 Welcome to the 31st meeting in 2017 of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee. Can I ask you all please to ensure that your mobile phones are on silent? No apologies have been received, so I would like to move straight on to agenda item 1, which is a decision on taking business in private. The committee has asked to consider taking item 4 in private to review the evidence that it has heard on the island's bill. Are the members agreed? Yes, we have agreed. That is agreed then. We will move straight on to agenda item 2. This is the final evidence session on the island's Scotland bill. I would like to welcome Liam McArthur, who is joining the committee for this part of the evidence session. I would like to welcome from the Scottish Government the use of the Minister of Transport and the Islands, Ian Turner, the island bill team, Darren Dixon, also from the island bill team, and Heike Garden, the Solicitor on behalf of the Government. Minister, would you like to make a brief opening statement? Thank you very much and good morning to the committee. I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak to the island's bill at stage 1. I am, of course, happy to answer your questions about the bill's measures. This is the Parliament's first ever island's bill, and I am extremely proud to be leading the bill process. I therefore welcome the close and very careful scrutiny that you have given to stage 1, engaging with the communities themselves, as well as hearing the views of a wide range of stakeholders. I have been listening to and considering carefully all of the evidence presented. I am encouraged to hear witnesses' general agreement with the broad direction of the bill and its measures. I appreciate the consensual and thoughtful approach that committee members have taken to date and hope that that will continue as the bill progresses through the Parliament. At its very heart, the bill seeks to improve the outcomes for our island communities. Our islands make a significant and unique contribution to Scotland's culture, to its heritage, to economy and, of course, to society as a whole. Our aim is to create the right statutory environment to underpin the economic and social wellbeing of our islands, to enable sustainable economic growth and empower their communities. Working with island communities and other partners, we are already addressing many of the challenges that our islands face. That is evident from a wide range of policy initiatives, including ferry services, affordable transport, air travel, housing, digital connectivity, economic development infrastructure and, of course, the Gaelic language. The bill seeks to amplify that work and ensures that there is a sustained focus by all key parties, including, of course, essentially Government, to meet the needs of island communities and create the right conditions for growth. I briefly want to highlight some of the bill's key measures. The proposal to develop a national islands plan sits at the very heart of the bill. The plan will set out an agreed strategic direction of government and the wider public sector to adopt and implement in the future. My initial thinking has been to create the space and opportunity for island communities and, of course, other relevant stakeholders to be involved collaboratively in contributing to the content of the plan. The duty to consult in the bill is a serious and meaningful one, so putting more provision relating to the plan in the face of the bill at this stage before that consultation is undertaken seems somewhat to precipitate that. However, I can understand why committee members and others might want us to provide more content around the plan, and, of course, I am happy to consider that and discuss that. Island proofing, of course, is another key element of the bill. I want all areas of government and, indeed, the public sector to be required and expected to consider the specific needs of islands and relevant policy and decision making. I am determined to ensure that island proofing is approached seriously and undertaken meaningfully. To do so requires element of flexibility. Many island communities share common challenges, but not always at the same time or, indeed, with the same priority. Of course, there are issues that are specific to some, not to others. Public sector bodies also clearly have a wide range of functions, roles and responsibilities. To be overly prescriptive on how island proofing should be undertaken on the face of the bill could undermine its effectiveness in the future, something that all of us wish to avoid. Although I am, of course, open to discussion on this and I will be, I am keen that we get the balance right with the sufficiency of direction in the bill provisions that also allow for appropriate autonomy and space, indeed, for innovation by public bodies and how they involve and work with island communities with the practical detail on how they achieve this in statutory guidance. The protection of the Scottish parliamentary boundary for the western isles has been welcome, as has the flexibility to create one or two member wards for islands, although I acknowledge some may want the bill to go further. The marine licensing provisions are generally seen as positive, creating a step-by-step process for any new licensing regime. That recognises the opportunities, but also the risks as we need to integrate any new regime into the current marine planning and licensing landscape. Just to conclude, convener, I consider the measures in the silence bill will provide the right statutory framework and underpinning to enable our shared ambition for Scotland's islands to be realised. While I hope that the committee can support the general principles of the bill, I remain open to suggestions that will improve the bill and ultimately improve the outcomes for our island communities. Thank you, convener. I am happy to take questions. Thank you, minister. Are the first questions going to come from John Finnie? Good morning, minister. You have touched on this in your opening remarks, but if you could perhaps just human me and reaffirm your position on it. That is a brief summary of the overall intent of the bill, minister, and perhaps if you could outline whether you see any merit in having high-level objectives appear on the face of the bill. I think that that high-level objective that I mentioned at the start and at the end is to create a sustained focus for government and indeed for public bodies to place island communities at the centre of their focus and also to improve the outcomes for island communities. For me, that would be the success of the bill, but clearly on top of that, maybe the high-level outcome is eventually having a national islands plan, which I think having travelled to a number of islands now across Scotland, there is a real tangible interest in what the national islands plan, as a result of the bill, will be able to deliver. I think that that is a clear statement that the main purpose of this is to create a sustained focus of island communities, but to better improve the outcome of island communities right across Scotland. That would be the high level. Your second part of your question was whether that would be beneficial to have on the face of the bill. As long as we are not restricting ourselves in any way, I am always open-minded to those things. Perhaps guidance would be the better place for that to be on the policy memorandums. That is the high-level objective to create that sustained focus for government of island communities, but also to improve the outcome of island communities. The next question is from Rhaidor. If I could push a little bit more on that, because when we were taking evidence, people were telling us that the thing that they really wanted to see as an outcome of the bill was population growth and economic development, which they felt was lacking. Rather than the bill just being a focus, they wanted to see a tangible difference made by the bill. I wonder if you would consider things like that on the face of the bill, as aims that would be foremost in people's minds as they were island-proofing and the like. I think that the member makes a good point, which is absolutely right. I have travelled now to over 30 islands across Scotland and touched on each of the local authority areas that have islands, inhabited islands, I should say, in the local authority area. Depopulation is probably right at the top of the lesson on how to overcome depopulation. Some islands are doing it well. Most islands, of course, are struggling with this issue. The reason why I would be wary of being prescriptive on the face of the bill is that I do not want to necessarily exclude certain items that should be discussed. That is why I think that the national islands plan will be important. Again, I would not want to be prescriptive about it, but certainly the national islands plan would have to be anything meaningful, would have to look at issues such as depopulation, which is linked to health, housing, economic opportunity, jobs, education and so on, digital connectivity and transport. While all those things that you and I would understand would have to be in some kind of islands plan in some way, shape or form, because otherwise a document would not be meaningful, I would be wary of being prescriptive on the face of the bill. I am not saying that I would be closed-minded entirely to the committee's view on it, but I would not want to be so prescriptive that for future Governments—I am sure that we will talk about timescales and so on and so forth—but for future Governments to tie them into those issues, I think that it might be counterproductive, but again, I am open-minded. Can I then turn it on its head a wee bit and say what would success look like to you? What would if the bill was successful, how would you measure that success? I think that it is a really good question. Even before the bill has passed, I have seen some evidence of success in the sense that my colleagues in the social security team have already done effectively on island proofing. They have chosen to go down that following largely the model of other impact assessments that we have, but in the social security bill they have already looked at island proofing that. In some elements, we have already seen success, even though the bill has not passed. To answer your question more directly, the publication eventually of a national islands plan, that for me would be a success. Seeing legislation, indeed not just from the Government but also when it comes to policies from relevant authorities and public bodies being island proofed, that to me would be success. Eventually, if local authorities wanted to have their own marine licensing powers and, potentially in the future, whether to generate revenue from that and whether that benefits communities in the future, that, to me, would be a potential success of the bill as well. Again, if local authorities wanted to have the Boundary Commission, for example, come forward with ideas for one or two member wards and they are accepted by ministers and so on and so forth and passed through the process, then again that would be success of the bill. So, success of the bill can take many, many forms. I think that some of that will rest on, undoubtedly, some of the work that we take forward as a result of this bill, such as the national islands plan. Jamie, I will bring you in briefly and then I want to come to the deputy convener. Good morning, minister. It is to follow on from Rhodogran's point. I take on board what you are saying about being too prescriptive around some of the elements that you expect to be in the plan and not putting them in the bill and I think we will come on to discuss that. It is true to say that much of the feedback that we got was around the absence of a high-level mission statement around the bill. You say that a successful outcome would be the islands plan, but you also used the phrase that you would expect the bill to ensure that there is a sustained focus on islands by government and there would be improved outcomes for islands. You said that to committees. Is there any reason why you could not put that in the bill? I do not think that that is a usual practice for bills or not or legislation or not. I have to say that I am not fundamentally opposed to it. I just do not know whether it is a usual practice or not. However, if the committee felt really strongly about putting a mission statement on the face of the bill, I am sure that we could consider that. I am going to move to Gail Ross, the deputy convener, for the next question. Thank you, convener. Good morning, minister. I have a few of the witnesses that we spoke to raised concerns that remote and rural areas on the mainland also face a lot of the same issues that the islands do. It was highlighted that care would have to be taken not to disadvantage those communities. Can you tell us what the Scottish Government intends to do to understand and mitigate for any impacts that the bill might have on remote and rural communities on the mainland? I saw that come out strongly from the evidence sessions that you took and many of the areas that you travelled to, but I thought that it is an issue that has been raised with me when I have the strategic group for the local authorities. You will know that I expanded that. Initially from the three holy island communities to the other three that are local authorities that have islands. Margaret Davidson from the Highland Council was one to make that very point robustly in a number of meetings that I had. It is not a point that is lost on me by any stretch of the imagination. It is also one that I have a great deal of sympathy with. I think that there is a very good argument to be made around some areas of peripherality on the mainland that face many of the same challenges that island communities may well face. I suppose that there are a couple of things that I would say in that respect. One is, obviously, clear to sustain action that the Government has taken in terms of rural Scotland. I will not go into all of that, but whether that is rural poverty task force, a rural Parliament that is sat, whether it is the rural housing fund, rural island tourism infrastructure fund, which affects rural Scotland as much as it does island tourism as well. There are a number of action initiatives, which I cannot list all of, that have a sustained focus on the rural economy. I would also say that rural communities should look at island proofing as a great opportunity and that, if island proofing, as I hope it will pass as part of this bill, is successful in its implementation, as I hope and imagine it would be. There is no reason why it is all the Government—I have already had conversations with my colleague the Cabinet Secretary for the Rural Economy—that there is no reason why we should not look at that in Government and say that if it is working well for islands, is that something that we want to explore for rural Scotland as well? I cannot give a commitment to that, because we have to look at how it pans out. However, I have sympathy for the general argument from certain areas of rural Scotland, and I think that it is something that we have to be cognisant for. What I would say is that it is obviously not for an island's bill, as it is specific to those island communities. No bearing in mind that it is an island's bill, absolutely. Liam McArthur and I had conversations with a bus company that made a decision on the mainland that then affected islands with the ferries and the connections and stuff. How do we mitigate against decisions that are made on the mainland that might affect island communities? It is tricky on the bus side, and I know which service you are talking about, because I think that one or at least both of you have perhaps raised it with me. When it comes to private companies, it is a little bit more difficult, but what I would say is that, if you look at the schedule of relevant authorities, those public sector bodies, it is quite a long list—if that is not correct me, but I am around about 60-odd organisations on that list—to have a real impact on island communities, but some of them stretch on to mainland. The remit covers mainland communities as well, so they would have a duty to also island proof as well. That is one way of mitigating against those effects. I take your point about the example that users and bus services are more difficult to do when there is a commercial operator involved. Minister, one of the points that was brought up on one of the visits that we went to is that Transport Scotland is not mentioned per se on the list of consultees on the back of the bill. It would be included. It comes under a Government, but it is not specifically mentioned. It would be helpful to have reassurance that you feel that that is adequately covered before I move on to the next question from John Mason. Yes, because it comes under the Scottish Government, so it would be absolutely covered. However, if there is a reason to specifically mention it, if that gives comfort to the committee, I am sure that it could come under the Scottish Government most certainly. John Mason, you will ask the next question. Thank you, convener. I can really continue with the islands plan. Everybody we met thinks that there should be an islands plan, so that is a good starting point. However, I think that people's imagination of it has varied so much because there is nothing in the bill about it. For example, one of the issues that has been raised is would the islands plan purely make statements about all the islands? Or would it mention, say, the western isles, so that there is a bit in the islands plan about the western isles? Or would it go even further down and mention, say, Barra, an individual island and say something about Barra? Or are we just doing the national stuff in the islands plan and then it would be up to the western isles council to have their own plan, which I think some of the islands already have, a plan for their group of islands and for individual islands? Can you give us anything about how that all fits together? I had a good discussion on the national islands plan at the last strategic islands group meeting that I held. It was in July, I think, when we last had that meeting. I took my queue and some guidance from the local authorities represented on the table. I think that you may have heard this at your own evidence session, in fact, that some of them pointed towards the national gaelic plan that we have as a good example. If you look at that, of course, it is a fairly high-level document. I think that the national islands plan should also be a high level in its nature. I would not envisage going right down to local islands. There may be parts of the national island plan that should refer to certain geographies. I think that that would be almost, I am sure, inevitable. However, I would not expect us to get a focused geographic approach in that sense, but I would rather deal with a high level. That being said, there would be nothing stopping local authorities to develop their own plans on the back of that. It is not an instruction as part of the national islands plan unless we chose to make it, which again would be in collaboration with the committee, the Parliament and other stakeholders. However, most certainly, it would be a more high level, so we could seek to focus resource where necessary and provide targets for key areas of activity, some of which we have already talked to. We would also have to work alongside other local national plans, some of which I have already mentioned, but the national marine plan, for example, has local outcome improvement plans. However, there would be nothing stopping local authorities to develop their own individual islands plans on the back of taking the steering direction of the national islands plan. Focuss, you are looking at a higher level, which is fair enough. The particular subjects that would be in the islands plan, subjects that have been suggested to us, would include population transport, housing, health and digital connectivity. Would those be the kind of things that would be in the plan? Exactly. Yes, I think that when you travel to a purposely make a point of trying to get to as many islands, big and small, I have been to islands of a population of 30 or less right the way through to our larger islands. I try to hear from the islands and the communities directly about what is concerning them. There are some very common themes, and you have touched on some of them. I have touched on a lot of them already. However, there are particular issues of priority to particular constituencies, and I could give many examples of that, but I will not give many examples of islands where there is one issue, one island, but on the neighbouring island that is an issue that is not quite as high a priority. That is why I am saying that it may well be more sensible to have a national overarching islands plan, but then for local authorities to maybe perhaps delve into the issues that are important to their island communities, where they can do that bearing in mind. Many local authorities have a number of islands, and, as I have already alluded to, neighbouring islands can have very different priorities. The final point that I wanted to raise with you was that when it talks about the island's plan in the bill, it talks about improving outcomes for island communities. That suggests that islands with no people would not appear at all in the island's plan or be covered by it. The obvious case is St Kilda, where it is hugely important from an environmental and historical point of view, but does not have a community, so would the island's plan cover the likes of that situation? I saw the evidence around that, and I have to say that it gives us some food for thought. St Kilda, as you mentioned, has been the obvious example that you spoke about during your deliberations. I would say that I would not be closed minded about how to bring in uninhabited islands like St Kilda. I do not think that there are many more uninhabited islands that would necessarily be in the scope of the national island's plan that would not be covered by other pieces of legislation, such as heritage, forestry and so on. However, as I say, I am happy to look at it. I do not think that it would benefit from other parts of the legislation, necessarily. However, if committee members felt strongly about it, I would not be closed minded to it. One of the evidence sessions, or a couple of the evidence sessions that we took when we were on islands, was clear that some community groups with on islands had aspirations of coming up with their own plan. What it appears that you are suggesting is that there should be a strategic plan, and the island's plans—probably down to community level plans—could be fed into that plan and respond to your strategic plan. Is that what you are suggesting? It seems to be a strange way of doing it. It is having a strategic plan with islands then building their plans around that strategic plan, rather than having communities and islands coming up with their plan, which then develops the strategic plan. It seems to be the wrong way around, but maybe you could just explain that. I am sure that that is a question that will be asked. First, when it comes to the national island's plan, this will be a fully collaborative and engaging process. In fact, we have already started some of that engagement. I mentioned the island's strategic group, but the purpose of my visiting 30 islands is not for the sake of going to 30 islands. The purpose is to go in to hear from island communities what it is that it wants in the national island's plan, and what its priorities are and what its needs are. I have to say that the national island's plan has featured in many of the discussions that I have had on the 30 plus islands that I have visited already. If it is helpful for the committee, perhaps—I am getting a sense of where you are going with this—we can think about a timeline of how we see the development of the national island's plan, the engagement process and the various milestones. I think that that is probably something that we should develop internally. We will develop, but perhaps we could share that with the committee, because it will be a very, very collaborative and engaging process. It will already have that feed-in from the bottom up, as you are suggesting, which is the right way around for any plan, in fact, whether it is our national performance framework or any other plan that we have, or the strategy document that we have in Government. I am conducting a review of the national transport strategy, and that is, again, taking that approach from the community bottom up. We will have that focus. What I am suggesting is that it has to have that high-level focus. We have, as we know, 93 inhabited islands in Scotland to create up, to get into every single nook and cranny and discuss every single nuanced issue with the detail that we would want to. Of every single island, it would be difficult for any national island's plan to do, which I know that you will understand that it has to be high-level. What, of course, we would not expect, we would leave it to the desire of the local authority, but the wishes are local communities. We could feasibly see local authorities and communities creating their own local plans based on the direction of the national plan, which has already been fed in by them, so it is circular in one sense. I think that the road map and the plan and the route to get to the national plan would certainly be helpful to some of the community groups that we are speaking to. I am going to bring Fulton MacGregor in there, please. I suppose that it is hard to just pick up a wee bit from John Mason's point earlier and also the conveners there, but I suppose that it is trying to ask yourself what you are doing, what you see as the priority areas, and I know that you have kind of reflected already on that and said that each island's individual and that is certainly what we got when we have been out on the islands as well. Have you got a sense of what you think might be general overall priority areas going forward? In terms of the island's plan, if so, as Rhoda Grant had already mentioned, depopulation is being one of the key challenges. Anybody again who has spoken to island communities and others would know that depopulation does not have one kind of silver bullet to tackle that issue. It is related to job opportunities, affordable housing, educational opportunities and so on and so forth. Health, of course, as well as transport links and digital connectivity. Those are the key six or seven themes that keep coming up, regardless of the size of the island from the small to the large. Some of the islands have done well in finding very unique solutions to them. I think of the island of egg and Hebnet and the solution that they have managed to come up with in regards to digital connectivity. I know many other islands when it comes to affordable housing. Three or four units of housing—Iona, four or five units of housing—have made a real, real difference to that island. I know some educational. Also, what a difference is some unique and innovative approaches to education that have been taken by some islands have made a big, big difference. Those are the key six or seven issues that keep coming up. I would not want to be prescriptive, because I think that as we engage in the consultation and engagement on the national islands plan, there will be many, many other issues that island communities want us to focus on. We have mentioned a couple of times that there are some good examples on various islands. Do you think that the islands plan will be able to act as a framework that might help other islands to learn from good practice? I already know that the islands are very good at speaking to other island communities. There must be credit to the campaign, Our Islands Are Future, which is led by Shetland Orkney and the Western Isles Council. It showed that, through collaboration, shared learning can mean that each of them can get a bigger slice of the pie, as it was, that each of them managed to get their priority areas higher up the agenda of certainly government, but also in the public discourse. They did that by learning good practice from each other. If you wanted to see a model of collaboration and shared practice, you would not have to look much further than Our Islands Are Future campaign. Individual islands themselves, of course. Yes, there is a lot of shared learning in the national islands plan. It could perhaps pick some of those examples out to extract them, and hopefully others can learn from them. Had you opened to the six relevant island authorities being named within the bill as statutory consultees, just in terms of what we are talking about and the theme that we are talking about around shared and collaborative practice? I would probably prefer to keep that in the guidance, as it is, in terms of the obligation to consult. They would be obvious that consultees have the exact wording right to hand, but they would be part of that. In terms of the guidance, we say very clearly that we should consult with those who have an interest in island communities, and there is no doubt that local authorities would be part of that, as would others as well. Putting that in the face of the bill again, if we start that process of being prescriptive on the face of the bill, of who should be consulted, inevitably we end up being non-exhaustive and doing too prescriptive, and the chances of excluding someone could be fairly high, which is something that I would not want to go down. So putting it in and keeping it in the guidance is probably the way to go. I think that it is very relevant to Fulton's McGregor's point. On our visit to Mull, the session that I sat in, the feedback was very much that they want islanders themselves to be consulted. Now, obviously, the difficulty there is which group on the island do you consult? Is it councillors, community councils, is it the local authority? Some felt that the local authority did not always represent the full variety of views on islands, but the bill, as it stands by the wording in section 2, section 4, just says that such persons, as they consider, are likely to be affected by the proposals. We did wonder if that could be strengthened to specifically state that islanders themselves must be consulted. I think that it is difficult, because when you say that islanders themselves must be consulted, how could you consult thousands and thousands of individual islanders? You can give them the opportunity and do an open consultation. However, if you are so prescriptive and you did not consult a islander and they complained and objected to the fact that you have not lived up to the letter and the word on the face of the bill, you could find yourself in difficulty. I think that we were learning from other pieces of legislation that we have passed, other guidance that we have passed as well. As you have mentioned, part 4, subsection 1A part 2, such persons, as they consider, are likely to be affected by proposals contained in the plan. If the committee feels that we can strengthen that again, I am not close minded to it. I would just be wary of being too prescriptive on the face of the bill, as it is not to exclude relevant bodies and stakeholders, but to be mindful of the fact that we do not want to slow down the legislative process or, in this case, the process of developing a national islands plan, which is a fairly ambitious timescale to get it done with. If there are concerns, I also take Jamie Greene's point, which has been made to me in a number of occasions when I have travelled to island communities that they often feel that some island communities feel that their local authority can be just as remote to them as Edinburgh or London or anywhere else. We have to be cognisant, so it is not just about consulting with local authorities. I have a good relationship with them, but it has to go much, much deeper than that. If we can strengthen language in a way that is non-prescriptive but still gives committee confidence that we are talking about island communities as opposed to just local authorities and so on, we can reflect on that. The next question is from Mike Rumbles. With the impact assessments, how do we make sure that they are not simply a tick box exercise? That is a very good question. The exact phrasology that I have used when I have travelled to island communities up and down the country, because I have been very aware and cognisant of that real fear that island communities have is just a tick box exercise. We are working hard to make sure that it is not a tick box exercise. To do that, it would have to have meaningful engagement and consultation with island communities at the heart of that. There are a couple of examples that we can look to. I think that the equality impact assessment has—I was doing a bit of research into it and there is a fair level number of stages, five stages. The quality impact assessment would go through one of those stages, of course, as the evidence gathering is the involvement and consultation with other communities. We would look to do that when it came to island impact assessments, too. We would look to engage, consult and the bill provides for statutory guidance, which will contain the practical details of how the process will work. On the theme of being too prescriptive, we will try to leave it a little bit more open for public authorities and relevant authorities and public sector bodies. Again, there are different sizes, different scale and different amounts of resource, so we would not want to be too prescriptive in that sense. In order to avoid it being a tick box exercise, as you described, consultation has to be a key and meaningful part of any island impact assessment. If I can turn the focus the other way around, if you see what I mean. You mentioned 66 public bodies and the requirement is to have this impact assessment, but how will the islanders and island communities be made aware of the performance of those public bodies when they are island proofing? We cannot expect people just to read the annual report, for instance, of the 66 bodies. I am more interested in the actual process of how the communities on the islands will feel satisfied that the 66 bodies are doing it properly, if I can put it that way. To avoid them reading 66 reports is a sensible and fair question to ask. We will be producing an annual progress report on the national islands plan and, within that, it will have the progress of how those bodies are doing, so we will not have to read all 66 reports. We can look at how the progress is on the annual progress report of the national islands plan. Of course, if they had a particular interest in a particular public body, they could just go to that public body and there will be transparency and they can look into more detail, but every time we publish that annual progress report, we have already committed to progress on how island proofing is being taken forward by each of those bodies that he mentions. You will want to make sure, therefore, that all of those 66 bodies do the island proofing, if you like, or the impact assessments correctly in the way that you want them to do it. Is the guidance that you are going to issue going to be on a statutory basis, where you will say to them that this is what we want to do, or will it be on a advisory basis? The statutory guidance, but I always make the point that I made in my previous answer to the member that we do not want to be so prescriptive in exactly how every single public sector body does it, because they are of different sizes and different scales, but he is absolutely right that island communities want to have confidence that it is being done and often decisions that are made by public bodies may well be more relevant than, for example, decisions that are being made nationally and so on and so forth. He is right in that confidence. We will have to monitor that very closely as well. If there is a need to tighten that guidance, again, it is the committee's view, then, of course, we would be open minded to that. Is there currently no formal requirement for public bodies to consult when conducting an island impact assessment? Should that be included in the bill that there is a formal requirement? I think that it would have to be necessary as part of the guidance, without doubt. Again, we can reflect on that. Organisations already have a range of and informal mechanisms for engaging in consulting with communities. It is essential that communities are not engaged just at the time that the decision is already made. That, of course, would be too late, but genuinely as part of the process as early as possible. We want to do that, but we want to avoid, obviously, additional unnecessary bureaucratic processes that hamper the legislative process. However, again, I would welcome thoughts of committee and how we make it clear that consultation with island communities and others is an essential part of that process. Yes, I think that it would be necessary as part of the guidance, again, to Mike Rumbles, the same answer that I would give to Mr Chapman, that if the committee thought that we had to go further, I am not close-minded to that. A completely different issue, there are some concerns that some of the language used in the bill, as it is drafted, is subjective and not particularly clear. We have seen criticism of other recent bills, such as the Wild Animals Bill, for instance, and the Forestry Bill. We discussed yesterday that there is vague language seen within the bill. There is no proper explanation of what some of the important terms actually mean. Do you recognise that criticism and are you aware that that might be something that needs to be looked at? If the committee has specific examples, I will take them away and reflect on them. It is not something that has come up to me directly, but if it was something that you found in your evidence sessions or, indeed, in your own committee deliberations, if there were specific examples of that where we could strengthen the wording, I am not precious about that. If we can do that in a way that, again, we get that balance about not being too prescriptive, not being inflexible and not adding to the bureaucratic process, if we can do it in such a way, then I am open-minded. I will bring Liam in now, if I may please. Thank you very much, convener. Good morning. Minister, I think that Rhoda Grant mentioned it first in relation to what island proofing might mean in practice. I appreciate the limitations, perhaps, or the downsides of trying to be overly prescriptive on the face of the bill, but I think that the committee has heard, certainly. I have heard many, many examples put forward of the sort of thing that would benefit from island proofing now in relation to things that just do not seem to fit island circumstances. What consideration is the Government given alongside the scrutiny of this bill to demonstrating what island proofing would mean by applying it to some of those areas, and we have corresponded on a number of them over recent months? Just to illustrate what ministers would expect the process to deliver, how it would operate and what it would deliver? I thank the member for the question, and I also thank Liam McArthur for his interest, and again for his guidance and some element of drafting up and helping to focus her direction on the bill. As well, I remember when Liam McArthur and I had a very good conversation at very, very early stages before even drafting of the bill, and he mentioned, for example, House building regulations and many other regulations that he thought had an adverse impact on island communities and what I would say is a couple of things. One is, despite the fact that this bill is still going through the correct parliamentary procedure and process, we are already in Government island proofing or attempting to island proof as best we possibly can, and the social security bill is an example of that where it is there. There is a chapter and paragraphs on island proofing, and the minister, who I work closely with, is very, very cognisant and very aware of island proofing in that context. In some respects, we are already doing island proofing despite the fact that the bill has not passed yet just to get us into that way and mode of thinking when the bill, without being presumptuous, hopefully does pass through its parliamentary processes. What I would also say to the member is—I do not know if he was quite going here, but I would be weary of retrospectively island proofing legislation. I think that it would be a difficult and bureaucratic process, but where there are specific examples of legislation, which I know that he has raised with many others who represent islands, then I would be open-minded in the Government to try to find solutions where we can, but I would be very, very weary of retrospectively looking at island proofing retrospective legislation. I welcome the response to an extent, although there will be some disappointment, not that an automatic retrospective application of the island bill would apply immediately to the bill that it has passed by Parliament and receive royal assent, but that there are a number of examples where island proofing certainly would have benefited the way in which the legislation and the policy development has been framed. I think that there will be a legitimate expectation that those areas will be looked at again, given that the Government and the Parliament will have backed the principle of island proofing. Those decisions, that legislation, are continuing to have an effect now, whether it is in terms of possibly even impacting upon population decline or whatever. Therefore, there will be an expectation that the Government will look to apply those principles retrospectively where there is a negative impact. I accept the point that it is much better to go through an island proofing process early on as opposed to fix a problem that has been created because island proofing did not take place. I most certainly accept that point. My offer still stands if there are specific pieces of legislation that the Government should be looking at that are having a real damaging impact on island communities. I cannot promise him that we absolutely will be able to take the action that he wants, but my door is always open to having those conversations. Of course, I know that my ministerial colleagues are the same, but he also would understand the challenge of bureaucracy, the impact that would have on the legislative timetable if we were to retrospectively look at all pieces of legislation. I know that he is not suggesting that, but I would be wary of that. Maybe we have to find a compromise solution here, which I am happy to engage him with. Ruth Cymru, you are up on that offer and suggest that the impact assessment has been done through the ferries plan that has shown the shortcomings of Orkney's internal ferry services. Therefore, I would encourage the Government to look as a matter of priority as an early example of demonstrating the willingness that is set out. I am going to have allowed you to slip that point to do with probably your constituency in and then allow Mike to come in with a full-up question. Can I just remind members and the Minister tactfully that time is always of the essence and to try and let everyone have a chance at their questions, the shorter the questions and the shorter the answers, without losing the meat of either, would be of much appreciated. So, Mike. I am just trying to be helpful rather than use the word retrospective. Is the compromise not already in the bill in section 8, subsection 2, where it says that section 1 applies to the development, the delivery but also the redevelopment of the policy strategy or service? In other words, if one of those 66 organisations redevelops the policy, then you must have the island proofing or impact assessment. I am trying to be helpful. You are always helpful, Mr Rumbos. In order to respect the convener's wishes, of course, and his last remarks, I would simply say yes. You are being helpful and yes, the redevelopment of policy would certainly have to be island proofed as well. Thank you. I would like to move on to the next question, which is Richard Lyle. You have slightly touched on this earlier in another question, but under the bill on island community impact assessment, we need to be prepared when a new and revised policy strategy or service is likely to have a significant different effect on an island community. Can you tell the committee how monitoring review of impact assessments would work, whether there would be an appeals process, both to cover the decision to not undertake an impact assessment and the outcomes of the assessment, and where the responsibility for that would lie? Again, it will be for each public body to perform the duties under the bill as set out in the guidance that I have already said. Any public body that fails to comply with their legal duty will be held accountable for those in the normal accountability arrangement, so ministers are accountable to Parliament, the electorate local authorities, to councillors in the communities and so on and so forth. It would also be worth saying what I have already mentioned to Mr Rumbles when it comes to national island plans, the annual progress report on island proofing and how public bodies have taken forward that island proofing will be available and transparent. When it comes to the review of any decision taken by relevant authorities, again, we might want to look at how the equality impact assessment is done, hopefully from the fact that the engagement at the evidence gathering stage, generally stage two of that process, hopefully because of that collaborative approach that is taken, you would hope that the right decisions end up being made, but I freely admit that from the evidence that you have taken, there is some concern around the potential review of island impact assessments, so something will give consideration to that. What is your view in adding further public bodies to a list of those that are covered? Having the duties applied to contractors or other substudories of relevant public bodies and could also ask you, does the duty on Scottish ministers extend to public agencies for which they are responsible? Does the duty on Scottish ministers extend to public agencies for which they are responsible? Again, we are just taking the convener's cue, yes, and there is a mechanism within the bill whereby further public bodies could be added to if they need to be added. In the future, of course, again, if the committee feels strongly about a public body that should be in the schedule in advance of the bill passing, we will take consideration of that. I think that Jamie is going to have a particular point on that last question, then I would like to bring in Raiders. Could I push a little bit further on that, minister? The only reference to the Government and its directorates agencies departments is in the schedule in which it says that Scottish administration is number one Scottish ministers. Is that the right place to be more prescriptive by saying that this also covers all Government agencies or bodies, or could it be added in part one of the bill as a defined term, for example? It is not explicit that all Scottish Government agencies are affected by this, and taking it a step further, the other question that Richard Astle asked around substudories or contractors of Scottish Government agencies are not included. For example, a bus operator who may make a change and that operator receives public subsidy and reports to Transport Scotland, for example, is not affected or not required to island proof. I wondered how far down the chain does this apply to it. There are a few questions on that. If it gives the committee more confidence that we have Scottish ministers and their public agencies, we can find a form of words that the committee perhaps is more comfortable with, because a number of committee members have mentioned it now. Therefore, let us give consideration to a wording that makes you and other committee members perhaps more comfortable with the public agency, although I believe that they are included. Perhaps we can think of a form of words that gives you a little bit more comfort in that regard, which is not, of course, an unreasonable request. In terms of Government contracts, I can look towards my official slightly guidance here that my understanding is that, if the contract is being awarded by Government, we would have to look towards a duty of island proofing in that regard. Commercial operators are more difficult in my answer to Gail Ross's opening question. I do not even know if we would have the legislative competence to impose a duty upon a commercial operator. Again, I would look towards our legal officials for guidance on that, but that might be more difficult. That is not to dismiss the frustration that island communities and others could have if a commercial operation leaves them frustrated because of the lack of service that they feel they are getting. I do not know if my officials want to add something more to that particular point. In terms of island proofing, the duty would fall on the public body who is doing the contracting rather than the operator who might do it then, but the island proofing would fall on them. That is the background to which they must do the contract in those terms, so it falls on them specifically. In terms of legislative competence, I think that we have some concerns about, particularly if it is utility companies where the reserve nature is down south and company law and other issues, which is also a reserve subject. It might be difficult to impose it on them at the same time rather than just through the public body. We would have to look at that more closely, but there might be some competence issues within that. Just about enforcement, obviously an authority looks at something and they say that the island proofs it. It is obvious to those on islands or indeed to Scottish ministers that there are negative impacts on islands. What comes back and what enforcement is available to people who do that, given the bill itself says in the authorities' opinion, they have almost got to get out of jail free card on that? They will obviously be held accountable by their electorate and by their councillors, for example, for a local authority. I think that that is important. They will have that duty for each public body to perform the duties under the bill and in legislation and, as I said, in guidance. I will reflect on the idea of a review process. It might be difficult, but the point of having an island proofing process, similar to the answer to Liam McArthur, is that island proofing should local authorities, public bodies and the Government should get it right from the beginning, as opposed to retrospectively having to fix the issue. If the process is designed in such a way that it is collaborative, engaging and consultative from the beginning, that should help to mitigate that. I take the point that the member is making that that might not always be the case. Therefore, I will take back how we reflect on any type of review or review process, whether we are able to incorporate that. There are other impact assessments in Government that we can look towards. I am impressed by the thoroughness of the equality impact assessment. We can perhaps learn from that. Just a wee thing on what Scottish ministers are. I hope that the minister and his team will take very carefully consideration of the Scottish ministers who are the law officers, who in certain respects are both ministers and independent, and, of course, through judiciary, who are Scottish public bodies, but should not necessarily be subject to that. I think that it has been practised in the past to put Scottish ministers there, and it is a well understood term. I am a bit reluctant to start to open it up and define it, because I see difficulties in this area. I have only given two minutes' thought, so I will not have bottomed this one out. That might be something to take away, minister, and consider with the requests that you have had earlier, unless you want to make a statement on it now. I think that the next question is Gail. Minister, we asked the question about the proposal to protect the Scottish parliamentary constituency boundary of the Western Isles from Change, and it was largely agreed that that was a good idea. Coming from one of the biggest constituencies on the mainland, do you ever see that being applied to remote and rural constituencies, and do you think that that would pose a problem, because we certainly would not want to see them getting any bigger, but would it prevent them from getting any smaller, which would be welcome? I am very wary of stepping on my colleagues and ministerial Government colleagues' toes on those issues. This, of course, would be for local boundary commission, and the decision is for the Minister for Parliamentary Business, as the member knows well. It would not be for the islands bill, which is obviously the consideration for today. That constituency boundary protection exists for, as we know, other local authorities, wholly island local authorities. It is simply about equalising that for the Western Isles. Any changing of the boundaries or protection for other local authority areas would have to be looked at at their own merit, if any proposal came forward. I certainly would not like to comment on that any further, I think. The next question is Mike Rumbles. Focusing on member ward sizes now, when we have been going around the islands, I mean to give you an example in Mull, they thought it was a very good idea that Mull has its own island councillor, so it was welcomed. However, there are problems in designing one and two member wards to fit into the population. I would like to know, minister, what is going to be your role in the process of reviewing the island ward structure and any consultation that you might have, or will it be entirely the responsibility of the independent boundary commission to do all of that? I could try to get them some more in terms of the actual chapter and verse, but the statutory process and the responsibilities of such are set out in relevant legislation. In terms of the process of reviewing island ward structures, I would concur with what Mr Rumbles has said, that many island communities see this as a good thing, but ultimately most of them understand that it is the responsibility of the commission. Once that review has been completed, as he knows, the commission will then make recommendations to ministers, and it is at that stage that ministers are involved. Ultimately, a decision is still for the Minister for Parliamentary Business. However, I would imagine that—again, I would be careful here on what I say, but I would imagine that, if it was particularly affecting island communities, he may well want to take the view of the island's minister at the time as well, but ultimately it would be his decision to make. I am getting at that. The process will be entirely for the independent boundary commission until it reports to ministers. If a ward currently lays four member and partly island, partly mainland, and we allow the island ward to be subdivided so that the island has one or two seats, that would leave the mainland part of the ward with one or two seats, potentially. There would be a knock-on effect on the mainland, and I am just wondering how that would be dealt with, whether we would allow one or two member wards on the mainland, or whether it would mean that the whole authority, like Highland or North Ayrshire, would have to be re-jigged. It would be only for islands. I suppose that the knock-on of that would be that it could be a potential that it could increase the number of councillors, or, like the members of that entire local authority, in a jurisdictional area. That is a possible knock-on effect, but for the purposes of member ward size, we are talking about island communities only that could be one or two. Sorry if I could just have one more shot at that. I was not thinking of increasing the number of councillors in total. I was assuming that they would stay the same, but I am asking if a ward is split, or if a ward is too small on the mainland. I wonder how that would be dealt with. Can I say that it would really be for the local boundary commission to make those recommendations? If I can go back to him in terms of getting chapter and verse on what the implications would be for the mainland, for example, if there was a one or two member ward, I do not want to give him incorrect or incomplete information, so let me reflect on that and give him, if I could, a written response on that. A written response would be welcome if you just submit it in the normal way to the clouds, we will make sure that it is distributed. The next question is from John Finnie. Minister, a couple of questions and some others are going to be coming up on the issue of marine development. Now, acknowledging that the local authorities all start from a different place, indeed the island authorities started from a different place, is having the licensing power control at local authority level the correct approach? There are, of course, community groups that could do that. Yes, I mean, I believe that it is the correct approach. We want to provide an opportunity for local authorities, but, importantly, as he says, and their communities, to have more control of the development in the seas around the island. I mean, I believe you heard from some local authorities who would, for example, like to see provisions in the bill that would be easier for them to manage and use any revenues. I'm sympathetic with that approach. We will work with authorities, but it also goes back to some of the questions that have come previously. There is no doubt at all that there is a desire for communities, but local authorities that I have spoken to understand that desire from local communities are willing to work closely with them around development that could benefit their particular island. I see that they are not being restricted or unheimited at all by the provisions that we are suggesting in the marine development part of the bill. What is the intention of the revenue that is generated by this power? Again, we would like to see provisions in the bill that would make it easier for them to manage and use any revenues for the development. You will know for the licensing that they can cover their costs, so they will be able to cover that as part of the mechanisms in the bill. In terms of the revenue that is generated from development, it would depend on the type of development. There are some legislative hurdles that they might have to go through here, but ultimately it should be easier for them to manage and use revenues, which might well be for community purposes, of course. That might be one of the purposes. In fact, in many of the conversations that I have with local authorities and island communities, that is a reason why they want to do these marine developments, is to put back into the communities that they hopefully can benefit from that development. Can I maybe cite two of the suggested changes and additions that we have had to the bill? Those include—I quote here—that should be made clear that any form of dredging does not refer to fishing activity. In another one, scalloped dredging and demersal trawling should be added to the definition of dredging, which I would be most sympathetic to. That is a complicated area. On that proposal, how will the provisions interact with existing legislation and why are the differences in activities covered by the proposed licence scheme from those already in the Marine Scotland Act? What I would say is that we have currently a couple of good examples of how it might work, because, of course, we have taken that largely undeveloped and expanded upon Zetland and Orkney County Council Act 1974. It provides examples of how a local authority might work alongside Marine Scotland and within the current national framework and licensing regime. We have a couple of good examples of how that works. That being said, to give further comfort, the bill requires that the Scottish ministers must consult widely before laying draft regulations before the Parliament, and any issues of concerns that stakeholders might have, they will be able to inform as the development of the regulations goes through its process. The regulations, of course, ultimately need to be agreed and approved by Parliament, which will give you, hopefully, further comfort. On the specifics around dredging, I know that my colleague Iain Turner looked a little bit more detail into that, so if it is okay, I will bring him in on that specific point. In terms of 16.1B, development activity includes dredging, but we did not anticipate that it would also be fishing. We would specifically, I think, probably want to be clear about dredging. It does not include fishing, but I did see, as you saw, that there were two different people on the same issue, on the different side, so I think that I would like to explore that a little bit more to go into that before we think about changing the bill in those terms. I would be welcome the views of the committee as well on that matter. Okay. Is it possible that we could hear back from the minister on that? Yes. That is your question. Sure. Thank you very much indeed. Just before we leave that, if I can just follow up on something that John said, is devolution of powers as far down as you can get them to communities or even to, or councils and communities. I mean, there is a method of appeal for marine regulations, which if it was passed down to a decision to communities, they might not be able to fund any defence of an appeal against a decision to be made. I wondered what the Government's view on that is, because, obviously, with responsibility comes liability, and I'm worried if it's been fully considered the costs that may be passed on with allowing that power to go down and how you'd cope with it, minister. Again, I'll look into it in a bit more detail, if I may, convener. I think the whole point of our deliberations at stage 1. We've heard from a number of island communities and it hasn't been raised to me that they have any concerns around the liability, and it can be true that they'll often see the opportunity without perhaps considering fully the risks and liability. I accept that point, but it's not an issue that they have raised much concern. Also, I would go back to my previous answer to John Finnie that we have a good example, or two good examples, of how it already works if we look at Shetland and Orkney with the Zeltland and Orkney County Council acts. What we're doing is essentially expanding upon those provisions, and that gives us a real practical example of how it works. It hasn't been something that's been raised with me as an issue, but it's certainly not dismissing the fact that it's an important and salient point, so we'll reflect on it. Thank you. I think that it'll be useful to make sure that we're not burdening communities with costs that they might not be able to manage. I want to initially talk a little bit about section 18 on island licensing areas, and this is a bit technical. The first is that the Scottish ministers have to be satisfied that the area includes an inhabited island. What does it mean? The area that is being licensed is sea, not land, so does it mean that the sea area has to go round the entire boundary of the island, or does it merely mean that the island needs to be adjacent to it? I particularly illustrate that by saying that if you take a big island like Mull, you might want to do something in the north-west that you don't necessarily want to do in the south-east. What does includes mean? I'll hand to the bill team to give you an exact definition of includes, if I may, and Ian, we want to come in on that point. I'm sure you're looking forward to answering this one, Ian. I'm just giving you a moment to gather your thoughts as you think about them. I think I know where you're coming from. It's section 17 and section 18 work together in these ways. The island marine area, as you see in section 17, talks about adjacent to an island and 12 nautical miles from out with that. In order to apply for a designation, the local authority must have an inhabited island within its area, so it doesn't matter about what that is as long as it's got an inhabited island area, which means it's the six local authorities within inhabited islands in Scotland. Those two work together, then once you work out, yes, it's an local authority, yes, they can do it. The 12 nautical miles then can apply, and then that's what the regulations would deal with when you talk about what the boundary might be, because the boundaries might stretch to the coast or it might stretch between different local authorities and there's different ways you can do that, such as the marine order of last year for the regional marine planning had a different particular way of using those areas, but there are all the different mechanisms you might use as well or different boundaries you might use, and I think that's what the consultation and the regulations of the process would have. Can I just say, I understand perfectly it has to be within the Scottish island marine area, but you're almost leading me to the point that it's coterminous with the boundaries of that rather than the subset of that, is that correct? Yes, the description of the marine area is determined by section 17 of the bill, yes. Yes, but I'm now talking about the island licensing area, which is what is covered, has to be... Yes, which goes up to the limit of those 12 nautical miles. No, no, but I'm not interested in... It's not the limit, it's the... Does the island licensing area has to include an inhabited island? So, what I'm saying is... No, no, it goes for it, it's adjacent to an island, so that's not necessarily an inhabited island. Well, I'm sorry, no, no, that is number 17. In 18, the island licensing area, regulations may doesn't only if Scottish ministers are satisfied that area includes an inhabited island, so that's a different definition from Scottish island marine area, and properly so. I think I will need to look at that in a bit more detail, just to make sure we've got the winning... Well, if you're going to look at it indeed, that's fine, but let me just give you the other one, and the particular one I'm thinking about is Bute and Arran, which are in different local authorities, where you might want to create an island licensing area that is in between... I don't know where you will, but you might, within those two areas, and therefore there are two local authorities involved. Would you create two areas that are Bute, or would you create one area and give the responsibility to one local... The answer could follow as well. Yeah, the bill would anticipate that you would have... the application would need to come from both authorities in that way to designate the area, and then you might be able to construct some regulations which would work around that, but then you would need to do it in that way. Right. Okay. You're alert to what I'm saying. Yes. Right. The other sort of more broad thing, which is just why we're doing this in this act, rather than the Marine Scotland Act by many of that, or the Community Empowerment Act. The bill provides a clear approach of how any new licensing scheme must be developed, and it will work alongside, sorry, the current legislation that exists. You know, this has been a desire from many island communities that I've travelled to, even before my time, of course, being to my predecessor. They would like to have more powers of our marine licensing in the way that Shetland and Orkney have, in fact, to develop upon that. So I think that this bill is the correct place to put it in because of the historic nature of the island's bill, but it also is very cognisant of working alongside the current frameworks that exist, including marine region orders and so on and so forth. And finally, given that this is a provision that can create a benefit for a community, but it does so by restricting the activities of developers potentially, how are you going to consult to make sure that we get the right balance between the various interests that might be affected by the creation of an island licensing era? Well, you know, again, finding that balance between, of course, what we want to do empowering local island communities, having for those that wish to have a marine licensing remit, we don't want to hamper development and include, sorry, inhibit development. And again, I go back to my previous answer, that we have good examples of how it works in terms of Shetland and Orkney. The consultation would happen in a very open manner to involve organisations but, crucially, businesses, as well as communities, of course. And it's important that those who will be impacted by the revisions have the opportunity to feed into the process at a very, very early stage. But it's to give reassurance to the member, very cognisant and aware. As our local island communities and authorities, that they may well want these powers but have to ensure that they are not creating any particular bureaucratic challenges or hurdles. And in fact, it would be counterproductive to the island to do so. Mr Stearish's answer touched on the point that I was actually going to make. It concerns me that, you know, 12 nautical miles we could have two authorities, two local authorities who could have a power or a seas grab by these authorities on the seabed or whatever. So I think we better, Mr Turner, set it out fairly so that everyone knows where they're coming from. I was going to make just one point on the idea that boundaries may well overlap, I think that it's a reasonable point, or that islands boundaries may well touch on to mainland boundaries. I was given a helpful illustrative map that explains the Scottish Marine Regions Order 2015, which just shows that the demarcation of boundaries through consultation and conversation between local authorities can actually get to a point where they all agree where the various demarcations and boundaries are. So we've already done that in a fairly recent piece of legislation here in the Scottish Marine Regions Order 2015. So it's not insurmountable and I'm not convinced that we'll get to the stage of land grabs, I'm sure, and that will not be the case. Okay, I'm going to bring Peter in next. I've just got one specific point. We do realise that these powers are fairly limited, but we have heard from several witnesses that they think that fish farming should actually come under these licensing rules and be so that local communities have some input into fish farming issues. Are you sympathetic to that or not? I think that I know that he's had specific conversations on this issue. Yes, fish farming is not included as a development activity under section 16.2d, that's particularly because it is already including in the planning regime. So that's where the legislation would bite in terms of fish farming in that respect. That's also the case for the Zatlin and the Orkney acts as well. That's excluded within those and fish farming is taken under planning. So under planning that's where the communities can have an involvement, it's where local authorities have an involvement, so that's where we would see that rather than having another regime on top of that in terms of which the local authority would also have to do. So there'll be quite a lot of issues about doing the same thing in two different ways, potentially under marine licensing and also under planning in that way, so we didn't think that was appropriate. Okay. Thank you. Rhaedda. Ask about marine designations and their management. I know that some island communities are really keen to take this on and also manage those designations themselves. Evidence that we received last week from SNH indicated to me that they were not keen to devolve any of those powers to island communities. Do you see this being something that we could move forward on? I know that it's an ambition. I mean, I could take it forward as an issue. I don't think that it would be for the bill necessarily in terms of marine designation, but it's certainly an issue that I, along with the Cabinet Secretary for the Environment, if there was a specific issue that the member wanted to raise with us, we could take that back. Again, it has been raised on occasion, I should say, and some of the island visits that I've done, but if the member wanted me to raise it and have a conversation with SNH, then of course I could take it forward. I don't think it would be necessarily in the scope of the conversation that we're having today, but it's on the record and I'll have a look at that specific issue. Thank you. The next question is, John. Thanks, convener. Just really on the financial memorandum, minister. The figures, I mean, we do understand that this is to do with the admin, consulting, all that kind of thing. It's not going to build new hospitals or anything like that. Could I just have your thoughts on some of the figures? I mean, for example, under representation of island communities, it talks about 30,000 per authority, and again, under development of the Scottish island marine area, 25,000 pounds for each consultation. Are those kind of intended to be average figures, or how does that work? Because the six authorities will be facing quite different situations? The language specifically tries to mirror and tries to reflect that very issue. Local authorities, depending on the size of the islands and their local authority area, will have different costs associated. For example, representation of island communities, local authority estimates costs up to 30,000. We're very purposely using that language, that some may well be less than that, but we certainly don't envisage any more than that. Yes, the costs have been done in conjunction with local authorities and local authorities. We've also looked at other consultations that the Government has taken forward and what's been the cost involved in some of those consultations and tried to reflect those costs, which we think are very reasonable. I have a final question for you, minister. In the bill, it suggests—sorry, did Jamie Orr want to come in? Oh, sorry, Jamie, my mistake. Then I'll come to my final question. Sorry, Jamie, I apologize. I appreciate that. It falls on nicely from the previous question, and I think it is worth pushing this point that, surely, the financial man around talks about the administrative costs of delivery of the bill, and that's fine. My concern is around the duties placed in part three of the bill around having regard to island communities, and not just the preparation of island assessments, but the consequences of those. For example—and I think that it is worth listing an example here—if any of the bodies that is listed in the schedule or any of the 66 bodies make a decision, which has a detrimental effect on an island, to counteract that will surely require financial backing. For example, the decision to close a GP surgery or a school on an island, or a reduction of ambulance services, or changing a bus route, or any other decision made by any of the comprehensive list of bodies made in the schedule. To combat those, naturally, will require financial funding to ensure that there's no negative effect on an island. How can we balance this, of preparing island assessments, identifying what the negative effect of a policy, decision or redevelopment might be, but then not being able to back that up with any Government funding to ensure that there is no negative effect? That's something that's really missing from all of this. If we went down that route, there would be a blank check that none of us would be able to fill in at all. The purpose of the financial memorandum is to support the provisions within the bill. Financially, it obviously costs those provisions that are within the bill, and you have to separate out the process to carry out an island impact assessment and then what the effects of that or the consequences of that impact assessment are. If an impact assessment is conducted, let's just take a local authority, for example, we would then have the option of continuing with the status quo, despite the fact that it might have a negative impact. It would have the option, of course, of changing whatever legislation it was passing or strategy it was passing so that it took cognisance of the impact assessment or, indeed, they just dropped what they were going to do in the first place. Now they would have that option, whichever they took would potentially have financial consequences, but it would be for them, for the local authority, the public sector body, or if it's the Government, indeed, for the Government to take on and shoulder that financial consequence. There's a massive amount of work being undertaken in Government in terms of a range of different policy areas, tackling the many challenges that island communities face, investment in housing, ferry services, etc. That funding will continue, but clearly, when it comes to the consequence of an island impact assessment, that will be for the public body, the local authority or the Government to take a decision on and be cognisant of their own financial resource that is available to them. All that the bill does is say that they have to identify the impact that that decision will have on an island but not necessarily mitigate it. Effectively, it would be a choice for the Government, the local authority, the public sector body, whoever is carrying out the impact assessment, whether or not they chose to mitigate or not. That is the point of the impact assessment, it's their choice. If the impact assessment clearly showed that there was a negative impact on island communities, but a public sector body or a local authority chose to ignore that, they would have to answer that. As I have already said in my answer to Mike Rumble's progress reports, he would be in the national islands plan on an annual basis, so that would be pretty transparent. I do have a question, so I would ask you to try to keep yours as short as possible, so that I can get mine in as well, Ms Finnie. Just to go on from Jamie Greene's debate, any decision that any one of the three exclusively island authorities would take, not every decision will have an impact on islands, whereas you could argue that the implication of the downside of that is more applicable to the three island authorities. Is there an opportunity, for instance, that that could be reflected in the local government and other budget decisions? I am loath to mention COSLA, but you could have an element of that applying in the overall settlements. I will look at my officials for this, but I think that they already get a special island's needs allowance, and that is there to address issues that are specific to islands in the budgetary process. If it is already catered for, why do we have that bill? No, I thought that you meant about the financial implications of the budgetary. The bill is not only about the financial, but it is about island proofing measures, which I agree with him. When it comes to the whole island communities, do they effectively island proof already? I suspect that they do, because it is island, but we have to understand that it is wider than just the three whole island communities. When it comes to marine licensing powers, we know that it is OK or can be in Shetland, but we know that the other local authorities do not have those powers as of now. I think that there are many good things that even whole island communities can get out of the bill. I thought that the question that he was asking was about budget and finance and the unique nature of island communities. I would say that that is already catered for in the special island's needs allowance. Thank you. Minister, I have just a very quick question for me. The island's plan has to be produced within a year of the bill being passed. It sounds like you have visited quite a lot of islands and there are quite a few more to go. Are you confident that you can deliver it within a year, having spoken to all the bodies that need to be spoken to? Yes, I think that it is ambitious but achievable. It will be challenging, but we are not starting from a blank canvas or a blank sheet of paper. A lot of work has been done by my officials and myself in that regard, so we are not starting from a blank sheet of paper. Again, if it gave the committee particular concern, particular worry, we could reflect on the timescale, but I think that it is absolutely achievable. I should also say that, despite the fact that I have visited the islands, I do not think that I would get around the other 63 before the 12 months, or that that should not be an expectation. However, where I can get too many more, I will certainly try to do my best. Thank you, minister. I would like to thank you and your team for giving evidence to the committee this morning. I would like now to suspend the meeting for five minutes to allow the changeover of witnesses. I would now like to move to agenda item 3, which is rail service in Scotland. This is the latest in our regular evidence sessions to obtain an update on rail services and rail network issues. I would like to welcome Alex Hines, David Dixon and Angus Tom to give evidence to the committee. Before we give evidence, I think that there are some declarations that we would like to make. Stuart, would you like to start, please? I would like to draw members' attention in my register of interest. I am the honorary president of the Scottish Association of Public Transport and honorary vice president of rail future UK. I have referred members to my register of interests. I am an honorary vice president of the Friends of the Far North. I convene the cross-party group on rail. I also refer members to my register of interests. As Rhoda Grant, I am an honorary vice president of Friends of the Far North line. John Finnie. I, too, am a member of the cross-party group on rail and a member of an RMT parliamentary group. Thank you. Having completed those, there is no one else that has missed out. The first question will be to Stuart Stevenson. I thank you very much indeed and welcome. I wonder if you could perhaps just give us an update on how the Edinburgh Glasgow improvement project is going and, in particular, perhaps how the apartment delays in the delivery of the 385 rolling stock might impact on where we are progressing to. Of course. Good morning. I am pleased to say that the electrification of the Edinburgh Glasgow line is now fully complete and that infrastructure is now in use. We have the class 385 trains, the brand-new Hitachi state-of-the-art trains, on tests between Edinburgh Glasgow. That testing is going well. In fact, just last night, we delivered a test run that delivered a journey time of 42 minutes with four stops, which was pleasing to see. As we know, and as the committee is well versed upon, the electrification of the line has been delivered 10 months late. Clearly, we are not going to allow the delivery of the new trains to customers to be 10 months late, which is why we are working with Hitachi, the operator, the infrastructure manager and the office of rail regulation to make sure that we can introduce the 385s into traffic as early as we can in the new year. However, I am pleased to say that we will be introducing our modern class 380s on to passenger services at the December timetable change this December, so that customers can begin to benefit from faster, greener and longer trains. Just at the risk of moving off Egypt, where are the 385s come from? Presumably, they are being used somewhere at the present. We have got a big cascade of the fleet happening across the network. It is like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. We have some spare 385s that we can deploy on to the electrified route, which enables us to free up diesels and introduce service instructions starting in December, for example between Dumfries and Carlisle. From December, we will operate a near hourly service on that route, an extra 1,500 seats per day. That benefit to customers in that part of Scotland is delivered from the electrification and the subsequent diesel cascade of rowing stock. Jamie Greene, I thank you on next. I think that you partially answered my question on the changes that we are expecting to see in December of this year. I wondered if you could expand on that, if there are any other benefits or changes that passengers between Glasgow and Edinburgh might see after the December 17 timetable change. Indeed, if you have any estimations or guarantees on when we will expect to see eight-car trains and 42-minute journeys on that line, that is my first question. As you know, we are in the process of building the best railway Scotland has ever had. Every bit of the network will benefit from brand new trains, refurbished trains, faster journeys, more seats and more services. That is a process that starts next month and there will be a gradual introduction of those benefits to customers happening across the country's rail network between now and December 2019. I have highlighted some of the benefits for customers. Next May, we begin the reintroduction of a genuine intercity network for Scotland connecting the seven cities using the high-speed train, where we replace three-car diesel trains with four and five-car intercity trains. We hope to be operating the eight-car brand new Hitachi trains between Edinburgh and Glasgow with a 42-minute journey time in December of next year. Obviously, there has been a lot of focus on the electrification of Edinburgh-Glasgow line, but we are electrifying pretty much the whole of the central belt. We are electrifying the route via Falkirk, Graemston, up to Stirling, Dunblane, Allewa. The combination of that electrification with the core Edinburgh-Glasgow route enables us to move slower diesel services out of the way so that we can deliver the 42-minute journey time. Compared to today, where we operate six-car diesel trains in the peak, an eight-car electric train has 44 per cent more seats. Of course, we are slashing the journey times as well, so lots of benefits for customers in the pipeline, which they will start to see in December. Thank you for that update, so just to clarify the eight-car 42-minute journey on the Glasgow railway line, we should expect to see in December of next year 2018. Correct. Thank you. There was talk in the past in connecting our two cities with one point before my time in this Parliament and perhaps before your time at Scotland Rail around a non-stop 30-minute journey being a potential. Has there been any further exploratory work done on that? Do you think that at some point in the future that could be realistic? Not to the best of my knowledge, no. Obviously, if the trains don't stop, we can deliver a journey time, which is rather better than 42 minutes, but clearly that route provides a vital commuter service both into Glasgow and into Edinburgh at both ends in both directions. Clearly, if you are talking about the movement of customers, the current balance between capacity and journey time is probably one that is right for that route, but clearly that is something that we keep under review. Have you done any exploratory work into the percentage of passengers that get on at Glasgow and get off at Edinburgh or vice versa? I am not talking about reducing services that are currently provided on the four or multiple stops, but actually the potential for providing additional services is where there could be non-stop capability. One of the challenges of operating the Edinburgh-Glasgow route is that it is not a traditional rail route where one would expect there to be a peak direction on that route. There is not a peak direction because customers are travelling both ways, which makes our job slightly harder than it would ordinarily be. We believe that the eight-car electric trains, which we will deliver in December next year with a 42-minute journey time, will deliver the right balance for customers into Edinburgh and Glasgow, either commuters into those locations or those people making the city-to-city connection. Just before we move on, I am sorry, I may have missed it. The 385s, you said there is a delay and we know and understand that there is a delay. When are they going to be delivered? Some of them are delivered today. The trains are on test between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Those are the test ones. Once they have gone through testing and you are happy that they deliver what you want, when are the rest being rolled out and delivered? After they have finished their testing programme, which is not something that I am in total control of, and those trains each need to be accepted onto the network, tested, they need what is called type approval, and they also have to do a number of fault-free miles before we can introduce them into traffic reliably. We are expecting 21 trains to be with us and available for service for February. You are hoping that they will be here in February, ready to go and delivering a service? We already have trains here in Scotland on test 385s. We are expecting further deliveries this month, but it is not just a question of having them here and built in Scotland. We have to test and accept them. It is very complicated. See test and accept each one individually? You type accept the train, the class 385, which has to be accepted onto the UK rail network, but we test each train individually to make sure that it has built and it is reliable. Each unit has to do a number of fault-free miles before we are prepared to introduce it into traffic. The service between Edmund and Glasgow is very good. I commute on it every single day. It is a reliable service. The last thing that customers would want is for us to rush the introduction of those trains into traffic and us to see a dip in reliability. I have taken the decision and I would rather see a more gradual phased introduction to service to maintain our punctuality standards on that route. I do not think that I will get the terminology right, but let us see if I can get it right this time. The 385s introduced into traffic will be in February. I cannot guarantee that. That is your plan. The service introduction programme we hope to deliver 385s into traffic early next year, but it is not a process that I am wholly in control of because Hitachi, the rail regulator, the operator and the network rail all need to work together to make sure that this train is accepted and tested so that we can then introduce it into traffic. As we stand here today, I am not yet prepared to make a commitment as to when that will happen because of the complexity of what we are trying to achieve. I think that I have that. I am going to bring Radar in and then maybe come back but I have just thought that one through. It was just on exactly the same issue about trying to drill down to when we can expect people to be using those trains when they will be online. You initially said at the beginning of the year, then you said in February that you would have them for testing if I am correct, but I just wonder when you would expect them to be in service and carrying passengers. Customers will benefit from faster greener longer trains from December this year, i.e. next month. Customers will begin to benefit from that. The answer to your question in terms of 385s is as soon as possible in the new year. I cannot give you a cast-iron guarantee because it is not a process that I am wholly responsible for. We will introduce those services into passenger traffic as soon as we possibly can, as long as it is sensible to do so. Can I bring Stuart in and then come back to you, Radar? I am trying to be helpful. In December we will get class 380 electric trains running the service until we can get the 385s on. The 388s themselves are trains that are roughly four or five years old. They are quite modern, in other words. I suppose that what would your ambition be to have the 385s? Given a fair wind? I mean, you have given us candy, that's a bit, and I get it. So my ambition is not to make promises I can't keep. My ambition is to keep the customer at the heart of the decision-making, which is why we're going to introduce 388s into traffic in December. So we'll be operating seven car electric trains with faster journey times next month. The 385 introduction, we will see as soon as we can in the new year. I can't give a cast-iron guarantee because what we're doing is complicated. This is a brand new train. It's a brand new type of train on to brand new infrastructure, and we need to make sure that we get it right. I've been talking to an operator locally in my area in Morsenden. Basically, I'm told that these trains come up from England, run about in our track, a bit like train sets, run about in our track all night, during the night, because it's like when we all get a new car, we had to run it in. Not now, not now, not now. Let me finish. Basically, now the trains that you're getting, you have to run them in and make sure that they're working, make sure that everyone's okay before you put them out for people to play on them. Exactly, and we have to do it at night because there isn't enough track capacity in the day because we're providing it. That's why they come to Scotland because there's plenty of track to run about in Scotland, and mainly it's within the central belt, correct? What we've been doing is because the electrification has only recently been delivered between Edinburgh and Glasgow, we've been doing the testing programme on the east coast main line as well and some testing actually in Germany to short circuit the testing to enable us to operate the trains into service as soon as we can, because obviously the infrastructure has been 10 months late, we don't want the service introduction to be 10 months late, so we've been working around the issue to see what testing we can do where, both in this country and abroad, to get those trains into traffic as soon as we can. Before I move on to my questions that have been allocated, the other factor is that Hattachi complained that they couldn't get access to the system and that's why they were delayed. Is that true or not true? Whose fault was it that there's been the delay? Hattachi is on yours? That has been a factor in so far as, apart from testing the infrastructure and testing the train, you actually have to test the compatibility between the train and the infrastructure, and obviously that element of the testing you can't do until that infrastructure is available, so it is true to say that the late delivery of the electrification has contributed to the delays that we're seeing now with Hattachi. About it, isn't it? It's really simple when you think about it. Anyway, I'll now move on to my questions. It's nice to get it right. Basically, behind me, where I stay, I have the Holy Town Junction. I'm 100 yards away from the station and you're then, so the electrification for Holy Town Junction to Midcaldor Junction. How are we doing on that? How is, can you give us an update on the Shorts Line electrification project? I know we had to heighten a few bridges over the last couple of years for this, so can you tell me where we are with that? The whole investment programme on Scotland's railway, including the electrification of the line to Stirling Dunblane Allaway and the Shorts Line upgrade is all proceeding two-time and within the overall funding envelope, so we expect to deliver an electrified Shorts Line and an electrified line to Stirling Dunblane Allaway next year. That's on programme and within the overall borrowing headroom. I don't know whether, David, you want to add to that. I know that the programme is marginally ahead of target just now, so it's delivering extremely well as is the rest of the electrification programme. As Alex has said, it's to programme, it's to budget, and we don't anticipate that changing as it's progressing extremely well. I look forward to that because your electric trains, from where I see them, seem to have more carriages than what the diesel ones have. I'll leave that as it is, but you touched on the Stirling Dunblane Allaway. Can you give us an update on that? I noticed that the ORR commissioned an independent reporter Nicholas to review whether Network Rail was doing everything reasonably practical to deliver the milestone in this project. I'm very impressed with Network Rail. We were at the Cattysat bridge on Friday, last Friday, both my colleague Fulton MacGregor and I, and it's amazing what they are doing. Basically, the report has not been made public. Why is that? Just before we move on to the Stirling Dunblane Allaway, you talked about the number of train carriages. The number of train carriages at our disposal goes from 800 to 1,000 between now and December 2019. That's a 25 per cent increase in the number of carriages available, but we're going to operate those more intensively. The actual number of seat miles between now and December 2019 goes up by 45 per cent. That's an extraordinary increase in the capacity of Scotland's railway. A seat every time I go on a train? Sadly not, but it will address crowding levels and it will also create room for growth. We've seen extraordinary growth in Scotland's railway, which we should be very proud of, and by increasing the capacity of Scotland's rail network, we'll be able to do more to provide jobs and growth for the people who work and live here. On the SDA in terms of the Nicholls report, David? I can't tell you in terms of whether it's being published or otherwise, but the SDA as a programme now is going extremely well. Our first major milestone is you might hear the term section A, which is for May next year, which accommodates an awful lot of the stuff that is to happen on the Edinburgh Glasgow. The wrong thing to do is look at them entirely in isolation. SDA in many ways facilitates a lot of the things that we need to happen on the main Edinburgh Glasgow electrification. Section A is on target for May 18, so that's progressing well. That is a project that's progressing well. Everything now is to programme and pretty well to budget. Section A takes us up short of Stirling Station, but not into Stirling Station, so we see good progress on that. That will facilitate some of the things that we want to see for the May timetable. The key after that is going up to Dunblane, et cetera, but not across to Alwa then for the end of the year for December, and then through the Alwa branch to March 19. All of that is progressing well. Some of the issues around Stirling Station, for instance, and the approaches to Stirling, we have had protracted planning issues, but we're making our way through that now. We do have the planning permissions for Cairs Road, which was looking a bit of an issue, potentially around there that might hold up the project, but we're making good progress on that. A lot of the things that we saw as potential obstacles are moving out the way. As I say, progress is going very well. We've learned quite a lot of lessons from what went on on Egypt, and the actual delivery programme for getting the wires in the air, et cetera, is delivering exceptionally well. SDA now, we're really quite confident in where we're going. Again, we're managing it to budget, as well as to the timescales that we've been set. Good progress in terms of SDA, which we're very happy with. It ties very much into what the Edinburgh Glasgow electrification is. For instance, to facilitate the 42 minutes, we need to deliver to December 18 up to Dumblane. That facilitates getting everything out of the way and allowing fast enough train interactions to facilitate that steady 42-minute service in December 18. We'll move on to the next question, John. Talk about some of the other projects, if I may please. My colleague Richard talked about the Cutty Sark bridge, another high-profile piece of good work, the Finthorn Viaduct, which I visited tremendous piece of work there. I commend the work by everyone involved, contractors, all your own people at Forrest, which saw the station open there in October. A really good example of the community engagement that went on there in all sorts of ways. To come to a negative, I'm afraid, and that is the OR's annual efficiency and financial assessment of Network Rail 2016-17. I'll quote here, there was a £83 million deferral on the Highland Mainline project for the three years to 2016-17 due to re-profiling work to later years and delays in awarding contracts. Can you possibly give us an update on that, outbuilding the key milestones that you would see in that project and the ultimate delivery date, please? David, do you want to touch on this? Highland Mainline has been quite an evolving project in terms of that. It started off looking very much like an infrastructure programme. As part of the franchise bidding process, T.S. was very keen to see if there were alternative solutions that could come out in bringing, rather than just a traditional mindset of putting more things on the ground and changing things there. Was there a solution that lay with rolling stock, for instance, to achieve improvements in journey times, et cetera? How is that process? In fact, yes. An awful lot can be achieved through the high-speed trains that are being referred to. What started off as a big infrastructure programme is much more in a 90 per cent on the Highland Mainline signalling scheme, which will facilitate greater capacity on that line. It will facilitate further benefits in journey times. It will benefit freight as well, and some of the things that are being done on the Highland Mainline with increased standards and speeds through stations, et cetera. However, it has reduced in scope. For instance, when it started, there was a project with us about £117 million. It is now about £51 million. In fact, it represents very good value for money, for the taxpayer, in that what originally started as an infrastructure focused scheme to achieve journey time and capacity improvements on the Highland Mainline has become a better industry solution while still achieving those outcomes. In terms of deferment, it is very much a changed project in terms of the scope, is how I would describe it. I would say that it was a success for the overall industry for getting a result at a better value for money for the taxpayer. What solutions that do not require money or infrastructure are good? If you could comment on the key milestones and how that would impact, for instance, on the proposed hourly service. I think that we achieve—I am not entirely sure exactly what all of the ORR is referred to in that, so it is hard for me to comment as regards that. I must admit that I have— Will there be an hourly service between members in the central belt, Perth? That is unaffected by the comments about the different route that has been taken, which I presume is the improvements that we are passing at Avie Moor and the like. I recognise that the timetable that we offer to customers is a function of both the rolling stock and the infrastructure. Clearly, as being in alliance with one another, the operator and the infrastructure working together, if we can deliver a customer benefit in a more efficient way, then clearly it would be foolish not to take that opportunity, because that is money that we can spend on other things. Of course, the creation of the intercity network between the seven cities of Scotland is going to improve journey times, frequency, capacity and comfort. It is going to revolutionise the service that we offer to our customers on the longer-distance routes. In terms of a finalised timetable, that is still under development just now, so while I believe that aspiration will be met, the exact timetable is under development and I understand that there will be greater clarity on that in the first quarter of next year, as the timetabling work has been worked through. At that point, there will be much greater clarity about exactly what can run on the highly main line, but I think that overall aspiration will still be met. Just finally, if I may, the view that that particular line is at capacity just now, the proposed changes will be capable of increasing the capacity. Yes, the signalling will facilitate more, it will facilitate trains arriving at the same time, at stations that it can just now, with extensions on loops, which again will give greater capacity for trains to pass, and that is the real function on those lines. Yes, Alex, I particularly wanted to focus on the north-east. We have had previous discussions about this, but for the benefit of the committee, could you provide an update on the delivery of the Aberdeen-in-Vaness project on that line, when you expect key milestones to be delivered, such as enhanced commuting into, say, Aberdeen and indeed Inverness, particularly from Inverruri to Aberdeen, and also when you think that the Kintor station might be delivered? So, in big picture terms, we're spending £330 million upgrading the railway between Aberdeen-in-Vaness and, obviously, we heard earlier on around the new station at Forrest, which I was very pleased to open last month, brand new, fully accessible. That work is clearly at the west end of that route, and we now move to the east end of the route to increase track capacity. What that is going to enable us to do is improve journey times between Aberdeen-in-Vaness, but also allow the introduction of more commuter-type services into Aberdeen and into Inverness. That's all due for completion in December 2019, but there is a gradual, progressive introduction of service enhancements as we deliver the infrastructure and as we have the trains to exploit the infrastructure. I don't know, David, whether you've got any more detail that we can share. Well, in the west end, which, obviously, a lot of work has been done and people focus on the station, but we resignalled there to modern state-of-the-art signalling. We shut level crossings, we upgraded level crossings. We did do some extensions as well in terms of the capacity. The benefit for the customer comes as an hourly service enhancement into Inverness. That comes when rolling stock is cascaded from the central belt, and that's what will facilitate that. At the other end, as Alex said, for December 2019, that will be a half-hourly peak service between Inverury and Aberdeen, which will make quite a significant difference. At that point, there will also be an hourly service between Aberdeen and Inverness. That's quite transformational against what people are seeing just now up in that area. As I said, some of the timing is infrastructure-related to exploit the west end benefits that are built in just now. That's actually fleet cascade that is a limiting factor just now, but that will be released from the developments that are happening in the central belt and the new fleet coming in. I'm sure that the half-hourly service in two years' time in and out of Aberdeen will be very welcome to computers. Along that line, the control railway station will stop. When do you think that that will be ready, do you think? Well, there's the two new stations. Both Dalkross and Contour are outside of the scope of the A2I project. As it happens, however, we're expecting both stations to be built early CP6, so going into 2020 is probably the best. We have recently been instructed by TS with regard to Dalkross, and the Contour land has just been compulsory purchase order going through, so we expect that then to be instructed. The exact timescale, I can't advise you, but everything is lining up now for that to take place. We move on to the next question, which is ready. Just some questions about the performance figures. The public performance measure for period 7 was 88.3 per cent, and that was lower than the same period last year. I wonder why that is and what steps are being taken to improve performance. Clearly, punctuality and reliability are at the top of our agenda. The last time I appeared in front of the committee, our moving annual average for performance was 90.6, and at the end of last period it was 91.1, so we continue to move in the right direction, and clearly the performance improvement plan is working. We're now the UK's most punctual large operator, and other operators are also seeing the benefits of improved reliability. So, for example, some of the punctuality that Caledonian Sleeper is delivering is the best on record. In terms of the period, we had an early autumn. Autumn has come about a month earlier than it normally does, so you've seen more autumn impact in this period. Of course, autumn is a hugely challenging period for us operationally, which is why we're spending £3 million on making sure that we can operate the trains safely and reliably during autumn. We also had a little bit of bad luck in the period. The single biggest incident that we experienced here in Scotland was actually the single biggest incident anywhere across the UK network, where we had another operator's service go through a red light in the hay market area, which damaged a set of points, which meant that we lost the service for an entire day in the Edinburgh area. We also saw some examples of cable theft in the Fife area on a disused branch line, which affected the main line. We guarded that site in the short term, and we've actually just signed off some infrastructure changes that will insulate the signalling system between this disused freight branch and the main line. It was a combination of some external factors, plus an earlier autumn. Of course, because we were a month earlier into autumn, we will exit autumn quicker. As of today, 80 per cent of the leaves down, and we're looking forward to seeing the end of autumn so that we can get back to the levels of performance that customers have enjoyed earlier on in the year. Performance, you hope, will be better going forward than last year. A lot of it is the timing of autumn. Clearly, the whole purpose of the performance improvement plan, which has delivered this improvement, is to make sure that we continually improve performance, and we're better than the same period last year. Because we've entered autumn earlier, we expect to leave autumn earlier so that we can get back to the higher level of performance, but improving on last year's period is always the name of the game. That's what we try to do every single period. Thank you, convener. It's very relevant to the issue around the PPMs and how you approach hitting those targets. I don't know about any of the other members, but my inbox is full of complaints around continuous stop-skipping or skip-stopping, depending who you ask. It particularly affects a whole number of stations in my part of the world, including Cardross, East and Bartonshire, and some of the stations around the busy hubs around Glasgow. I do understand the reasons for it, and we've heard evidence on that previously in committee, but it really is an issue, especially when two consecutive services are both skipping stations. That is a particular concern of a number of constituents, and I just wondered how you might address that or give some reassurances on that. Clearly, we measure every instance of skip-stopping, and that's something that we look at closely every single day. There are twice daily performance calls happening across the ScotRail alliance to manage the issue of performance. Contrary to popular belief, we don't use skip-stopping to massage the PPM figures. If we skip-stop, it's actually a PPM failure. We only use it in the circumstances where if we didn't use it, then trains would actually run later. We do it to reset the delivery of the timetable, and we do that on those bits of the network where the service pattern is so intensive that we don't have enough turnaround time at location. We use it as sparingly as we can. Clearly, the aspiration has got to be to use it as less as we possibly can. In any railway, anywhere in the world, it will always be used as a mechanism to reset the timetable to timetable for the greater good. From my perspective, perhaps in the past, it's been overused at the wrong time, so we try and avoid using it at peak times in the peak direction, but it is an inevitable action that we have to take, particularly on those intensive parts of the network, where often the headway between trains is two and a half minutes. We're doing anything we can to reduce it, but it remains a bugbear of our customers, which is why we're working so hard to fix it. Can you give any reassurances about happening on two consecutive services, which is a particular bugbearer of people? From my perspective, that is not welcome. Clearly, we use it in the more frequent bits of the network, so there is a service closed behind. If we use it on two consecutive, then that kind of defeats the object. Of course, for customers who experience a skip stop, that is equivalent to a cancellation, and that is nothing that we aspire to deliver. However, as I would say, we are managing down the use of this technique, and we do do it for the overall delivery of a punctual and reliable service for Scotland's railway. Thanks, panel. My supplementary just follows on from Rhoda Grant's line of question, and your response, Alex. There was a quite serious incident of cable theft somewhere between myself and John Mason's constituency, so I'm not sure exactly where it was in the line, but it was somewhere between the two constituencies. I just wondered if you would be given that you started to talk about that and the response to it. I wonder if you'd be able to explain to the committee how you responded to that incident in order to keep people safe, because it was very serious and could have potentially been a lot worse. I look forward to your answer. I just remind everyone that it's quite tight on the time, as full as you can make it, and it's concise. I appreciate, convener, that it's not a question that we looked at in the papers. Given that it was brought up, I think that it was a serious incident, and it could also explain some of the reasons why the line was closed for that day, as well, so it's based on that. Last period we had three days which were affected by cable theft, and the rail industry has been extraordinarily successful at tackling the issue of cable theft. We actually had a change in the law to reduce the trading of scrap metal using cash. We deployed additional security, but also some innovative measures such as smart water, where we actually mark this cable so that we can trace it after it's gone. That has meant that the delays to trains as a result of cable theft have come down hugely. We saw this spike. David and I discussed the first incident and said that it's likely that they'll be back here in the, they were, and clearly guarding the site but then making the permanent changes to the signalling system in that area to reduce the likelihood of it happening again is at the top of our agenda, but clearly when we're operating a network as large as Scotland's railway, inevitably criminals do target some bits of our operation for personal gain and clearly making sure that we provide a reliable service to customers means that that's one of the things we have to tackle. To that particular incident between Copledge and Ballaston, there was a couple of months back? I don't personally recall that particular incident. I'm thinking more of these three incidents that we suffered last period. David, I don't know whether you can recall the detail around that. If you want to respond to the committee and writing on that, so we can consider how that particular incident was dealt with. I would like to move back to Rhaedda, because she has a few questions before we move on to the next section. Moving to the moving annual average for right time arrivals, that is now 52.3 per cent and maybe a little at odds with what you said earlier, it's seven and a half per cent below the UK average. Why is that and what are we doing to increase right time arrivals? The reason why a right time performance in Scotland is beneath the national average in terms of UK is because we're not targeting a right time railway. The contract that we have with Scottish Government targets PPM, that is the primary driver of train service performance, which is did the train run and did it arrive within four minutes and 59 of its timetable arrival. One of the reasons why Scottish Government isn't particularly prioritising on time performance, time to the nearest minute, is because Scottish Government still has ambitions around improving journey time. Clearly, if we were to target on time on its own, we could be tempted to extend journey times. Actually, we don't want to extend journey times, we want to reduce them to make rail travel more competitive. Of course, the other thing about a railway that doesn't target on time as much as PPM is that it gives us a little bit more wiggle room as the operator to A hold connections for customers where that makes sense, but also to help customers on and off trains if they need a little bit more help. That's easier to do when we have a PPM target rather than on time target. The reason why on time is lower in Scotland than across the UK is because it's not the focus of our activity. I said ahead of the session that I'm honorary vice president of the North Highland line. That's a line that's seen journey times increase but performance decrease. That's an issue of concern, but going by what you've said in answer to that, we can't expect to see any improved performance in right time arrivals. You're not focused on that. Customers can expect to see improvements in PPM, the public performance measure, did the train run, did it arrive within four minutes, 59 of its schedule arrival time. Obviously, the overall company performance has improved in recent times, which we should celebrate, but what we're also seeing is a rise to the agenda of what I would call line of route issues. Perhaps some routes which are more challenging to operate, i.e. those with large lengths of single line where performance is lower than the company average, and we need to attack those just as hard as we've attacked the overall company performance. Okay. Can I turn to Network Rail, which is responsible for over half of the ScotRail delays? What is happening to reduce this and how much of that is attributable to infrastructure investment, or indeed the issues that you talked about earlier about incidences and theft of cable? So, in any railway in the world, infrastructure will be the primary cause of delay because it impacts all rail services, unlike a train failure, which just operates, impacts that service and its subsequent services. It's pleasing to see that the infrastructure of Scotland's railway is getting more reliable. We have an asset improvement programme. We're investing millions of pounds to make the performance-impacting infrastructure more reliable. David Overseas' investment programme, and compared to this time last year, the infrastructure in Scotland's railway is more reliable than it was. To put it in a certain context, if you went back 10 years to 2006-07, you'd be looking at over 5,000 asset incidents in Scotland's railway every year. If you went to 2016-17, there's less than 3,000, so from more than 5,000 to less than 3,000 over 10 years, it gives you a kind of scale of the improvement in asset performance. Last year to this year, so far, we've seen an improvement of over 8 per cent reduction in the number of incidents, which has been largely fed through from the investment in the asset improvement plan, which we've talked about before, which was very specifically to address some of the issues that we saw in the poorer performing times that we saw over a year ago. We've seen investment going in. Outside of that asset improvement plan, we're also looking to invest quite significant numbers more in the next year, so really ramping up in terms of some of our line-sized stuff, our drainage or de-veg, which has been an issue traditionally in Scotland, fencing, etc. Looking to invest even more, we'd set aside £24 million over three years for the asset improvement plan, which is very focused at things not just because of worn-out but because there might be better alternatives that are more reliable. We've got the £24 million that we'll spend, but we're also looking at significant other areas of spend that we can supplement that, and we are seeing that coming through. You are right that Network Rail accounts for about just over 50 per cent of delays. Some of that is Network Rail south of the border, and what happens is that you have an impact on trains that then come up into Scotland. In terms of PPM failures, Network Rail Scotland is responsible for about 44 per cent of PPM failures in Scotland, and south of the border is responsible for about 5 per cent of that. It gives you a scale for what happens within here, but we are absolutely committed to improving our asset performance. We're seeing that coming through in terms of the figures, and I expect that to carry on for the rest of control period and into control period 6. The next question is from Peter. Can you provide an update on preparations for the introduction of high-speed trains on the central belt Aberdeen and central belt Inverness routes? Absolutely. I'm keen to bring Angus in, but before I do, the first driver training unit is in Scotland. We're training the drivers at Aberdeen. We've taken on 20 per cent more drivers at that depot, so already providing benefits to the local economy. In May, we introduced the first in-city service between Aberdeen and the central belt, which will mark the start of this transformation of the in-city network for Scotland. There's an enormous amount of work happening behind the scenes, which Angus and his colleagues are overseeing, so I'll pass on to you, Angus, to give him more detailed update. Yes, so the introduction of the high-speed trains is going well. As Alex said, we've got the first driver training train operating between Aberdeen and Inverness. That's going exceptionally well. We've got our power cars and our first rolling stock, the coaches that our customers will sit in, are in refurbishment, as per the plan, and we start seeing delivery of further high-speed trains in February next year with the aim of having a timetable change, which puts the first four of the high-speed trains in service in May next year. It's all looking good, and I'm looking forward to coming into the ScotRail Network. It's going to be fabulous, and I think that our customers will really value them. What's this going to do to journey times on those routes? It's going to improve the journey times on those routes. Earlier, it was mentioned about the hourly between Inverness and Perth. That will be an improvement in the journey time. We've got the driver training train going about in the far north as a moment, as I explained. We're seeing some good figures from how that train is performing, how it's accelerating, how it's handling the infrastructure, so that gives us a more informed position about how we can best utilise this investment to further improve our timetabling and what we offer our customers. I'm conscious of time, convener. I've engaged out with the committee, with Mr Hanks, on this, and I'll continue that. It's about the issue of bikes and trains and an expectation that was mainly brought about by this live presentation here, which says, and I quote, class 125s will have capacity of at least 20 cycles. I appreciate that there are different types of trains, and I've got lots of information about toilets, tanks and braking systems. Can you comment in general about the cycle capacity? We talk about integrated transport, and if we're wanting to encourage that, we must maximise the capacity of our cycles and trains. Absolutely. We recognise that there's a strong customer appetite for taking bikes on the trains. Obviously, in an environment in which we don't have enough trains, we inevitably end up compromising on the service that we provide to all our customers, including those with cycles. Our charter says that we guarantee the carriage of two bikes on each train, and we recognise that in some cases we can deliver more. We don't promise that, because having got you there, you might be a different type of train, and we might struggle to get you back. So, we're improving. I'll come on to that in a minute. All the trains that we operate will be fully accessible by December 2019, which means that they have these easy access areas, tip-up seats. It creates more space for bikes and indeed buggies and wheelchairs as well, so that will be an improvement for customers. We are currently seeing what's feasible around the HSTs. In fact, we're having a conversation with the Scottish Government as we speak to see how we can utilise the guards vans, if that's possible, on the high-speed trains for the carriage of bikes. There are a number of practical issues that we need to address. For example, because those trains will be longer, sometimes the power car might be off the end of the platform, so we need a way around that. The other thing is that those guard vans have big heavy doors, which are very difficult for staff and customers to operate. We're seeing what's possible, and we're in active discussions with Transport Scotland to see how we can meet that demand. My view is that, particularly on those intercity services, passenger numbers are going to grow very significantly once we improve the service starting in May. I think that the demand is out there. We need to see whether we can accommodate it. Many thanks indeed. There were a couple of questions that we had hoped to get in that Fulton MacGregor was going to ask. Unfortunately, due to timings, we're going to submit those written questions post the meeting. I would ask if it's possible that you could respond to them promptly so that I can circulate them round to members. I apologise to you, Mr MacGregor, for that, but we are short of time. I'd like to move on to John Mason, if I may, please. Thanks, convener. Some time ago, there was the suggestion that huge profits were flowing from Scotland to the Netherlands. More recently, there have been press reports that, in fact, it was going the other way and that Bellio ScotRail was having to be bailed out, lent money or whatever from the other end. Could you give us a bit of clarity on that financial position? Of course. Bellio ScotRail is in a strong financial position. It made a profit in the first nine months of its operation. I would hasten to say that Bellio ScotRail has never paid a dividend to its parent company. Any reports that you see of large profits being made and repatriated to the parent company are just not true. Recent trading has not been as strong as we would like, which is one reason why the finances have been weaker. Clearly, one of my jobs is to get the business back into the black and the improvements that we will deliver next year for customers will grow revenue significantly. That's the reason why we're trading less well than we expected. It's a revenue issue rather than a cost issue. I'm looking forward to delivering those enhancements to customers next year, not just to create happy customers but also to drive the revenue that ultimately taxpayers benefit from. Obviously, it's the Scottish Government that owns the franchise, not me. We're just the short-term stewards of it. If we can get higher revenue, that ultimately results in lower subsidy to the Scottish taxpayer. I mean, you've told us already that, you know, there's some quite dramatic increases in your capacity. I think, is it 20 per cent more drivers, did you say, 25 per cent more coaches, 45 per cent more seat journeys? I mean, clearly, there's a risk that if people don't actually use these, your revenue would be under pressure. How confident are you that people will use them? Well, what we've seen is where we've added new services and more capacity, we've seen the growth. A lot of the issues that we face are the problems of growth. The reason why the trains are crowded is because people want to use them, which is why we're investing in 25 per cent more carriages. So, I'm absolutely convinced that the market is there once we get the capacity and the quality of the product right. Clearly, it's for us to make sure that, having provided 45 per cent more seats, we've got some great offers for customers to make sure that they're filled. I mean, are you expecting a big jump, as you bring out all the new trains, a big jump in passengers, or will it build up gradually? Have you got a plan for that? Well, there's always a ramp-up. We assume a ramp-up, but it's our job to use marketing to accelerate that ramp-up, and we've got a really exciting launch campaign planned for next year, both for the new trains on Edinburgh Glasgow and also the intercity network to stimulate that demand. People need to know that that product is there and that it's great. Clearly, we want existing rail customers to use rail more frequently, but also there's a big on-tack market there of people who don't currently use rail. We want them on Scotland's railway as well. In the interest of time, I'll keep those questions very specific and very brief. It's important that we look at the issue of the rail funding in Scotland, which has been extensively covered in the media in the last few weeks. Mr Hynes, can you give me your numerical understanding of the funding for control period six and how that compares to control period five? Well, the Scottish Government has published its high-level output specifications, so we know what it is that the Scottish Government wants to buy. We don't yet know what funds are available from the Scottish Government because there's a live negotiation happening between Westminster and Holyrood, and I don't think it would be appropriate for me to comment on that live negotiation, but we're looking forward to being in receipt of the statement of funds available from the Scottish Government as soon as possible. Secondly, there seems to be some anomaly in the figures around how much money is required over the next control period. The ORR gave a figure of £1.9 billion, and we've had a figure of £4.2 billion from the Scottish Government. There's a huge disparity in those numbers. Do you have any views on how much money will be required over the next control period to ensure the continuing safety and performance of the Scottish railway? The way that the rail network is funded is split down between the operations, maintenance and renewal of the network, and the enhancements of the network. Obviously, there's more network to maintain and renew, and there's more rail traffic on the infrastructure, and therefore the network rail has successfully argued that in order to maintain high levels of safety and performance, we need to spend more money on operations, maintenance and renewal. As I understand it, the issue of debate is how much money is available for enhancements, and that's what's currently being discussed between the UK and the Scottish Government. We've got more than enough money to maintain a safe and reliable network. The issue here is how much available there is in the next control period, so 2019 to 2024 for enhancements, and that's the live negotiation that I talked about a few moments ago. It's your understanding that the proposal is that there will be enough money for the required maintenance of Scotland's tracks, and any argument is around how much additional money will be given for additional upgrades. Is that your understanding? I mean, yeah. Okay, thank you. On the third and final quick question, convener, it is—sorry. No, I'm sorry. You have had your three questions, and I'm going to have to—due to timings, so I'm going to move to the final question. Can I ask for a response in writing, then? Yes, we'll take a response in writing. You may pose the question, and I'd ask Mr Hines, baby, to respond in writing. If Mr Hines could confirm how much the funding is made available per passenger in Scotland, that would be helpful, thank you. So the final question is my question. Is that money was taken out of the squire fund this year to subsidise rail travel? Could you give me an indication of how much money is in the squire fund, and as you are the person that will put ideas forward on how it's spent, have you submitted ideas to the Government, and if not, will you be submitting them by the end of February? So we continually propose ideas to Government because there's always money available in this fund. Obviously, in September, we launched our free ticket giveaway. Within 24 hours, we gave 40,000 return tickets away, a value of over a million, and we're proposing to launch a similar type promotion for customers early in the new year. Meanwhile, given the existence of these funds, we're also seeing what we can do to improve, for example, the station experience on those routes that are going to experience new trains. I'm keen not just to introduce new trains, I want to relaunch the product, and that includes the station experience. So we're currently talking to Transport Scotland about how we use some of that squire fund for station enhancements on those bits of the network that will benefit from new trains. My understanding is that the squire fund should be used for improving the experience and access and use of stations, not necessarily in ticket giveaways. Is that the way you are proposing to do it now that you are the person who can influence how it's spent? I think we're keen to invest that money in capital projects which improve the customer experience for a sustained period of time. That's our preference. Just to conclude that, could I ask you to perhaps let the committee have a list of ideas that you've come up with and submitted to Transport Scotland for the use of the squire fund? At that stage, I'm afraid that we have run out of time. I would like to thank all of you for attending the committee and giving evidence. There are one or two matters that you have undertaken to respond to the committee on, and there are some questions that unfortunately we were unable to pose to you, but the clerks will make sure that those are sent to you shortly. So thank you. I'm briefly going to suspend the meeting. No, I'm not. I'm going to move the meeting into private session and at the same time allow the witnesses to depart. So thank you very much.