. We have the community counselling engagement. In regular meetings with students, the Orkney ferries board is a separate board of management. They have meetings. They form pretty much of aisles counsellors that are on the board. All of that feeds into how the ferries services operate. The transportation group was within the Orkney Islands council. They have regular meetings to form the timetables and additional... We have no capacity to increase the services because what we have is working to the maximum of its abilities at the moment. It is really just moving the deck chairs around a bit every year, as you might say. Again, I think that the communities know what we can deliver at the time. Obviously, they would want a bigger service, more evenings, earlier sail at morning sailings, to give them more capacity to come and go through the evening or to get away on early morning flights or sailings to the mainland. That is just not a possibility, particularly in the Outer Islands. All of them would like all of that, but at the moment, with the negotiation with Transport Scotland and the age of the ferry fleet in the configuration, it is just not possible to do anything further. Thanks very much, Jackie. I am coming back to you, Monica, for another question. Thank you. I said that we might have further questions on funding. I wanted to ask both of you if you are able to outline how much it would cost to renew your authorities ferry fleets and over what time period that would need to happen to maintain a reasonable level of service. David, if I can ask you first. We did the last time that we looked at the strategic business case. We were looking at figures in the hundreds of millions to replace the entire system of ferries and the link spans and the harbour facilities that go with that. Over the times period, now it would be good, obviously, but we do not have to be realistic about those things. As you probably know, our ferry fleet is well in excess of 30-years-old, where we have issues with some reliability. But again, some of the vessels have been refurbished 10 years ago to give a life extension of 10 years. That 10 years has now expired. Realistically, the first vessel that has been identified is the out-of-north is the seago and ships to the further out islands, the four of those, and the one for the row seago to wire service is our priority for renewal. Others can come at some point after that, which would need to be worked out depending on finance, obviously, and identifying vessel operability and harbour facilities that are required to that size of ship. We can sit around all day and ask how we would desire a new fleet to look like and when we would want it. Realistically, it is when the finance is going to come to facilitate this fleet renewal. It is the crux of the matter. You have your list of what you want or rather what you need. That has been costed, but you do not have certainty over funding. In terms of funding that you have access to, what resources does the authority have and what would you be looking for from the Scottish Government? It is realistically what the funding is going to be or how the Scottish Government is going to step up and fund the transport commitment on an equal basis to the rest of Scotland. Thank you, David. I will put the same points to you, Councillor Lyle. As to the estimated cost of replacing our ferry service, I would need to ask someone in the council to come back to you with a figure on that. I would agree with David that the time period is starting 10 years ago, preferably, but given that we are where we are, it is very, very important that we move on with this. Where I would deviate from David is that, as a council, we are not seeking to replace all of our ferry service with ferries. We are very strongly behind a commitment to moving ahead with getting tunnels to replace some of our short sailings. Some of our sailings are only seven minutes across, and we are not talking great long distances. The four main islands that are served by ferries are only seven, ten, twenty or thirty minutes long, and they take the vast majority of the traffic between our islands. That would leave two or three small islands with small populations as outlaw liars, but those four islands with tunnels in place would vastly, vastly reduce the cost of our ferry service. A very quick sort of back of the fact packet type of calculation suggests that that could be done for around £400 million, which sounds like a large sum of money until you recognise the fact that you are currently giving us £20 million a year to run the existing service, and that is increasing with inflation year on year and does not take account of the fact that all the ferries and the shore infrastructure requires to be replaced and upgraded as well. On that sort of basis, tunnels suddenly become a much more affordable and attractive option. They hit the button not just financially, but economically, socially and environmentally. Our small island economies are constrained by the capacity of those small ferries. We have lorry loads of fish that sit on the end of the pier and yell wondering if they are going to get on and make it down to Lerwick in time to catch the ferry that evening, particularly in the high season where there are a lot of tourists around. It is the tourism ability of those islands that is also constrained by the number of people. Our economy would be able to flourish if we had that ability to flow in freely. We would be able to be much more socially connected if I had a fibre for every person who lives in my village that says that I used to live in Yell, but the constraints of the ferry service have led them to conclude that we need to move out of Yell and into the mainland where we can get our children to the clubs they want to go to, we can get to the supermarket regularly, we can attend the cinema, we can go to work without having to get back at night wondering will the ferry be running, will I get home again, has it broken down, have they got enough staff, because staffing is another issue that I have not mentioned is very difficult at the minute in such a buoyant economy. We are competing with the likes of aquaculture who can pay far higher salaries. As you know, the structure of salaries within a local authority is very set, it is almost impossible to pay them any more, so we cannot save a flow of our staff from our ferry service into other areas. Can I just ask Morick so it was helpful that he gave a figure, so he said £400 million. As I say, that is an off the top of the head sort of figure, but it is not my head, but the sort of ballpark that is sort of being thought about within the cinema. And is that for the four tunnels, in total? I think it would be very helpful to the committee if you have costings for replacing your internal ferry fleet and any other costings at the committee. It would be very useful for those to be submitted to the committee, so we could not consider it as part of our evidence. Sorry, I did not want to take away from what you are saying, Monica. No, that is okay, can you respond very briefly to that? We have put in place a plan over the next year or two to produce a report that will give an entire look at our current set-up and the inclusion of the tunnels as an option to that. That piece of work that we expect to cost us somewhere around £400,000 to £600,000 in terms of investigations over the next year or two, and in a year where we are being asked to produce negative increased budgets, it is something that I am very strongly with my role in environment transport, pushing that this is one thing that we must add to our budget because we need to make movement on this now. It is very important to us. Sorry to interrupt again. If I can come back in. No, that is helpful and the more information that can be sent to us after today's session would be really helpful. I just had other questions, but perhaps they will come in that later submission because I was keen to know what would be the on-going maintenance commitment. You talked about environmental benefits in terms of going down the road of tunnels. Absolutely, that was the one point that I had not managed to get around to. The current emissions of Shetland Islands Council are almost 50 per cent due to our ferry network. The requirement to move towards net zero is a duty that the Scottish Government has put on us as a local authority. It is a duty that we will be singularly unable to meet unless we begin to get rid of our ferry fleet and this would help us to go a long way towards fulfilling that duty that is upon us if we could get some of our ferries replaced by tunnels. Briefly, I will leave the question with Morag. You seem very passionate about this tunnel option. What community consultation has been undertaken? Is this something that the community are behind? I am pleased that my passion for it is coming over because it is not only me that is passionate about it. Our communities are passionate about it. Both Yale and Unst have recently formed tunnel action groups because they are pressing to get this done. They see very little movement from the centre, the council, on it and they are just like, we cannot drag our feet on this any longer, we need to see this happening. So there is a very strong press within the community for it. Our local MP and MSP held a series of meetings around all the islands that would be affected by the tunnels if we were able to move forward on that. They were very well attended across all the island groups and very, very positive in favour of it. There was hardly a dissenting voice at any of them that thought that retaining the ferries was a better idea than putting in a tunnel. Morag, you brought tunnels up and we were going to come to tunnels and I know Mark had some fairly strong views on them. Mark had some fairly strong views on them. I am going to bring Mark in now on tunnels if there are questions that you would like. If you use it, it is the views of the witnesses that I am interested in. It would be good to explore that in a little bit more detail. I met myself and the deputy convener with the ferries Government recently and we are aware that there is a huge amount of investment and fixed links in the ferros. Has there been much thinking about the financing mechanism for tunnels? You mentioned the figures there, the £400 million versus the £20 million investment in ferries that is required just in terms of maintenance, but in terms of a financial model, it would be useful to get a bit more information from you about how you would envisage that actually working with the Scottish Government's capital budgets or other forms of financing. I think that we are probably thinking that there will be some sort of innovative financing model to make that happen. Capital budgets from the centre would be absolutely great. We anticipate that when they come in we would have to have almost certainly a toll on them initially at least because the contribution towards helping to pay for them could then come from within the community. There have also been thoughts of whether we can borrow against the revenue funding as it currently is to enable us to source aspects of finance that we would be able to pay for it. I have to say that finance is not my strongest point in terms of that, but I know that there are a number of different mechanisms that have been looked at. I would be again very happy to ask our officers to provide the committee with further information on that. I think that that would be useful. I am just wondering what the conversation has been like with particular sectors. Again, with the ferries, I think that there was a lot of discussion with the aquaculture industry and the ferros around their contribution towards fixed links. Obviously, there is not an actual model in place for how you might fund that, but in terms of contributions—and you mentioned tolling whether there are particular sectors that could step up. I understand from speaking to colleagues who are involved with the tunnel action groups that the aquaculture sector has indicated a willingness to contribute to making progress on that in terms of perhaps putting money towards the investigations that will have to be done in advance and that sort of thing. I suppose that one thing that I should also add is that this is not a new idea for Shetland, but it has been around for many years. In fact, a lot of work was done, particularly in relation to the possibility of a tunnel to Bresa, and much of that work that was done will still be valid. Obviously, the geology and stuff has not changed in the years since that, so there is a good bit of work that has already previously been done that can be built on. The aquaculture sector, who would be more interested in yelling on Bresa, because that is where their operations are based, has indicated to the tunnel action groups a willingness to put some sort of finance into helping with the initial investigations. Has there been a collaborative discussion with Transport Scotland on this? I do not think that it sits within strategic transport projects review, as is not a national project, but it is clearly a significant local project. As far as I am aware, there has not been a lot of discussion with Transport Scotland as regards tunnels. Very much when we try to engage with them about our internal ferry service, the message that we get back from them is your ferries, your problem. Since we are looking to advance tunnels as an alternative to ferries, they are seeing it within the same ballpark, and they are saying that it is not our issue, it is your issue. David, I do not know if you have anything more to add on that. I think that you are more cause-wise than tunnels, but correct me if I am wrong. The geographies are entirely different now, the islands are much more spread out. We did look at tunnels back in the 90s. There was some geological surveys done. They found that the rock structure was pretty much unsuitable for any tunnels that would have to be lined would make them very, very expensive. It is quite difficult to bore, in fact, without problems. A lot of the things that we are looking at is bridges, rather than to the mainland, but to groups of island groups, so that they reduce the number of ferry operations that are needed, so that they have the possibility of the Eaglesea to Rousey bridge, which would take out one of the longer legs on that very, very route. Another bridge option is up to nine of Westray towards Edy across the island of Farrie, which would take entirely out the western operation of the ferry service, which would cut down the number of operations there. Certainly, we have been doing a lot of work towards looking at the net zero and how that would affect us. Lake Shetland, where we are identified as the biggest single and the most part of it in Orkney, is the ferry services for the consumption of diesel fuel that we are at with three million litres a year. Sustainability-wise, we are one of the big targets in the island to look at the amount of fuel that that operation is using just to provide internal services. Certainly, we are doing a lot of work on the renewable fuel side of things, and that is probably the way that we would have to go with a number of the ferry operations. Convert to the deputy convener, who has been waiting very patiently for her question. Thank you for your comprehensive written submissions. We should also reflect that we are trying to inform the island's connectivity plan, which is not the ferry plan, it is connectivity, so maybe a place-based approach might be something that we can try to influence. I might ask you both the same question but come to David Hibbert first. What discussions have you had with Transport Scotland or the Scottish Government about the provision of additional funding to support the vessel replacement programme? I was particularly struck in your written submission about suggestions of using a similar model to the learning estate investment model, where 90 per cent of revenue funding would enable, over a long period, the council to have prudential borrowing for capital. Perhaps elaborate on that, if you can, David. Slightly off my area, that one on the technical operational side, I know that there has been a number of discussions held on that. The revenue funding was increased for the ferry operations, which is useful to make the thing more sustainable and disconnecting it from the rest of the transport provision. I am not sure if I am in a position to comment on the funding asking and other negotiations that have been going on. I would have to follow up with the answer to that if I can get it from someone who is involved. It would be helpful to know what discussions have been with Transport Scotland and the Scottish Government, and, similarly, what discussions have the council had with Transport Scotland and the Scottish Government on the vessel replacement programme? I think that I indicated before that, generally, when we attempt to engage them, the answer that we get is that they are your ferries, they are your problem, they do not lie within our remit. I told a slight softening of that recently in that there seems to be the beginnings, perhaps, of our willingness to interact on the issue, but, until recently, we have very much been kept at arm's length. I agree with the discussion of the possibility of transferring responsibility for inter-island ferry services to Transport Scotland. Has that been something that you have discussed, or what would be your response to that? Are you very keen that local responsibility is maintained within the council? It is not something that I am aware of having been discussed. It is something that fills me with great trepidation when you mention it. I do not think that I would go so far as to say that my views of Transport Scotland are as firm as the conveners of SIPA, but they probably would not be far off. They do not seem to be a terribly proactive organisation. They do not seem to be one that is terribly flexible or forward thinking. They do not appear to be willing to look at alternatives to the things that they are already focused on, unless there was quite a routine branch change in their approach to things. I think that it is something that we would be quite resistant to. Of course, Project Neptune might lead to that, but we do not know it as yet, but we can inform that with this inquiry. Similarly to you, David, on the potential of transfer of responsibility for inter-island ferries to Transport Scotland or, indeed, a new body potentially that brings Seaman and Transport Scotland together, have you thoughts on that? Yes. I do not see an issue with the ownership of the vessels being out with islands. In fact, I would say that it is probably quite a good thing to take the cap with all responsibility away. So long as we are heavily engaged with on the design of making sure that the vessels to be provided are operable. As I said before, I have been involved with Seaman looking at their battery ferry design and also the work on the hydrogen project, which was for Orkney. I do not see there being an issue with Stimal or some other group taking the cap with all responsibility for the vessel away from the council. However, I think that it would be quite keen or key to keep the operational responsibility closer to the islands somehow or other, whether it was with the council, whether there was a separate board or some other means to do that. We find that it is very useful to keep the community engagement. The mechanisms that we have for engaging with the communities are quite effective. Whether there is a risk of that disappearing or shooting another operator, particularly if they are very commercially minded, come into being or into operating service, I think that there could be quite a lot of risk with that. Operation management local but potentially capital investment more centralised? Yes, pretty much. That is what I am seeing there yet. I will allow any other comments or I can pass back to the committee there. Thanks. That last comment was very interesting. There are two questions that I would like to ask at the end. First of all, is the running of the ferries? Certainly when I was up in Orkney it was the staffing and the crewing of the ferries and seeing a long-term future for those people on the islands to actually do that. Is that as big a concern as I got the impression it was on Orkney and what is the situation on Shetland? David first followed by Maureen. Certainly, it depends what shape the new ferries are going to look like. Obviously with the net zero and all the environmental commitments that have been made, the vessels are going to look operability-wise quite different from the ones that we are operating today. There is quite a big change in the training of the staff and the staffing of the vessel and where we get these people from. I think that it was mentioned earlier on about the pressures that we have on recruitment. Since the rise of the inshore fleets of the wind farms and the aquaculture it has put tremendous pressure on recruitment and retention, which is a thing that we hadn't seen before in the previous, going back a decade, that wasn't a factor. What we were up against then was the competition for the seago and ships against the oil and gas, which was the larger vessels where we were in competition with them. The inshore operation is a new challenge to retain staff. With a proactive training and recruitment and encouragement of individuals to want seagoing jobs, it is one thing that is overcomeable. We should work closely with the UHI nautical school in Strumnus. We have developed courses for training seafarers. We have developed our own. I cannot see an issue of that going forward, but we need quite a lot more investment in the people to do that. We will have to start taking people in it more at trainee cadet level. Previously, people would have found that people would want to come home and work on a short tea ferry. They would have been years away on either around the world sailing or whatever and come back and work with us, unless we were enticed away somewhere else with more money and better conditions. We have noticed that that is very cyclical, that business, right enough that we found some leave to the oil and gas, then they reappear five or seven years later when there is a downturn. At the moment, with the correct investment and the correct training regimes right from school, we are obviously engaged in education. A lot of that, we are doing work placements for school people on our ships to encourage them to go to sea. With that correct engagement and more investment, more attention to the development, the seafaring careers and that, I wouldn't see that could be a serious problem going forward. For many years, we had a policy as a council of having the ships berthed within the islands that they served so that the staff were retained within the islands. More recently, that is becoming an issue because there really are insufficient people living in a number of our islands to crew the vessels and so more and more we are now having to take crew in, we are having to hold houses to keep them in and things so that as a model it is becoming less sustainable and more of our communities are now open to the boats not being kept within their own island as a way of making sure that the service is actually sustainable in the medium to long term. The decreasing population of the islands is an issue and the ferry service is not immune from that. I do not want to continue to bang the tunnel drum too much but all I would say is that we already have in Shetland three islands that are connected to our mainland, Burra, Trondra, Muckl Row. Since the links to them bridges were put in, all of them have steadily increased their population. Every other island that is served by a ferry service has steadily decreased its population. Tunnels, fixed links, bridges, they do work in terms of retaining people within the islands. Okay, that is very helpful. Fianna, and then I will come back with the last one. Just finally, this committee had delegates in Reykjavik where we met the fair islands minister who helped to explain their tunnel network. Have few had connections to them in terms of their experience and particularly how private finance might be used in such an exercise? I was very fortunate to be able to travel to Ferro at the end of September and to meet with their tunneling company, their finance minister and various other people out there to travel through a number of their very extensive tunnel networks and to see what can be done. The big difference, of course, is that they receive a much greater funding commitment from the Danish Government to enable them to put this sort of infrastructure in place. It has clearly revolutionised Ferro two or three decades ago. Ferro and ourselves would have had very similar populations of around the 20,000. Ours has very slowly declined, not a lot, but very slowly declined whereas the Faroese population has ramped up massively over that time and you can see how much their tunnel network has revolutionised their island group. That's interesting. The final question, which, hopefully, is a yes-no question, if we're going to replace the inter-island ferries as part of that package, do you agree that we've got to look at where they birth and also the facilities at the birthing for people getting on and off those ferries? It could be a yes or no answer. Oh yes, it all has to be looked at. David? Absolutely. To make sure that we have the right access and for all groups of people and vehicles that transport it, we have to have all of these facilities. I think that's been a really interesting session. Thank you for taking part and working through the connection problems to start with and more out for holding the fort for Orkney till they were able to join. Thank you very much. We're going to suspend the meeting. Can I ask members to be back here at 10.55, please? I'll suspend the meeting. Thank you. Welcome back. We're now going to hear from today's second panel as part of our inquiry into a modern sustainable ferry service for Scotland. Our second panel will explore local authorities' experience of operating ferry services and acting as harbour authorities. We also want to hear their views on the adequacy of the Scottish Government-supported ferry services for the Clyde island and Hebrides. I'm pleased to welcome Murray Bain, project manager for the Coron Ferry Highland Council, Russell McCutcheon, the Executive Director, Place North Ayrshire Council, Scott Reed, the Marine Operations Manager for Argyll and Bute Council, and Councillor Austin Robertson, chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for the Western Isles. Thank you for accepting our invitation. I'm glad that you're here. There are a whole heap of questions and I'm going to have to try and divide my time. I would ask you to answer as succinctly as possible, just so that we can get through as many questions as possible. If you don't feel you need to come in, don't feel you have to contribute. If you want to get in and you're not asked in, shove your hand up and I will catch you if you're outside the room. If you're inside the room, catch my eye and scowl if that's the way that it's going to catch my attention, as it were. The first question is, the current Clyde and Hebrides ferry service contract expires in October. The question is, have you had discussions with Transport Scotland about the service provision after that date? I don't know who would like to start off on that. I guess there'll be an input. Scott, do you want to talk and enter into that? Yes, thanks very much for inviting us along to make an input. We are, as far as the Clyde's concerned, very much involved in the infrastructure project with the Gwregdon and Cullcraygan works, as well as the other islands that are involved there. We work very closely, almost on a daily basis, with colleagues from CFL and CalMac, particularly Seymal, who are very professional in an open relationship with them, as well as colleagues from Transport Scotland. We are very much taking what we, our input for that service on, from an operational point of view, certainly much as a big picture partnership between and combining the works on those projects. Russell, do you want to add anything? Yes, thank you for having me today. With regard to our relationships with Emile, Transport Scotland and CalMac, those are really quite good, and we have regular communications. I haven't personally been involved in discussions around the renewal of the contract, but I know that our officers would have been having discussions of that nature with them. As I said, there are a list of questions that people want to ask, and I'm going to come to Monica to start off with Monica. Thank you, convener, and good morning to all of our panelists. The committee has been taking different views on bundling, so we have heard a variety of different views so far. I am keen to put the question to each of you. Do you have views on the possible and bundling of Clyde and Hebride's Ferry services? Is there any other way that local communities and authorities could be involved in the management of Clyde and Hebride's Ferry services? I'll come first to the people in the room if that helps broadcasting, so I'll come to Councillor Robertson. Our Gaelan but is a very diverse set of islands and rural communities. We would certainly see that there is no one solution that fits all of our communities. It's not quite as simple as that. The unbundling is very much open to negotiations on whether crew, which we find particularly difficult situation, the capital funding for vessels, the running of the ferry services, in particular the Dura ferry. We would be open and where open in the first set of negotiations for transferring that service over or not. I would say that, very similar to Auckland in Shetland, the participation and the flexibility that the council has with its communities can't be stressed enough. We have regular and very good communications and engagement with our communities, but that doesn't mean that another solution could be found for the actual crew and the vessels. Transport Scotland is taking over those ferries with no detriment to the council, in particular with the challenge and budgets. We would certainly be open to negotiating and talking about those subjects, but in that respect, the infrastructure that we have and we maintain, we find very important and strategic to the council's view in how we can deliver all other strategic things to our rural communities. That would be something that we wouldn't be keen to see. In regards to the infrastructure itself. There has been quite a lot of discussion about the bundle in the past while, especially after the Ernst and Young report. If you look at it in the round, we have always argued that, for example, a Western Isles bundle would actually be bigger than the Orkney bundle, but what we had looked for was to have more control within the bundle. For example, not doing away with the bundle as it stands, but having more of a say of a management say what's happened within the bundle in the Western Isles. That was the view that's been expressed by our council. I'm keen to understand a little bit more about having more of a say in terms of management. How do you think that that could be achieved? We've seen already in our dealings with Carl Mac that we've now head of operations. Carl Mac is based in the Western Isles. We've seen the difference that is made in terms of dealing with Carl Mac. You have somebody who lives the experience of ferries there and we feel that we had more of management from Carl Mac based in the Western Isles or probably in Gail and Newton and so on. That would certainly improve what is quite a fractious relationship at the moment. I'll put the same question to our virtual witnesses. Is it Russell McCutcheon? Thank you for that question. With regard to bundling versus unbundling, it is the case that even within North Ayrshire's island communities we have Arran and Cumbria and the needs of both islands and their communities are very much different. Through significant consultation with the communities on the islands of Arran and Cumbria and business communities and feedback from visitors, it is very much the case that each island has different needs. In terms of bundling and unbundling, I would probably suggest that the outcome is more important to island communities and the mechanism as to how we get there is probably less on their radar as it could be. I think that where we are coming from is that provided that the outcome is resilient, reliable on-time ferry services that meet the needs of local communities and the ferry provision is flexible enough to sustain that model, the local communities would be happy with that. Just by we have some context and importance of that, we did a bit of work through the Fraser of Allander on the impact of Covid on the Arran economy. That identified that, in average, each day of ferry operation contributes to just under £170,000 to the island's economy per day. It is really important for the island communities and the bundling and unbundling would be a mechanism of getting there but for them it is really about the outcome and almost say the front of the TV, the picture of how the service looks to them rather than how it is bundled in the contractual aspects of island. Thank you, Russell. I think that you make some interesting points there about outcomes and also note from the submission that North Ayrshire Council is a community wealth building council. Just within that context as well, what bearing does that have and how the council approaches issues around ferries and connectivity? What is the relevance and the outcome that you hope to get from a community wealth building approach? With regard to community wealth building, you are absolutely right. We consider ourselves to be a community wealth building council. If we are talking about council operated ferries and local operated ferries, we do not have any experience of that. The ferries that operate in our area are run by CalMac, but given our desire to look and become a community wealth building council, things like plural ownership of the local economy and maximising the return and value of assets to achieve social, economic and environmental outcomes for the benefit of local communities in business is something that we would be supportive of and would be keen to investigate those potentials further. Can I put the same question to Murray Bain, please? Good morning, panel. What I would say regarding the CHIFS bundle is that the common ferry operates at a standalone service in isolation, so it means that it never benefits from the economies of scale as being nested in a larger bundle like the CHIFS network at CalMac or even in Orkney and Shetland for that example. We have no specific marine department set up that sits on our roads department, so we do not have a marine department. That gives us, because of the location and the common ferry, links with the CHIFS network as a backdoor route to the Isle of Mal. It takes across dangerous goods and vehicles that cannot go across on the other routes to Mal. That is already part of the network, so that is our strategic link of the network, and that, to us, is a huge recruitment challenge because we are competing with CalMac for staff. We are part of the network, but we do not have the advantages of economies of scale or that back-off of support that we have on a larger marine department for an organisation like CalMac. It is worth noting as well that, historically, the Highland Council submitted a formal request regarding the possibility of transfer of responsibility for common ferry service in accordance with the principles of the Scottish Berries Plan, now the Highlands Connectivity Plan. After that length, several years of discussions in the Government advised us that they would require confirmation of the council's plan to fund the capital for our replacement vessels until we have that capital in place so that we know further discussion on a transfer of responsibility. Following on from that, we were offered support and kind through the small vessels replacement programme for replacement vessels, so the council is now part of that programme with SEMA, that is for seven replacement CalMac SEMA vessels and two council vessels. I am pleased to say that that has gone very well. We are on track for a design of new all-electric vessels, so we have seen the benefits of working closely with the SEMA, the first-class working relationship there. However, what we are pushing forward with this project is that we are looking for assurance or reassurance from the Government that the Highlands Connectivity Plan will also include the key principles for a transfer of responsibility, as was the case in the ferry's plan, just to make sure that that door still remains open about a possible transfer of responsibility for local ferry ferries. On that last point, are you engaged in dialogue with the Scottish Government on that point? It has been left to us now before it is up to the Highland Council to find the capital, £62 million to replace the vessels and the infrastructure. It has been clearly made of that. That is the case. There is no option but the Highland Council to find that money. What we have been offered is supporting the small vessels replacement programme to help us with the design of our vessels, but no capital. Does that mean that you still need to find £62 million? Yes, that is exactly it. I will be very brief. Both vessels are ranging from 23 to 47 years old. One has been away from dry dock for seven months and one for four months. The risk of breakdown is now significant. Hanging by a thread, I would say that vessels are too small. Both vessels are too small. There is an annual growth rate at the ferry about 2.1 per cent each year, so it is increasing the demand. Marstling areas are too small, causing overspill issues on the main road, the two-trunk road. There are quarter-point vessels that mean that they are no use for the Calamac routes. Their roll-off ferries cannot come to our slipways. We have an overnight berthing, which is a huge safety issue. There will be up to two hours now. The potential is cut off when the vessels are out of service. There is an aspiration for a fixed link. The Highland Council is on a fixed link, but that remains an aspiration at present due to the upfront costs. That feasibility study was submitted to the SDPR II for consideration. The Highland Council submitted that to the SDPR II, but it was not considered to be taken forward as a project. It still remains a long-term aspiration. We have an outline business case, a strategic economic, commercial, financial management case in line with a green book. We have had that approved in a robust 588-page business case. That is being signed off, and we are using that document as a rationale for investment to look for capital investment. That is currently where we are at the moment. So, just to summarise, we have actually got an approved business case and a shovel-ready project with them to all electric vessels designed. The design is going to be completed by the end of March. The infrastructure to accommodate the vessels that are designed for that will be completed by the end of September. We are ready to go. We have done something about it. It has cost us £1.6 million to the council to find that money to fund us to get to this stage. We are on the same timeline as the small vessels replacement programme with SEMA. It is just that SEMA have got the funding to proceed with their seven vessels, whereas we do not. I know that the camera will want me to hand back in in a second. You have given us a lot of useful important detail there. Clearly, a lot of work has gone into this project so far, including the investment of £1.6 million. However, there is still a black hole in terms of where the £62 million will come from. It does not sound like it is coming from the Scottish Government, so what other options are available to Highland Council? If you do not get all the investment that you need, what happens then? It is a huge challenge for the Highland Council, because the local authority is under huge pressure to build schools, road repairs and all the rest of it. It is not in our capital plan. We cannot have an amount of money in our capital plan. We cannot afford to borrow on that amount of money. We were hopeful when we got involved in the small vessels replacement programme. We had a trip away with SEMA to Norway, and then we were looking at all those electric ferries, so we know what we would look like. We have seen the future and we know the technologies there. We were hoping to look at what potential sources and grants are available for low-carbon transport solutions, such as the car and ferry project that is in line with the Scottish Government's climate change commitments and the council's climate change commitments. We were hopeful that there would be pots of money out there for the type of project. As we have not come across any type of grant funding for the type of project. Thank you. I will pass back to the convener. Thank you, Monica. Jackie, you have some questions, I believe. Yes, thank you. Good morning, panel. Thank you for coming along. In some of the former sessions, we have been hearing about ticket pricing. I would just like your views on whether you would support if the CalMac ferry fares were lowered for the islanders and the rural folk and maybe put up for our tourists. I am not sure who I would like to ask first. I think I will ask Councillor Robertson. Yes, there has been some discussion, obviously, recently on that in terms, but it was particularly in the pressure on ferry capacity that there was the need to look at how can we ensure that islanders are able to attend, for example, middle and hospitals, go AC family and so on and so forth. There has been quite a bit of discussion about that, whether you should have lower fares for islanders as opposed to tourists coming on to the island. There have been mixed views on that, I have to say. It is not something that we have gone into as a council very deeply at the moment, but quite clearly our economy depends quite heavily on tourism at the moment. The ones that have invested heavily in tourism were surrounded by all those wig ones and pods and so on. That investment has been made, and those people are clearly against any move to have this kind of separation in ticket prices. The argument is that what we really need is more vessels, not to look at restricting movement just because capacity is constrained. Do you have a view on that, or is it not something that you have really considered to any degree at this moment? Personally, I would leave it as it is. I would completely agree that the RET has been a victim of its own success in a lot of ways. It has been very successful in encouraging travel from the mainland and the tourists in the industry, visitors to the islands and the rural communities. However, what has not matched it has been the capacity of the vessels. That is what is required. Rather than punishing and restricting, the focus should really be on matching the capacity. It is not just the capacity that needs to come up. We have a 50-year-old vessel. There are average 30-year-old vessels. It is killing two birds with one stone. We need the investment with the vessels and the increased capacity in investment with the vessels will also help the islanders and the rural communities to make sure that they can access those services on the mainland, as well as lifestyle and doctors appointments and things like that, that they need access. The big catch-all would be the increased capacity and the appropriate capacity for the island's needs. As I said, there is a huge range of variations there, depending on where you look. The ticket fair is just now on the whole. Would you say that they were reasonably priced? I know that there are different prices, but on the whole, I mean… Yes. Another thing about being local councillors is that we, as councillors, are not just officers who deal with local communities. We are residents and customers as well. I would not say that we had a view at the moment as to why they would have to go up or down, so I would keep them as they are at the moment. OK, thank you. Morrie Russell, is there anything that you would like to add? Yes, I have come in there. We did a business case, and that highlighted the key role that the formal fairs play in supporting the current ferry. Historically, the ferry is operated on a probably break-even basis, just due to the 270,000 cars each year. That is cost, size and the scale of the operation due to the capacity issues. It is not going to be a source of funding. In line with other local authorities, I think what I heard people talking about previously, we will be looking to evidence and trajectory a revenue funding commitment through the GA replacement, the support for the island's ferries specific grant. I think that he has naturally concluded there. I do not know if Russell wants to come in. Thank you for bringing me in on that question. I think that we have to reflect on the current cost of living crisis that is affecting everyone, and that is to amplify for those living on islands. It is absolutely the case that cost of living for our island communities is stark and significant. However, it has to be said, though, that anytime we are speaking to local island communities about ferries and about the ferry provision and ferry service, it is not the ticket price that is mentioned to us as being an issue. In fact, it is recognised by the islands that their local economy is heavily reliant on tourist visitor numbers coming on to the island. With regard to ticket pricing, I would say that the status quo seems to operate reasonably well just now, but that would be in the context of the cost of living issues. Other issues that islanders raise is their priority access on to the ferry for essential lifeline services getting on and off the island, and they would probably prefer a priority on to and off of the ferries at the expense of some tourists rather than the price differential, as I said. It is a real balance to be met. I would like to stick on fares, if I may. I will bring Markle in briefly, then I will come back to Liam Kerr. Just further to that, we had the architect, Rhoda Krull and Tarrif giving evidence to committee last week and I think making quite a pervasive case for how RET needs to be changed or scrapped or reformed. I just wonder if you had anything further to say on that in relation to fares. If I may, the only other thing that, as a council, we would say is that the opportunities that might be available in using RET income differently may well be part of a solution for the capital funding that we all need. I am not entirely sure the details of how that would work, but whatever mechanism perhaps the same as our education colleagues have with schools, there may well be opportunities to use what is there. I heard the evidence and it was quite interesting to see that the architect himself was not particularly fine. I think he described it as a blunt instrument. It certainly has been instrumental in getting support for businesses in islands and rural communities. That goes without saying, but we need to make the rest of it catch up. If that involves refining the RET or how we spend it, it needs to be one of the things that we can look at. RET has been successful in terms of our islands and our economy. The problem has been that they did not see the success of RET coming, so the infrastructure, the vessels having moved in tandem with the success of RET. I never liked playing around with ticket prices. There are arguments from different areas about the movement of cargo. We had the freight ferries review, which we never saw the conclusion of. In terms of haulage in my area, I will always argue that they are disadvantaged compared to other areas on the chips network. That has never been solved. Some people say that we should have the legs of an EDS system that we have currently for flying, which gives benefit to islanders, people who live in the island, who are coming and going. It is not something that we have had major discussions on, I would have to say. I do not like playing around with ticket prices because the real issue is not enough capacity. RET does not apply to the Council of the Corom Ferry, because we set the fears. What I will say when I am talking about affordable fears is that we need to be mindful of the Corom Ferry, which acts like a bridge, so that people are commuting back and forth every single day to get to their work. We are always mindful of that. We realise and recognise the importance of affordable fears to the locals and the socioeconomic benefits that it brings by keeping those fears affordable. Russell, do you want to come in? RET has led to substantial increases on vehicles on the islands of Cumbria and Arran. I think that the road infrastructure on both islands does struggle with the volume of cars that are in campervans that are accessing the island. I think that RET is beneficial for islanders and their cars and is beneficial for freight and essential services coming on and off the island. I am thinking of an interesting concept around RET for tourist vehicles and linking that to your earlier question about ticket price, whether or not a tourist banning of RET, which is more expensive for bringing tourist vehicles on to the island, might be one way of looking at the scenarios that could unfold. I will come back to Liam. I seem to remember that there was a Friends and Family discount scheme run on Northlink. You were limited to five friends if you were on the island. It was slightly concerning me that I would not be classed as a friend on one of the islanders list, but maybe that is a different thing. I think that that was run and I think that it was stopped. Liam, do you want to come back with a question specifically on the current ferry and then a wider question? Yes, thanks, convener. Good morning, panel. I will do it in the other order. I think that the current ferry brings itself to the end of my line. The first question that I want to put you see is to Scott Reid and then I will ask Russell McCutcheon to answer it. Is some people have suggested that it might be a better idea for CalMac to deploy smaller vessels on their routes, potentially even catamarans? That could improve the reliability of the service as well as address capacity issues. Do you take a view on whether there should be smaller vessels deployed and or the appropriateness of using catamarans? The second point, first. I am a master mariner and ex-ships captain. Stability attributes and benefits of catamarans are statistically fact. That is what they are. Whether they are appropriate for a particular ferry route has to come down to the experts who are designing the vessels. You can have different kinds of vessels for different kinds of routes, but the main approach to that would have to be what is appropriate for the route. I would not have a view on whether catamarans are more or less appropriate for any particular route. For example, their load displacement and high-windage might make them completely unsuitable for low-current high-windage weather situations for berthyn. They are also quite lighter in that regard, so you would need probably or quite possibly more protection for their interaction along the side slipways and links bands, so it would have to be horses for courses. The Argyllinbuut Council has already written to the Scottish Government in Transport Scotland with its preference for Craig Newer, for example, just picking up on a previous point. The ferry is the bridge. The ferry is the infrastructure, just the same as the link span and the slipways, but we also have to consider what the road capacities in networks are like. For example, if a single large vessel discharges a lot of cars onto a road network like Mull to get to Iona, for example, it will just cause chaos and congestion on a road network that is not quite up for that. The sensible logical solution to that would be, therefore, a more frequent smaller service in order for the network to make sure that it can cope with that. That is a balance that has to be made because that also means, therefore, more crew and more resources for the different vessels. It is an interesting balance to try and get right, but, for a view, we have to not just look at what the capacity needs for the island or the community is, but what the rest of the road network in public transport is. A large investment has just been announced for active travel. Where we are talking about having more cars going on to restricted networks, do we make the network bigger and able to deal with all those cars, or do we look at this in a more holistic way and see if we can get a different way of connecting up the communities to the ferry hubs? Thank you. It is a very interesting answer. Russell McCutcheon, do you have anything to add to that? Yes, thank you. Sorry for the delay there. I was just waiting on my microphone coming back on. I totally agree with the previous speaker, to be perfectly honest. I think that the key word in that response was balance. It is absolutely the case that local communities know what they want and what they need. That manifests itself in a desire for looking at smaller, cheaper and more flexible vessels that could, in their eyes, provide a more reliable service. The challenges of designing a ferry fleet to meet the varying needs and circumstances across the network has to be recognised. Although there is no one-size-fits-all solution, as far as possible, I think that any possible consistency would be beneficial in the design of those vessels wherever practical or more consistent design, rather than bespoke vessels for each route, would allow easier maintenance and flexibility across the network. That would also help to ensure that the suitable infrastructure can be built and maintained at the relevant ports, as well as the alternative refuse ports. I think that peer infrastructure across the network is also important to support resilience. Ultimately, our communities are actually looking for ferries that can sail and dock reliably, efficiently, frequently, and other sufficient capacity on other routes that we make, too. It really is a balance of a large ferry coming into, for example, Brody and all the vehicle transport and the people hitting the island once at that time, or smaller numbers accessing the island on a more programme basis, but I think that a balance of those two different points of view is the important point. I am very grateful. Councillor Robertson, Russell McCutcheon just brought up the infrastructure and ports points. The committee has heard thoughts on the current ownership and operatorship of our ports and harbours. Do you have a view on who is best placed to own and operate the ports and harbours used by CalMac, especially given your thoughts and your submission around designing ferries to be compatible with the harbours? The ports in my own area, for example, we have the one in North Uist that is owned by the council, the one in Newark that we are going to is owned by Highland Region, the one in Tarbert, Seymal, and the one in Storn who is in Port Authority. We have four ownerships right away, which cause complications. Clearly, the fees that the corolles get for the use of Lofmadi pier, for example, the ferry berthing is significant and has been helpful in terms of payment of staff, harbours and so on and so forth. Clearly, the works currently in Lofmadi and in Newark were based on getting vessel 802. That has changed. We had constantly argued, going back to your other point, that we would have preferred smaller vessels. We argued for a Storn, a way out, but we got the large vessel that we argued for two smaller vessels. Then we did not need quite the same investment in the ports that we have had. The Scottish Government has invested quite heavily in Storn, a way out, a lot more. It is huge sums, but if we had gone down the road of smaller vessels, we needed investment but not to quite such a high degree. I am very grateful. I will throw the same question to Murray Bain about the ownership and operatorship of the ports and harbours. Perhaps Murray, in answering that, I was very interested in your discussion with Monica Lennon about the cost of the Coron Ferry and the infrastructure. I think that you said that the cost of the Highland Council would be around £62 million. I looked that up on my Google map and it is about a kilometre, I think, the crossing. You will confirm exactly what that distance is. It begs the question, given the conversations that this committee has been having about fixed links, how much would it cost to build a bridge? Then you said that having established that cost, who should pay for it if it is feasible? What is being done to explore that possibility if indeed it is feasible? The key thing that I would like to point out here is that the ferries are failing just now, they are breaking points just now, so we have to replace the ferries. We run a ferries, they have to replace it, but that is not to say that the long-term aspiration of fixed links has not gone away, hence that we did a feasibility study. High-level costs, if you look at, for example, the Perth tail link, I think that is about £150 million for that crossing there. The Coron is in deeper water, probably more civil engineering work is done. That would give you a ballpark, that is just an absolute estimation at this stage. What the council is currently doing is that we have got engineers doing a detailed survey of exactly what a suitable bridge is, probably somewhere similar to the Skybridge or a tunnel and what they think that that would cost with the price of steel and concrete materials today, so that we can get an actual cost. I would say that it would be in the region of £150 million. That is back of the calculations at this stage, but we are going to get some certainty on that. The key thing is that we need to replace the vessels now. As we are part of the small vessels replacement programme with SEMA, we really value their subject expertise and we are on track pending the funding, the capital, to have two vessels in service in the next three to four years, as things currently stand. The best-case scenario for to get funding for a fixed link is that it will still be a longer-term ambition, possibly 15 years or even longer before that actually became reality. How do you respond to the thought then about who, whether Highland Council or somebody else, should own the ports and harbours? It is so challenging for a local authority and Highland Council to fund the service. That is Transport Scotland. We own the assets, that is SEMA and we run the service and that is CalMac. We do all those three things and that is hugely challenging to the council. Perhaps in and about that space there could be some sort of hybrid arrangement with local authorities and perhaps CalMac could operate the ferries and the council retains the assets or a mix, not just a complete transfer responsibility or something in and about that space that we could retain the assets, control affairs but CalMac, with their huge resource for running those ferries, could operate them for the Highland Council. I think I missed the critical figure that you did on the back of your bit of paper on the cost of the fixed link. I think that it cut out or I didn't hear it. What was the figure that you said it would cost estimate for the fixed link? Estimate, I was suggesting that the perth tail link is in the region of £150 million or just going beyond that. It may down in perths and I crossed my other case. The current obviously a deeper crossing and more infrastructure work would suggest that we would be in the region of between £150 million and £180 million, but just to confirm that we're going to get accurate figures on that from a engineering firm that specialises in bridge and tunnel design. Okay, thank you very much for that. Ash, I think you've got some questions you'd like to ask now. Thank you, convener, and good morning to the panel. This is a question for each of the panel and it is really to ask what your authority's relationship is like with CalMac, with CMAL and also with Transport Scotland. How would you characterise that relationship? Can I start with Councillor Robertson if that's okay? Well, as I mentioned earlier, the relationship with CalMac at a certain level with the head of operations and the operations director. The operations director is based in Obann and the head of operations is based in Harris, which is very good. That's the one that I deal with mainly on a day-to-day basis. Outside of that, I would suggest that the relationship could be better. The relationship with CMAL is very good, particularly with the current management structure at CMAL. They've been exceedingly helpful in terms of the announcement recently on the new vessels. They've engaged well with the community, and they've come to the community when asked to open events to discuss vessel design, to listen to suggestions on vessel design. They've been very good in informing us on the work that's going on at Infrastructure in Tarvert, in Oogan Sky and Ruchmadi, which they manage for the council. The relationship with CMAL is very good. The relationship with Transport Scotland has gone back quite a lot in the last few years. I cannot personally put that down to change of person ever, but we used to have a very good relationship with Transport Scotland. I just get the feeling that they don't like dealing with elected members, if I can say that. Of the three, the best relationship is with CMAL, but it's a good relationship locally with the people that we deal with with Cullman. Thank you. Scott Reid, would you agree with that? Yes, that would be the quick answer. We deal on an almost daily basis between projects in Campbelltown, Tainlow and Gia, Finiford, Iona, Craig Noor, Dynunco, Cregan, part of the Gouric group. The relationship that we have operationally with CalMac, again, we have different tiers. We have situations like in Dynun, where it's our infrastructure and our staff, with a CalMac service. We also have things like Craig Noor, where it's our infrastructure, but it's CalMac staff and CMAL boats. There's a whole range of interface between the different personnel, which can be quite troublesome sometimes to pin down in CFL with project managers and personnel, but generally very good. CMAL is first class, because we are very much operationally paired with what they do with their infrastructure and what we do. We find the relationship very positive and professional. I would say that it's also very transparent and very pragmatic. They're very open with us, likewise. The expertise, the experience and the energy that the individuals bring to each of those projects that we are doing with them or for new vessels coming out is very good indeed. Transport Scotland, in recent months, have taken more of a leadership role in the Islay Coordination Group, for example, and very much trying to bring things along in that sense. I would say that where the gap is, is to do with capital funding and investments and things like that. Again, that's an area that we would have to explore alongside Transport Scotland, coming the other way as well. Happy to come in there. Thanks for that. I'd like to admire what my colleagues were saying there. As part of the small vessels replacement programme, we found CMAL to be absolutely first-class. Two of their representatives sit on our project board and were out there. To be honest, we would have been completely lost at this stage if we had been working in a roads department running it as a single ferry crossing in Europe. They've helped us greatly and reduced us to the right people to help us with the design of our vessels. As I say, we're at that shovel-ready stage for all-electric vessels, so huge respect for CMAL and the people that work there. In CalMac, we haven't had so many dealings with them. Again, through the small vessels replacement programme, with the help of CMAL, they've been produced to represent us in CalMac. We have had some support in dealings with them on their thoughts on how they run a ferry service. Transport Scotland's relationship is okay, but sometimes we find there's a lack of clarity coming from Transport Scotland on things like, and I referred to earlier, the Inter Isles Ferries grant. It's replaced the GAA that the council used to get as part of their block grant. We're still not quite sure how that's going to pan out in the future, so it may be a bit vague at times. Transport Scotland, thank you. Okay, so we take it from that. Russell, do you want to come back in? Yeah, it's probably just to add slightly more to that in terms of our relationships with the three bodies. In effect, the relationship that we have with CalMac tends to be pretty operational, tends to be service updates, tends to be discussing service downtime, the impact on local communities, and we feel that that relationship is reasonably strong. I think that the relationship that we have with CMAL in Transport Scotland is more strategic and project delivery in relation to the address on harbour and marine on harbour side and land side works that we're doing there. I do think, though, that the current tripartite arrangement between Transport Scotland, CMAL and Caledonia McBrain is pretty complex in terms of transparency to local communities and ferry committees. There's probably a thought that there's quite a lot of overlap and substantial areas of overlap in people's responsibilities, so I think that a bit more clarity on individual roles and responsibilities would help the local ferry committees and communities, but all in all, our relationships seem to be reasonably effective. Okay, thank you. My final question is that the committee has heard calls for more community representation both on the boards of the ferry operators and also on the decision makers for the ferry services, so I wonder if you agree with that and how you think that that could best be achieved. Again, if it's okay, I'll start with Councillor Robertson. Well, it took us some time to get a meeting with the new chair of the David McBrain board. It took about several months to get the opportunity to sit down and talk with him, and I set that against our relationship with Hyal, for example, where the local authority meets the chair and chief officer of Hyal on a monthly basis, along with colleagues from Orkney and Shetland and Hyland, the ones that are in that area. I would have liked to have seen that kind of commitment from the chair of the David McBrain board as well to meet on a regular basis with us as local authorities. That's been a disappointment. Obviously, the issue of having islanders on the board of David McBrain, Hyal and others is well rehearsed now. Of course, we have somebody from the islands on the board of Semal now, but I can understand the argument that you need a certain expertise on the board, but you also need people with lived experience on those boards. I hope that that's something. I think that there's some potential of having that change shortly on the David McBrain board. It's important that we have island representation on boards. The problem that we have currently is that we listen to all those people who have a view and who apologise all the time. Those apologies have no substance, really. I've always argued that we should transfer quite a large chunk of Transport Scotland ferris division to aniland, and then they'll realise the difficulties that we face at times. I agree with you that island representation is very important, particularly on that topic. Are there other panellists who would like to contribute to that, Scott Reid? Yes, thanks. We have a very advantageous position as local councils in being able to engage directly through elected members who oversee our day-to-day work, but also consultations and actually meeting with the communities. Recently, I just finished a consultation in Danone. We're on-going consultations just now in Cochregan. We've had meetings on Iona, and we've also had meetings quite regularly on Islay. I'm going to come to Dura, because one of the points that was made in the earlier session from Orkney is the consultations in the community. We listen very regularly to the communities, but I share the frustration and the fact that we don't have any more to offer. We get the revenue funding at the moment, which is I take it that it's supposed to be to fully fund our revenue budgets, but Argyll and Bute certainly haven't quite got there yet. That's the intention, but that's to maintain a level of service that our communities would say is not good enough at the moment. There's one thing listening to the community council in the ferry group from Dura, but they're not hearing very much from us, except that we can't do any more than we possibly can, because we're at the limit of what we can do, so we really need to find some way of building in and future-proofing what we do so that we can listen effectively better with the communities. Murray, do you have anything to add on that point? Nothing major, just one comment that I've heard from various dealings with all sorts of people involved in the world of ferries, and that some people seem to think that there's too many small groups set up and it's like pulling all that representation from these small groups under one to get one sort of discussion rather than having so many individual small committees so everybody's voice can be heard at the appropriate forum through with engagement of local authorities and government. Russell, your opportunity to add anything? Yeah, thank you. I think it's my point of view would be that ferries are a lifeline for our two islands, Cumbria and Arran. I think there is no other way on or off the island. The ferries are so important to them in their everyday life in terms of their health and wellbeing and their social experiences and their general quality of life. I think it's very important to place a high degree of importance on delivering services with communities rather than to them, and that is certainly a mantra that North Ayrshire Council has been adopting in the creation and delivery of our two 10-year island plans. I think the voice of the community is really important and being part of the solution is empowering and provides a mechanism for ensuring greater buy-in and ownership. Listening to the life experiences and needs of local communities is very, very important for co-produced and co-belivered solutions. Thanks very much, Ash. Jackie, I think the next question is yours. I was just to ask the panel in general, so if you can just raise your hands, if any of you have been involved in Project Neptune and if you have, do you have any views on some of its recommendations? For example, it's been muted, a possible merger between Seymal and Calmark Ferris, so if anybody would like to—Councillor Robertson. We've had Angus Campbell, chair of the community board, give a presentation to council two or three weeks ago, which was very well attended by elected members. We went down the occasional rabbit hole, of course, when we were because of all the issues with Ferris, we tend to get on into issues that are not part of history myth. I note that it's a difficult task for them to cover all those islands north and south before the end of April, I believe. It's quite a difficult job for them. We had argued at the time that they seemed to be pointing at a kind of Seymal Calmark coming together in the report. You've decided this is what's going to happen. It's not kind of opened out for communities to give a view on it. We've argued that maybe we should look at the likes of Seymal, for example, who have the experience of boats and infrastructure and so on. Just get rid of Transport Scotland out of the equation together, maybe, and have Seymal overlooking the contract going forward. We just feel that Transport Scotland do not have the expertise at the moment to challenge Calmark on the various decisions that they make. I'm very conscious of time, convener. Can I just ask the rest of the panel if they have an opposite view of that and would like to come in, or would you all just be in agreement with Councillor Robertson? I'm well aware of rabbit holes as a former councillor, myself, Councillor Robertson. I'm happy to go back to you if nobody asked that. I'm just looking to see if everyone agrees with Councillor Robertson or whether they're not going to say that they disagree with them. I think that we're there on that one. We'll take it if they do agree. Monica, I think that you've got a question and then we'll come to Mark. Okay, thank you, convener. A question for each of our witnesses. What needs to happen to ensure that there is actual co-ordination of ferry bus and rail services, including timetabling, through ticketing and co-ordination of action during service disruption, sort of packed a lot in there, but yeah, just keen to get your views on that. Scott, I'll come to you first. We have recently, as part of the Danunguruk Kilcregan reference group and working group, taken an action fairly early to see if we could get a cohesion. Simply put, there's no point in getting off a ferry. There's no point in getting on a ferry if you can't get off it at the other end. It has to be matched up. When you get off the ferry, waiting an hour for a train or a bus is not really helping matters in that way. So what needs to happen is that there needs to be co-ordinated, joined up, built into all the OBCs and the stags that this is something you need to look at. It becomes very complicated because there's different bus owners, there's the rail that you make a train late because the ferries late that type of thing. There's a lot of work that needs to be done. So the big thing that's needed is energy and a commitment to actually address the problem and get it because there's enough clever minds involved to have a holistic view to get the right people round the table so that when we have the vessel, we know the capacities, we have the infrastructure for meeting the vessel when it gets to the shore, that we have the trains and the buses and the onward active links as well as the road network to progress that journey onwards. As the colleagues from Shetland said, when you get off the ferry, that's the start of your journey to where you want to go in a lot of cases. So it's just a matter of getting the right people round the table with the remit and the authority to make the decisions on the timetables. So at the moment, are the wrong people round the table or are there people missing from the table? I think it's just not happening at the moment. For example, in Dunedin to Gwrwch, there was the more central travel look but we still need to make the effort in that process to get the right people from the trains and from the bus networks to come in and then sit down with CalMac and deal with the timetables and see if there's common ground that we can make. From my experience so far, it's not that it's been stopped, it's just that we're not taking advantage of what we probably should do. We've done quite a bit with my high trans hat on and some of the technology is way over my head, I have to say. I know Ms Hyslop in the meeting we had in Carnish, you raised this, and I have sent on the information to the committee on the Gohai app, so I'll just say what it says. Technology exists today in the form of the Gohai Mobility as a service platform that enables passengers to plan, book and pay for transport services to a single app. The model offered through the app currently includes AIAD by Israel, e-bike, folding back, car club taxi, demand responsive transport and ferry. The only ferry operator who I've been able to provide a data service to enable integration into the app is Serco Northlink, but I believe that there have been discussions this week with CalMac on it. So there is something out there, there is movement on it but as I said the technology just is slightly beyond me at the moment, but it is moving in the right direction. The technology exists to meet this happen. Yes, you just need to get organisations like CalMac et cetera to bid into it, basically. Thank you. Come to Muddy Beiningen to Russell. Yeah, nothing more to add on that from myself. Thank you. I think one of the previous speakers indicated already that the ferry has really just worn leger along her journey, so there needs to be a greater co-ordination between all transport modes, including connecting modes on the islands and on the mainland. On both Arran and Cumbria, bus services are largely time to meet the ferry on arrival, and this work to align is positive but is generally undermined by issues with the reliability in ferry services. So reliability issues with the ferry can have significant knock-on impact for the wider transport network. For example, on Arran and Cumbria, if the buses wait for the late-runner ferries and the timetables not met, which impacts the buses serving wider communities on the islands and on Arran, those bus services are also critical to school transport. I think the impact of pan-reliable ferry services disrupts residents, school pupils and tourists to an extent. It is also the case that residents and visitors that are going off are drawing their being inconvenienced by aligning rail travel, which is similarly synchronised just now with the expected ferry arrival times. I think that there is probably a better need for improved public transport at Clineg. It is fair to say that the outcome that we are experiencing just now is more cars on and off of the island due to the frailties in the reliability of the ferries, probably not as a result of not trying to align other modes of transport with the ferries but the frailty and reliability of the services just now. Thank you. Back to you, convener. Thank you very much, Monica. Mark, you have some questions, I believe. Yeah, just to wrap things up, convener. I wanted to ask you about the island's connectivity plan and how engaged you've been in that. My understanding is that there have been some consultations on individual aspects, so a plan for vessels and ports kind of separates the rest of the plan, so I just wanted to get your kind of insight into how that plan is being developed, your role in it, whether it's progressing in the right way or whether there's better more fundamental questions that need to be asked as part of that plan. So, throwing it open to yourselves, can I start with Councillor Robertson? Well, we've just recently seen, as elected members, just in the last few days seen a draft, but our officers have been involved in it over the last while. I can't, at this stage, say much more than that. It's part of our committee series this week, actually, to discuss, so I'll leave it there just now. I would say that the general consensus has been that it has been a slightly missed opportunity, in the fact that it hasn't engaged with local authority ferry services. It's concentrated, particularly on the Calmaximal routes. When we get down to the communities on the islands and an island connectivity plan, or could have had more input from the islands and the communities that are served purely by local authority ferries, what we don't want to see and we have quite a danger of seeing is a council operated ferry. For example, Dura is becoming the poor cousin to the brand new large Calmax ferry coming into Port Asgig with the new infrastructure that's being paid for through the public port in one way or another. The opportunity is not quite being available to the residents of Dura, who are seeing slightly less of the whisky and the economic benefit that they could do if we went down that line. Sorry, are you saying that the connectivity plan is too narrow? Yes. I think that what could have been done was to involve the local authority ferry services a little bit more at the start. Can I get from a mario highland council perspective? Yes, thank you. I think that the islands connectivity plan was disappointing and too narrow. It was my understanding that it was going to be a successor plan to the Scottish ferries plan and there's no reference to any local authority. I think that that's disappointing. I don't think that it's really a connectivity plan when it's missing out about 50 per cent. The Scotland, from a coron perspective, you go across on the coron ferry and you connect with part of the net. When I cross on the coron ferries, blissfully unaware, they just think that it's the same ferry except that it's got head council badge on the site, but then it was across on a calmock ferry to link up with Mal. It's all one network, so it doesn't really strike me as a connectivity plan for all the other vessels leaving out local authorities. I think that there's opportunities for the islands connectivity plan to explore some of the options that we've talked about today, particularly around the traditional large bespoke vehicles versus the use of smaller, cheaper and more flexible environmental credentials of the ferry services as well. I think that there's opportunity there. I'm just clarifying in my brain that there's still time to influence the outcome of the connectivity plan, so your disappointment should probably be pointed in the direction of getting further engagement in it, is my understanding. I'm noticing everyone's nodding, so no doubt you'll be telling them exactly what you want in it. Thank you, Mark, and now I come to the deputy commune of Fiona. I'd like to ask Councillor Robertson in particular what sideline you have for future funding of ferries for services, the Western Isles and what discussions you've had with Transport Scotland about that. I mean, your discussions with the current transport minister have been very good, I have to say, over the last while. She's engaged well with us, has been willing to come to the islands to meet, and we've had quite a lot of teens meetings over the last while bearing in mind some of the problems with her, so she's engaged very well with us, and we obviously had the very, very good news, you know, for a community used and harassed that have shared a ferry for 58 years to get the announcement that we were getting two vessels, which we've been arguing for some time now. The situation with ferries at the moment is bad, of course, but what we needed to see was to give the community confidence that things were going to improve, and I think we've got that confidence now. Clearly the announcement a few days ago that these vessels would appear in 25, which was probably a year earlier than first thought, was a huge encouragement to us. Of course, we've got the two island vessels, one due to appear in October 24 and one early 25, and that will help the network. We're not quite sure what's going to happen in relation to Glen Sannox and 802, but potentially we could have six new vessels in the next few years, which are certainly going to make a huge difference to our communities up and down the west coast. To go back, the engagement with the minister has been particularly good, the current transport minister in terms of engagement. I think that with our help and seamals getting past the argument that we've been putting forward for years in terms of the 58 years that we've been sharing a vessel has given us great encouragement, great confidence in the service going forward. Thank you, and then looking forward, knowing that you're going to have these vessels, looking then at what you were previously saying about the different relationships, do you then see that the role, therefore, for Government and or Transport Scotland is simply about the tendering for the contracts and the provision of capital for on-going very procurement and that, therefore, what that then should be decentralised is the management of the ferry service in terms of its accountability and relationships with ferry users and local councils. Does that therefore lead to the situation where the management might be unbundled, but the tender and contract might be a larger tender contract, but it's the day-to-day management, month-to-month management of the service that could perhaps be decentralised if there's sufficient ferries and good quality new ferries, et cetera, to run those services? Is that what your future vision is? That's exactly it, yes. I couldn't put it any better. Okay, and obviously that would have an impact potentially on our colleagues in North Ayrshire and Agriol and Bute. What's your view? Does that reflect the way that you see things for the future? Maybe Scott first, and then North Ayrshire. Yes, I think that there would be clear and logical correlation between the closer you get to the communities and the timetable and the reaction to disruptions, the better the ferry service will be. As the council has said, the perception is all about the confidence that the customers have that the ferry will be running, that they can rely on it, and that confidence is lacking at the moment. So the closer that actual day-to-day running of ferry services are to the communities who use them, the better. As far as the management then goes, I think that you may have a slight uphill struggle in the fact that, if only the budget and the money comes from a central point, there needs to be some kind of an expertise there to understand that the money has been in your getting-best value for the money that you're spending. We certainly, on the short term, need to have reassurance for our lifeline services that the revenue funding will continue and maybe even allow a small envelope for either capital investment programmes and improvements to the actual services so that we can react to the feedback that we're getting from our communities. Certainly, I have some kind of commitment or some kind of mechanism for capital investment programmes for the vessels, because the lead time for infrastructure and the lead time for vessels is so long that it's not good enough to be reactionary. Which is a challenge of where the expertise and accountability can lie. Finally, because I'm very conscious of time, if I can maybe ask Russell McCutcheon if he wants to comment on what he's just heard. Thank you. I'll keep it brief. I don't have enough of a lot more to add other than I agree with the previous speaker. I think for me it's all about outcomes. It's about the reliability fitness for use and the deliverability of the ferry services that meet the needs of local people, islanders, tourists and businesses working on and off the island. For me it's listening to the voice of the community and taking on board their lived experiences to develop a service that is going forward as sustainable. You wouldn't be that fussed if the management then was separate between yourselves and the Western Isles, for example? No. Thank you very much and thank you to all the witnesses for giving evidence this morning. I think it's really been interesting questions of reliability, punctuality, cost-effectiveness and a connected service with local input have all been at the forefront, I guess, of everyone's contributions. It's been very helpful to us and I'd like to thank you for taking part. I was going to suspend the meeting, but I'm very conscious of time, so if I could ask the witnesses to quietly move away, as we push on with our agenda, I'd be grateful. I reiterate thank you very much for all your contributions. So our next item is gender item 5, which is consideration of a negative instrument, the packaging waste data reporting Scotland regulations 2023. The instrument has been laid under a negative procedure, which means that its provisions will come into force unless the Parliament agrees to a motion to annul them. I can say that no motions to annul have been laid. Does any member have any comments on the instruments? No. Okay, so no-one has any comments and therefore I'd like to invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any further recommendations in relation to the instrument. Are we agreed? We are agreed. That concludes the public part of our meeting and I'd like to move straight into private session.