 Felly, wrth gyrfa, wrth gyrfa, a fawr i gwyfnoddd y 29 ffawr ofeau grafio wnaethol iawn, ond y trolydau arddangos cymhysigol yn Cymru ar 22 o fewn. linedud hyffordd y byd yn oedd y bboyn cyd-deuliau ar Pawn Natillai. Y frysg ymgynghwyl yn y shirwydiau yn cael ei gydagol o arsigol i gydagol a'r hyffordd o ein hyffordd 3, 4, 5 o 6 o gydagol yn gwirach. Geithig ymlaen, ymgynghwyl, yn llwygoffon ym hyffordd rhaid, Food item 5 is the consideration of a draft report on the environmental standard Scotland strategic plan. Food item 5 is the consideration of a draft letter to the Scottish Government on environmental common frameworks. and food item 6 is consideration of the committee's work programme. Is everyone happy that we take those items in private? Yes. That's agreed then. The second item on the agenda is an evidence session in relation to our inquiry into into a modern and sustainable ferry service for Scotland. Members will have received the clerks and spiced briefing papers on this item. It is our third evidence session for our inquiry into Scotland's ferry services today. We are pleased to be joined by representatives of Scotland's business enterprise tourism industries to hear their views on ferry services. I welcome our panellists. In the room today, we have Peter Clark, who is the Deputy Director of Industry for the Scottish Whiskey Association. We have Rob Dixon, who is the Director of Industry and Destination Development for Visit Scotland. And Martin Johnson, director of strategy and regional economy, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, who joins us remotely. Thank you for accepting our invitation. We're delighted to have you here. There are a list of questions from members, or a list of members who want to ask questions, I should say. And I'm going to start it off with a very easy question. Let's start it off to Peter. I'm going to ask you each the same question, so you've got a moment to consider your answers, except for Peter, who gets a name. Are our ferry services working for the industries and the people you represent? My answer to that question would be no, as we put in our response to the inquiry. The ferries themselves form an essential part of our supply chain. They provide a lifeline to the island communities and to the businesses that are part of those communities. But the ferries are part of a very fragile infrastructure. The ferries themselves are prone to disruption as we set out in our response. This can be weather related, but also related to the age of the vessels. But I think also we need to consider the broader links that the ferries connect to, and it's our inter-island connectivity. When we step back and look at those other connection points in our supply chain, those parts are also failing. In the example of Islay, I would say that the ferry is struggling to meet our current demand, but also the roads are struggling to meet the needs of our industry. Thank you, Peter. As the members of the committee found out yesterday when we visited Arran and found one of our ferry trips was cancelled and we had to leave before we completed our business. Rob, your answer to that question. Very similar. Visit Scotland is very much focused on building a destination and visitor experience, which allows tourism and events to flourish across the whole of Scotland. In looking at our islands, we are absolutely clear that part of that visitor experience is the journey to the island in whatever form that takes. At present, the ferries can offer an attractive proposition, but they are not consistent in providing what is required for the businesses on the island and for the visitors. I get that inconsistency and the unpredictability that comes with it, since you experienced it yesterday. That is the major challenge. We have worked increasingly closely with different organisations on the various islands and with other partners to try to address those issues. We have done joint marketing to make sure that the islands are promoted in the best way possible, but there is a vulnerability around that inconsistency of the service, which is very difficult to deal with when it is a day to day, week to week and month to month occurrence. Good morning. I am not going to contradict what Peter and Rob have said to the panel when we are talking to businesses, industry groups and community organisations around the islands and islands to keep us focused to the islands. They are not satisfied with ferry service, whether they are the inter-island ferries run by the local authorities or the connections to the islands to the mainland run under contract by government. I think that there is significant room for improvement on that. That is our view. Thank you. Unanimity among the panellists. The first question from the committee members comes from Jackie Dunbar. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel, and thank you for coming along. Could you go into some detail about what impact the recent disruptions to the ferry services have had on island and remote rural businesses, which I am hoping to include in tourism and distillery businesses? I am just going to go along the line, if you do not mind, so it will be Peter, Rob and then Martin. In terms of the impacts on businesses, the disruption impacts on the operations of our businesses. In terms of our distilleries moving materials to and from the islands on which our distilleries are located, we have heard from members anecdotally this year that between January and April we lost production weeks. One company cited seven production weeks lost, which has a significant impact on that business in terms of its scheduling, its planning ahead for what it intends to produce. We have had similar stories from other members as well. It is also having impacts on tourism, and Rob is probably the best place to talk about that, but we have heard that having a bad ferry experience can put visitors off. It also impacts on the long-term planning of the industry. We have seen members investing in island communities, building new distilleries, expanding existing distilleries, and the construction projects have been held up in some instances. We have heard from one member who told us that they waited three weeks to get a crane across to one of the islands, and that held up the construction of the buildings. It has those kind of impacts. It also impacts on the people who work in the industry. We employ lots of people on the islands, and the employees are part of those communities in which they live. It has impacts on the day-to-day lives of people. Those are the main headline impacts that we are seeing from this disruption. I would suggest that the impact is in two spheres. One is the here and now and the difficulty that occurs when you have cancellations at short notice. That was probably most starkly experienced in Arran in the early part of the season—I am sure that you heard it yesterday—because of the breakdowns. We were speaking to business groups on the island and to individual businesses who should have been starting a very positive experience at the start of the season with strong bookings off the back of two years of great uncertainty and great difficulty. The reality was that what they saw was booking cancellations and difficulty in fulfilling bookings. Although people may have managed to get there, they perhaps did not stay for as long. They were nervous about return journeys, so we are cutting short stays. Once you have managed to get that booking and secure somebody coming to the island, the financial benefit plays through both in the short term but building for the medium term is what is important. A typical car spend on the island in their stays is £1,200. If you start to lose big numbers across peak times of the season, that is a figure of £1,200. There is a here and now, which compounds the difficulties of the last two years. However, you are not giving businesses the ability to demonstrate what their economic prosperity for the future can be. Once they start having conversations about growing their business and investing in their business, that loss of income will not come back into their books, so you are diminishing from that point forward the strength of that business, the profitability of that business, its ability to be sustainable and its ability to invest in its own future and, of course, the future of the island. There are two things that immediately come into play in terms of the impact. The first is a loss of income, and the second is the diminishing of the ability for the island and businesses on any of the islands to sustain their growth because of the restriction that is placed by the ferries. Do you think that long term is going to be as big an issue as the short term? I think that the medium and long term piece that we might come on and talk about more of that is now more important in terms of the work that we do now. That is not in any way to dismiss the short term but to recognise the importance of contributing to strategic thinking for the medium and long term. I will pick up Rob's theme on the here and now and looking ahead to the future. Just to pick up some of the evidence that we provided in our written submission, so looking back to last year and one of our business panels that looked to transport in particular, then almost three quarters of island businesses rely on the ferries, and two thirds of the businesses on the islands say that reliance and resilience is the most important to them. From a business survey of this year across the region, then two thirds felt that transport links were a risk to their business. It has been well documented this year in particular where that aspect of reliance and resilience has failed, it has just not been there. Businesses have not been able to move people backwards and forwards on the ferries and they have not been able to move freight backwards and forwards on the ferries. The ferries have suffered from success and so much you have seen strong growth, particularly in freight. We are aware that the freight on the Orney ferry has doubled since 2011 and the freight on capacity on the Shetland Aberdeen. For example, last year, it grew by 15 per cent between 2020 and 2021. To continue that theme on the Llerwick Aberdeen link, the ferries are running at 90 per cent capacity in terms of six out of 10 ferries running north and 90 per cent capacity of four in 10 ferries running south. There are real limitations on the here and now of businesses to operate. It was well documented and we heard from Rob the impact that has had on tourism on the Clyde and Herbury ferry service in islands and businesses served by that this year. Tourism, the lack of ability to rely on the ferries, is impacting right across the island economy in terms of aquaculture, seafood in general, seafood processing and tourism to pick up on that. Agriculture is key pinch points in the year. Something like 70 per cent of all the livestock movements from Shetland, for example, took place in two months in September and October. That coincided with roughly a third of the agricultural movements from Orney. It puts real pressure on the ferry service and other businesses for two months of the year, so one-sixth of the year. When we look to the future, we are aware of sectors offering not just opportunities to the island economies but things like offshore wind to look at the development of Scotland's hydrogen economy, aspects to do with space, particularly to Shetland and the Western Isles, and the continued growth of aquaculture. I do not think that by any means has the tourism sector plateaued in terms of its economic benefits and also the decommissioning of offshore oil and gas structures. All of those industries, to a large extent, will rely on good ferry connectivity and resilience, and reliability will be there. For some of those sectors, the players in that sector are multinational businesses. The point that I make is that the boards of those multinational companies will have multiple investment decisions in places all around the world. They will have choices where they will invest their time, their effort and their cash. If Scotland cannot demonstrate to those key sectors that the islands are a location for them to invest their capital because they cannot rely on ferry connectivity, there is a risk that they will not make the investment decisions. We will not see the full economic benefit from offshore wind, hydrogen and decommissioning, for example, at land in Scotland and land in particular in the island economies. In your view, what do you think businesses and visitors want from a well-run ferry service, and how do we achieve getting the balance right for both businesses and visitors? Sorry, Martin, so you cannot see me. I think that a large part of the answer to that depends on the process going forward. The extent to which the Scottish Government transport Scotland engages in a meaningful way with island communities—I mean it in the broadest sense—individual community groups, business associations, businesses and stakeholders. That engagement has to be meaningful, so they have to both listen and hear what is being said to them, and develop a service on that. The decisions that are taken in my view need to be transparent and open, so that the people in those communities can see why decisions have been taken. I should say that I am an islander, although I live in Inverness, I am a shetlander. The people who live on islands know that it is not going to be a Rolls-Royce service. They know that there are choices to be made, and everything that is wanted is not affordable. There is a balance to be struck. People know that, and it is one of the things that you accept when you live on an island. However, the decisions that are taken that affect the vital transport links have to be open and transparent. People have to understand why decisions have been taken. They might disagree with those, but at least they would understand. The process there is really important, and that picks up on some of the existing structures around the island ferry board, the ferry stakeholder group, the high trans, zet trans and local ferry committee. The structures are there, and they are well used, and they are represented by good people and business people. The structures are there to help to design the service. I think that it is through speaking to those people who are most directly affected and most directly invested in a fit-for-purpose ferry service that the design of that will emerge, both figuratively and literally, in terms of the type of vessels that are required. I think that Martin Spudi's finger on what the most important facet here is. My most recent background was a decade at the Scottish Borders Council as director of economy and infrastructure, and I was therefore involved at the council as the borders railway was brought back into being. I believed, prior to that experience, that the investment in infrastructure to allow social and economic development was a good thing. My experience in the decade in the Scottish Borders was that it was profoundly important for sustainable social development and economic development. My experience of speaking to businesses and working with public sector partners was that process of transparent engagement over the medium and long term that Martin referred to has made and will continue to make. I am sure, for the decades ahead, a difference to the economy of the Scottish Borders. Sat here, I see no reason at all why a similar process of engagement and discussion should not strengthen the island economies in relation to tourism and wider business interests better than we are experiencing at present. Above all else, it is that need for strategic thinking and planning about the development of sustainable economies and the part that tourism, business and community and domestic requirements need that is most important. There is a lot of detail that I could go into, but in principle it is that need for a more coherent and medium-term focused discussion between strategic partners, Government agencies and significant business interests such as SWE that is currently not present and could help a considerable amount in planning the future. I will be echoing a lot of those points. We are looking for a modern, robust, reliable ferry service. There are three elements. The reliability and resilience piece is well known, so I will not explain too much about that. The second point from a business perspective is capacity but also capability and flexibility of the ferries. I can just explain a little bit about that. In terms of the capacity, it is meeting current but also our future needs but also having an understanding about how business needs may change. I can give you an example. A distiller who built a distillery on an island in the initial years will be distilling that spirit. It may well put that spirit into a tanker to be removed off the island on to the mainland for maturation, but over time that distiller may build warehouses on the island. Over time, its demands for the ferry will change from requiring empty tanks to be taken to the island which would then be filled and removed to requiring empty casks to be taken to the island to be filled to be removed. You can see in that model how its requirements will change subtly and that will have a subtle influence on the type of freight that is moving to and from. Another example is the transition to net zero. The industry is fully committed to decarbonising our operations and it is possible that in the future we might be using the ferries more for transporting alternative types of fuels, so it might be a stepping stone fuel. At the moment, if we take a isler as an example, a lot of the fuel that is consumed on is delivered by a tanker to a fuel depot on the island and then is distributed by road, but in future as distillers look to transition towards net zero, we might have demands on the ferry for transporting alternative fuels, so a stepping stone fuel like LNG or even hydrogen. It is having that flexibility in the system to be able to manage that different type of freight demand. The final theme has been touched on already is about communication and engagement. There is a good example of that and there are a couple of examples where I could elaborate and give you an idea about where there is room for improvement. If we look at isler as an example to accommodate the new vessels, improvement works are needed at Port Ellen, which is one of the two main ports on the island. The engagement process on that has been really good. We are involved and engaged in a reference group, we are able to feed our views in on that and looking at the different options that are coming forward for the design of the port and the terminal facilities there. That is good and that is a good model to take forward. On the other hand, on the vessel design, we have had very little engagement on the design feeding in our business needs for the new vessels, particularly for the isler route. We also have timetabling and vessel scheduling, and we have a live issue at the moment on isler. We normally have two vessels that run the isler service, the Finlaggan, which is a more modern and larger boat, and the Hebedean Isles, which is an older boat, getting towards the end of its serviceful life. We are down to running one vessel, which is the Finlaggan. The issue that we have as an industry is that, because the way that ferry has been designed, it can only accommodate one of our spirit tankers. At the moment, for each sailing, we can only move one tanker of spirit from the island to the mainland. That is having an impact on the member's operations. We are urgently looking at solutions to that, but had better communication happened and we would have known about that further in advance, it would have enabled our members to make plans and mitigate against the impact that we are now facing. Again, that comes down to this sort of communication and engagement with key users of the services. Thank you. Thank you very much, convener, and that's all I have. Thank you, Jackie. We'll move to you, Liam, now, if we may. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. Martin Johnson, the current network of ferry routes has barely changed for decades. Thinking specifically, then, about the existing routes, in your view, do the routes that we have meet the needs of business? In any event, are there any significant route changes that might improve the offering? Thank you. That's a good question. I'm hesitating to know if I have the right answer or an answer for you on that, Liam. You are absolutely right to say that the routes have been the route for a very, very long time now. I think that we would recognise that the connection points on the mainland, if you are travelling from the Western Isles, for example, then where you land on the mainland, you still have a very significant journey ahead of you to connect into either road or rail for a normal travel of people or of freight. At least when you land from Shetland or Orney to Aberdeen, you are connecting into a major transportation point, so you are able to connect on by air, road and rail through a good network. There is a compare and contrast there when you land in Newig, for example, or even Ollipol. You have a very significant distance and time ahead of you before you arrive onward. There is something to be considered in terms of where might the ferries land and, again, what would a good onward connection look like there? In terms of your question, does the routing serve the needs of business? I do not know, and the consultation through the structures would be the way to go on that. I do not really have an answer for you on that, Liam, because it is not something that has come up in our consideration or that I am recalling that it has come up in conversations with communities. I am afraid that I have not got a very expansive answer for you on that one. Rob Dixon, Peter Clarke, do you have anything to add on that? In terms of the routes and ports, the infrastructure is where it is. From a business perspective, the use of those routes could be considered more frequently. We have had conversations previously with third-party operators who have looked at running third-party private route services to other locations, so it could be connecting Islay to the Clyde estuary and the ports in Ayrshire and so on. That has come forward as a proposition, but as yet nothing has emerged from that. There are certain benefits of that. In terms of taking road miles off some difficult roads, such as the 83, the rest can be thankful, and connecting directly into the motorway and the dual carriageway network for those onward journeys. That, as I said, is our conversations that we have had, but as yet there are no alternatives on the Clyde and Hebride network. As you heard, the committee had a very good and productive visit to Arran. We heard about the unpredictability that you referred to earlier and how it impacted on business's ability to get staff to their island and also teachers and educational provision for their young people. Is that the impact that the committee heard about yesterday being replicated throughout the network in your experience? In terms of the short cancellations, are they on island? In terms of the ability of islands to recruit staff, in terms of the attractiveness to people, skilled staff to get over to islands? It is fair to say that we are probably experiencing labour challenges within tourism and hospitality that have not been experienced in recent years across the whole of Scotland. The position on the islands is an acute version of what is happening in Scotland. That is compounded by two factors that businesses consistently cite. The first is transport, and ferries play a significant part in that. The second is housing. I think that it is a combination of factors that, going back to my earlier points, diminish the ability of businesses to be as financially sustainable as they should be on an island, as financially successful as they could be on an island. The ferries play a critical part in that in terms of employment and skills and labour, but it is not the sole restricting factor. Perhaps there are bigger factors that play in terms of overall population demographics as well as housing, but the ferries are a factor in that in terms of skills and labour and employment. On a related point in Peter Clark, you talked earlier about the long-term implications of what we are seeing with the existing ferries. What are the implications in your view for the islands of an inability, as we have just heard, for whatever reason, to recruit qualified staff and skilled labour? In terms of recruiting staff, one of the challenges is accommodation and having accommodation on the islands. That has been a key barrier and a key challenge to getting people to work on island locations. There are some examples that we should give where our members have invested and have built new distilleries on islands and have led to significant economic growth on the islands, offering high-quality, good-paid jobs, skilled jobs in the island locations where few are available. I visited a distillery about six weeks ago on one of the islands. It relies entirely on the CalMac service for everything that it needs, as does the island. That distillery is now employing about 20 per cent of the island's population, but when you dig into that figure, it is more interesting than just that overall figure. It is the fact that it is leading to people moving back to the islands that are repopulating the island. However, there is that acute shortage of accommodation. Temporary measures have been put in place and have been to sites where members have needed to put in temporary accommodation. Static caravans, for example, as a short-term measure. Those sorts of measures have been introduced, but accommodation is certainly one of the challenges for attracting people. Do you have anything to add to that, Martin Johnston, or shall I hand back to the convener? I might be able to hand back to the convener. Just before we go on to the next question, one of the issues that we heard yesterday, which builds on what Liam was asking, was that a lot of island businesses rely on external contractors to come in and do work. They load up their vans the night before, turn up at the port in the morning, find that there isn't a boat and then find that the boat at the back end of the day is shut down due to weather conditions. They were suggesting that there were businesses that were no longer prepared to work on islands on the basis that they couldn't guarantee a full day's work and the costs of doing so were prohibitive. Is that, Peter, what you are hearing and Martin, what you are hearing from people that you represent? What are the effects on the business? You can't have all your own specialist skills to run all the businesses that you represent, Peter. It certainly is a challenge in getting people on where you have those issues with the ferry. Distilleries tend to go into maintenance shutdowns where we sometimes need to bring contractors over. Members have reported problems there, but it's about scheduling. Trying to find accommodation for contractors can also be a challenge on the islands, so it certainly makes it more challenging for the members to operate. You used to have a flight, and I remember catching it to go over to one distillery. They used to do Inverness, Glasgow and Islay, and it was used by all the main distillers on Islay. Was that still operating? There are flights to Islay from Glasgow, and there certainly used to be in recent years a service from Edinburgh. It was used in a basic route-organised way, which was accepted as a distillery-type flight to get people out there. Sorry, I'm not aware that there was a... Okay. Sorry, Martin. Yeah, so I'll tell you the short answer is yes, convener. I think anyone living any business on an island would reckon that if you have to bring in services from off-island, it's much more difficult to do, much more difficult to organise from the supplier's point of view. They have to price for time, and they also have to price for risk of either not getting on or not getting off. Those issues can be particularly acute where it's more significant construction projects, and just the availability of civil contractors to come to an island to move material, move men and, well, move workforce, move equipment can be very difficult and can be very, very costly because of how the supplier prices for risk on the connection to the island in a way that they just wouldn't do if they were travelling by road. Thank you, Martin. Very helpful. Monica, the next question is yours. Thank you, convener. Good morning to our panel. We've heard already some of the challenges for people and business, both short and long-term. I want to ask each of you if any of your organisations have concerns at the current level of ferry service provision, maybe fueling depopulation in island and rural communities, and, if so, can you identify where this is happening and what needs to change to reverse any such trends? I'll come to Martin, Peter and Rob. That's helpful for broadcasts. Monica, thank you. I think that undoubtedly connectivity problems, lack of reliability, lack of resilience, is adding to the challenge of island communities retaining or bringing people to live on them. Typically, that's the smaller island, so islands off an island or the smaller islands off the west coast of Scotland, where it just adds to the challenge. Amongst certainly Orkney and Shetland, it's not just the connectedness to the island, to the mainland of Scotland, it's also the local authority ferries. For the Argyll, Genselbrun ferries, Orkney run ferries and Shetland run ferries, too many of the ferries are over 30 years old, so they're breaking down, they need maintenance, the reliability isn't there, and that means that, particularly on island off an island or indeed on island off an island off an island, it just becomes much, much harder to live there. The opportunities to commute for work just aren't there, so it is a significant factor. The absence of a reliable ferry service is a significant negative in so much that it makes it much harder to retain or to bring people. On the flip side of that, if there was a reliable ferry service, if islands were better connected in terms of frequency, reliability and resilience, it would be easier to retain and to attract people to come and work on those islands. You're asking for specific examples. I suppose that we could certainly look at the likes of Thetlar in Honst and Shetland, and that the Southern Uists are a good example of that as well. It's an area of sound, if you're interested. We could look to provide more information to the committee on that, but the short answer is yes. That's helpful, Martin, and we're always looking for additional information, so feel free to send us a letter after the meeting. Thank you. I think there's many factors which will have an impact on demographic change and connectivity. In terms of depopulation, I don't have the answers that you might be looking for, but to reiterate the point that I made previously about the growth in the Scotch whisky industry, where we're now seeing distilleries being built on islands where we haven't had distilleries. Those distilleries themselves are generating economic opportunity, generating jobs, as I said, and contributing to a shift in population. In our sector, perhaps, it's a little bit in reverse, but overall, as I said, the factors are probably very varied. Not much to add. I think that the point that I would make relates to a couple of earlier comments that our view is quite clearly that the full potential of tourism is not being realised on the islands. If that full potential is not being realised, the full employment potential is not being realised, and the ability to attract people to the islands or retain people on the islands is not being realised. It's a straight link between the factors in which, as we've already discussed in answer to previous questions, the ferries play a part. They're not the sole thing that will address this, but they play a significant part in the diminishing of businesses to be able to effectively develop. Rob, earlier on, you talked about your experience around infrastructure-led projects. Clearly, you're quite passionate about that. You may be aware of Scottish Government recently published its commissioned research that examined other examples, including how Japan tackled island depopulation. In Japan, they had switched from infrastructure-led projects to focus on tourism-led and then back to infrastructure. Do you have any thoughts on the importance of infrastructure? What else could the Scottish Government be doing? We've seen through the introduction of the rural tourism infrastructure front, which is what we'll be familiar with. The ability to generate interest and engagement on how infrastructure is developed can be quite modest changes. We're not talking about multimillion-pound investments here. We're talking about small investments, perhaps a few hundred thousand pounds, which can allow infrastructure changes that give businesses greater certainty and bring benefits to residents, domestic users, etc. There's very little that happens for the benefit of visitors that isn't of benefit to those people living in a community, so that force for good that tourism can be developed off quite modest starting points. Ensuring that we encourage councils to develop their infrastructure plans specifically in respect of tourism and ensuring that the Scottish Government continues to invest in the rural tourism infrastructure fund, as it has done, is a very important part, particularly in the current economic circumstances that we have. I think that building for growth in the future part becomes very important in the next two to three years. I wanted to move on to another question to ask if there are any routes where enhanced air services or fixed links might be a realistic alternative to ferries, or at least as part of an enhanced ferry service provision. I'm going to come back to Martin first, because, as well as the rents admissions, I've been aware of some press activity in the last 24 hours, so I understand that highlands and islands enterprise are suggesting that fed-up islanders should maybe turn to air travel and a push for cheaper flights. I really just want to give you a chance to expand on that, Martin, because there's been a bit of media coverage. Are things that bad now that we have to, as your organisation puts it, look at sustainable aviation as an alternative here? Thank you. Looking beyond the headlines, what we're pleased are written submissions to the committee being aired through the media. In response to some of the questions posed by the committee in our written response, we bring out some points on the opportunity for flights. That was a reiteration of our response to consultation on Scotland's aviation strategy earlier this year. Islands, by definition, have to cross water. If you're not doing it by ferry, then an obvious alternative is by air. All the main island groups are connected to the mainland by air, and residents are able to take advantage of their discount scheme, which gives them up to 50 per cent discount to travel to the mainland for significant help to the cost and helps the viability of those air routes. The point that we're making goes back to some of the evidence that we've got, but about a fifth of island businesses say to us that they rely on air travel to do their business to move people backwards and forwards. Business travel is not covered by the air discount scheme. If members of the panel have ever had to personally travel to the islands, it's very expensive to land their travel. There's an extra cost to island-based businesses when they have to travel by air, either because of the timing of things or because they can't rely on the ferries. We're making the point that an alternative—an option—is to fly. The logic of the air discount scheme to residents, to help them to live on an island and to travel and to connect to the rest of the world, should also apply to businesses. That's the point that we made in our written submission to the committee, and that was the point that we made to the aviation consultation earlier on this year. Within the islands and fixed links, I think that island communities would rather have fixed links than either an air link or a ferry link, just because of the absolute convenience and the reliability. We've seen that across, in particular, the western islands and where some of the southern archipelago was connected by causeways. We're aware that, in Jutland, for example, there is active discussion about connecting some of the islands up, Yell, Unst, with the mainland, Balsay—whether that be causeway, bridge or tunnels. The challenge there, I guess, is what appears to be a more expensive upfront capital cost relative to replacing aging ferries. I'll go back to what I said, that the fleets are rolling. The median age is into the early 30s, but it depends over what lifecycle of replacement of ferries we look to compare and contrast fixed links. The mix should be part of the consideration as Transport Scotland looks at the island connectivity plan as the role that fixed links could play to replace and enhance some of the ferry links. As I said, we've made the point about business travel and air. I'll stick with you for another moment. Thank you for your further explanation on the role that fixed links could play. Does Highland and Island Enterprise have any estimates or data on the potential economic impact of the construction of the type of links that you mentioned, or could you perhaps share that with the committee later? I don't believe that we do, but I'm aware that I would certainly, by speaking to Zetrans and Hydrans, be very happy to come back, either with what they've got or it would be a no return on that, but I'm very happy to come back with that later on. That's great. Thank you for that, Martin. I'll turn to Peter and Rob, just to see if you've got anything to add on the role of fixed links, and I suppose what a sustainable aviation looks like as part of this conversation, Peter. Thank you. In terms of air, it plays a part in island connectivity. It currently plays a part in island connectivity. Obviously, for a business that relies a lot on freight, our freight will be staying on either a fixed link if one was available or on a ferry service, I would imagine. However, in terms of moving personnel, air is part of the current mix. If that sector were to grow, the focus would need to be on that sustainable element of its sustainable aviation. In terms of fixed links, we as users don't have much influence, I suppose, on what fixed links might be feasible. I'm certainly interested to hear if any are under development, but at the moment I think that there are just two islands that are connected to the mainland with a fixed link, so there's a limited scope at the moment. Like an ad, I don't think that the important assessment of that should be around the sustainability issues and the transition to net zero. In the long term, I suspect, we might see the possibility of fixed links depending on the cost of that. In the short and medium term, we should be working incredibly hard to try to make the transport that is utilised by the islands as emission free as we can, reduce the emissions and any assessment as to whether it's by ferry or by air needs to factor that in. I think that we're working very hard to try and make sure that the travel undertaken by visitors, either in coming to Scotland or once they're in Scotland, is as sustainable as is possible. Within that context, assessing whether ferries to certain islands air to other islands is helpful should be part of what's considered, I think. Thank you. Before I hand back to the convener, I want to ask Rob something. Is Martin's mentioned a couple of times the age of some of the ferries, more than 30 years old. From a Visit Scotland perspective, what impressions does that make on people who are here for tourism or people who are travelling within Scotland? What sort of feedback do you hear about the ferries? I think that the age of itself is not that significant to the user. It's the condition and the journey experience and both the departure point experience and arrival point experience. We've had discussions with CalMac quite recently about how that can all be enhanced, both on ferry and at departure and arrival points, as well as the pre-booking digital experience. I think that all of that can be enhanced. I don't necessarily think that the age per se is a barrier there. It's about how you invest in the service that's provided on the ferry, what that experience is, but particularly what the experience is at ports as well. The next question has come from Mark Ruskell. I want to ask you whether you see there's a need or even a responsibility for business sectors to be managing travel demand while at the same time focusing on business growth, focusing on productivity as well. I was struck by what you were saying earlier, Peter, around the development of maturation facilities on Eila might be one way to reduce travel, transport freight demand. Rob, I was also struck by a growing phenomenon of people perhaps taking two or three cars to the islands on holiday with them. I wondered if each of you could perhaps offer some thoughts as to whether you think it's a responsibility of government just to meet endless demand or whether there are ways that we can be managing that demand in a smarter way. Do you want to come back in first, Peter, on that given that you... Yes, sure. In terms of the maturation point, that will change the nature of the freight, but ultimately that spirit will need to move off the island. There will still need to be that transportation element, albeit that it could be in a 10-year time or whatever the maturation period for that particular spirit is. In terms of managing the travel demand, we ultimately need to move product to and from the islands. We need casks for maturation. If we're maturing there, we need empty tankers, we need cereals, we need to remove other products, including the spirit that buy products, we need fuel and packaging where we package on the islands. I think it's very difficult to manage the actual volume of materials that we need. That was sorry? What about waste? The by-products. The draft does need to be removed from the islands if it's not used locally in the local farming community. Those by-products need to be removed. There are alternative uses of those by-products and it is possible that they could be used and stay on islands in which they are generated. When we're looking at island in particular, where we've got nine operational distilleries, draft is one of the products that we currently need to remove from the island. It can have an effect if you can't remove the by-products from the island, then that would need to be stored. That can have a knock-on effect on the production process itself. Removing the by-products, say, draft, can impact on your production process. It's important that the system works efficiently so that we've got the inputs and outputs flowing as efficiently as we possibly can. Is there a way to square that going forward? Could there be processing or infrastructure investments that could make things more circular? Well, as I said, in future alternative uses of distillery by-products is something that is continually being explored, particularly on the transition to net zero. That's potentially one element that could reduce that need to move by-products from the island. What answers your question is yes. The demand management piece is a critical part of island capacity and making the best use of available infrastructure. I think that intuitively, in my sense, more can be done. We're already seeking to head in that direction with the marketing that we are doing under the tread lightly heading, which again links to my previous comments about encouraging lower-emission travel, particularly emphasising the desire to travel somewhere in Scotland but to stay longer. In other words, overall, to reduce the amount of travel, but as a consequence of staying longer in the context of an island setting, of course, spending more money on the island over the period you're there, and that relates to that sustainable economic development point that I made earlier. I think that there should be a discussion with the island communities and the very operators about the sophistication of the ticketing model. We're all pretty used as consumers to quite sophisticated ticketing models in all manner of ways that we purchase tickets, not just for travel but for events and many other things. I think that the island is quite rightly should think about this and consider how that ticketing might reduce demand in terms of volume of transport but also favour certain types of transport in certain times. I can imagine in the years ahead that fuel type of vehicles would be a factor, capacity of vehicles would be a factor, length of stay might be a factor. Of course, hand in hand has to be the focus of businesses on the development of their product, the sort of itineraries that are offered on islands. If you're going to be encouraged to stay for five nights, not three nights, what is it that's going to be available to you to do? That destination development thinking and product development thinking has to be a part of what can be driven through as demand management, but I think that there are options there that could be considered. They must be underpinned, going right back to where we started by reliable service, otherwise they will fall at the first hurdle, I regret. Thanks for that. Martin, from your perspective, you're obviously working with many different sectors, including rapidly growing sectors such as offshore wind. What are your perspectives on how we create the space for that development? On the principles and the benefits of the circular economy and the just transition to net zero, the short answer is yes. That's far and parcel of how we manage demand and capacity, and my sense is from the work that we do that industries and businesses are moving in the direction that is in the direction that society as a general is moving in. That said, islands are a microeconomy, so unless they can produce and consume what they need, it has to be imported or exported. There is an irreducible amount that will have to come in and come out on the ferries. When we think about what is sustaining and opportunities for the future, things such as aquaculture, seafood processing, for example, the output of that for human consumption has to leave the island and it has to go on vehicles and on the ferries. That's an example. There is an irreducible amount of demand reductions through use, recycle and reuse and the just transition to net zero. Beyond that, that island's broader point has a really important role to play in the emerging economies. In Shetland, the Orion project is a very exciting and interesting example of the decarbonisation of the production of oil and gas. That is, by no means, an oxymoron. It is also related to the production of green hydrogen, not just for the use in the local economy but to produce on-scale to service a global nascent industry. Much of offshore wind will take place around the coasts of our island. To see that happen and to service that nascent sector, it will require people and goods materials to pass on the ferry. The ferry connectivity, the ferry service, the ferry capacity of the islands will have a direct role to play in a bigger picture of net zero. As I said, businesses are moving towards net zero and the circular economy by their nature islands. There will be an irreducible point where goods must come and go by ferry. I have another couple of questions. I was going to wrap them together for the sake of time. First, about the fair structure for commercial businesses. What are your thoughts on how that could be reformed? Secondly, it is about the responsiveness of ferry operators, not just CalMac, but other ferry operators to the needs of business. If you can point to good practice, if you can point to how that could be improved going forward. Martin, can we start back with yourself again going reverse? Is that okay? My understanding is that Transport Scotland is going to be having a look at fairs across all transport modes across Scotland, so, harking back to what I said, I learned through consultation with the ferries committee board, stakeholder groups, high trans, etc. That is an important discussion with businesses and industries about the costs of fair for businesses, as well as for residents. On the point of responsiveness, my sense is that when people engage with CalMac staff and they engage with Northlink staff, it is a really positive service. That is an accolade to both organisations in terms of the customer experience when they talk to people, notwithstanding aspects of reliability. I certainly think in terms of responsiveness, because I know it best in Shetland, how Northlink, the seafood sector, the agricultural sector and the haulage sector work together very collaboratively over September and October, when the bulk of the agricultural livestock is a very good example of the flexibility of goodwill of collaboration. I am aware that that works and that works to overcome the challenges of capacity constraints at that time of year. The responsiveness of both Northlink and CalMac in work that we do with them is good. I would echo what Martin said. I think that when we have conversations with them and we develop joint work with them, the engagement is very good. Most recently, we have done a joint funded paid marketing campaign with CalMac, a total campaign of £40,000 in value with very, very impressive figures achieved. That demonstrates that, as a national tourism agency, working with organisations such as CalMac, which we have done similar with Northlink in the past, we can achieve great outcomes. Some of the viewing on the organic social media here is 10 million people over the months of August, September and October converting into almost half a million engagements with that product. That is comparable to anything that we can deliver in any sector, so the demand for islands and the ability to work with the organisation is there. On the fair structure piece and the interface with commercial, I think that my only comment on that would be that, too frequently, tourism is seen as domestic travel, it is a business. Therefore, the tourism piece needs to sit firmly within the framework of discussion about economic development and businesses, because although it may be you and I as visitors or holiday makers that are travelling to the islands, actually the purpose is a business purpose from the end business that we are going to stay with. I think that that thinking and that approach needs to be factored in a bit more. Just on the responsiveness, going back to the point on communication and engagement, the point I made in terms of the portal and work exemplary, very good level of engagement, room for improvement on issues such as scheduling of vessels, as I mentioned, the issue that we are currently facing, I would say that we welcome and we are welcoming more engagement with CalMac in particular, as the operator for the islands where most of our distilleries are located. That is something that we would certainly encourage. On the question on fair structure, I do not have much to say on that particular matter, obviously. Fair is a commercial matter for members to decide on in terms of what services they use, but we can certainly do some further work and come back to you if that would be helpful on those points. I am really interested in all the answers that you are giving, but I notice that the clock does not slow down with the interesting answers that you are giving. I am just a bit conscious of time, so I would ask you just about that in mind. There are some questions that I would like to ask, but I am going to give way at this stage, probably rightfully to the deputy convener, to let her get her questions in and then I will see if I have time for mine at the end, which I am sure there will be. I have lots of questions, I am sorry, convener. I want to come to all of you, but I will come to Martin first. The committee is conducting this inquiry so that we can help to inform our view for the connectivity plan that is forthcoming, so I want to focus on future thinking. We know that we want sustainable economic growth, we want repopulation and we also want to deliver net zero. That is the framing that I see you all nodding to. That is helpful. I want to come to Martin first and look at specific links and areas. First of all, what involvement has Hiles and Anas Enterprise had in the development of the forthcoming connectivity plan? We have conversations with Transport Scotland and we have connections through the likes of the ferries committee board and local committees. I am not aware yet of us being trying to be corrected, but I am not aware of us formally engaging with Transport Scotland. We would look forward to doing so and we believe that we would have clear views with evidence to bring to that. Clearly, we want strategic alignment that anticipates future opportunities but also to have that flexibility to get there and we have different industries. Let's take the Northern Isles in particular. You have already raised issues about cattle in particular in times of years. What can be done in terms of that transportation for improvements in future planning and an existing freight but also, as Mark Ruskell has referred to, the new industries that are the current industries of energy and space. What does future look like for the Northern Isles in terms of what would be optimal? I think that our view on that is that looking to the medium term and the replacement of the two freight vessels would be an opportunity to look at the dimensions, the carrying capacity of that and also the mix of freight and passengers. We think that certainly looking at freight plus where you have essentially freight carrying vessels but they can also carry passengers. I think that in our written submission we talk, given the example of 200 passengers being carried as well as substantial amounts of freight. Then we switch to Aliphal Stornoway, that kind of route and the businesses that are involved in freight there. What would future look like in terms of success for those criteria that we have mentioned? I think that we echo the views of others that we believe that there is a business case to be explored for an overnight freight vessel. We are also aware in the very short term, i.e. next year, that there will be two points when Uieg is closed for the works. There is going to be a lot of pressure on the Aliphal Stornoway, so additional short term capacity may need to be chartered in, but longer term and essentially now going forwards we think that an overnight freight vessel on the Aliphal Stornoway would substantially help to alleviate capacity issues there. I think that you want to make sure that the routes are attractive to the new workforce that will be needed for those new industries that I take it. Yes, indeed. I will go back to what is important in consultation. We stand ready and willing to help Norfolk and Carmac and Transport Scotland to engage with industries and businesses of the now and the future. It is what we do and very much look forward to doing so that the needs of those industries are built in and, as far as possible, the capacity and capability of the fleet serving the western and northern Isles is future prist. I will move to Peter Clark now and ask about Islay and the whisky industry in particular. Clearly, we are seeing great successes with the whisky industry in Islay. It very much depends on the brand of Islay, so it depends on the island itself. However, if we have a subsidised, currently a subsidised Carmac service, that effectively means that the public purse is subsidising the freight traffic for the profitable whisky trade. Do you see that there is any role for the whisky trade in helping to manage demand, as we have heard, but also in identifying where those subsidies should be or would they be more interested in direct, dependable, reliable freight that might be through private tender, for example? In terms of Islay, it has challenges from a freight perspective, capacity being one of them and reliability. I would say that the current ferry is the only service that is available. We do move some of our materials to the island. There is a grain boat that comes into Port Ellen. I mentioned the fuel as well, which is used by ourselves and other people on the island. In terms of alternatives, we have spoken and we are aware that there are potential third parties who could offer an alternative freight-only service running between Islay and the mainland. We did do some work back in 2009. We funded a project with Argyll and Bute Council and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, which was a whisky logistics study looking at the current situation, what the issues are and looking at potential future growth and then coming out with some recommendations and solutions. In terms of one of those solutions, one was for a freight-only service to be run. In terms of that service, there are attractions to that and, again, the commercial element will come into play. We also need to be mindful that, if the Scotch whisky volumes provide a lot of baseload for the Islay service, if that was to be removed from the Islay service on to another service, what impact would that have on the Kelmack service? That would need to be considered and it is something that we are mindful of. However, as I said, we are open to conversations. We are happy to facilitate conversations between members and third parties. If a service looks to be viable, we would need to step back from the detailed contractual terms of the trade association. We could not engage in that, but we are certainly happy to make those connections. Turning to Rob, and to ask your view about the balance between freight and passengers, reflecting some of what we have heard already, we were familiar with fly and drive, but clearly sail and drive with electric cars on the other side might be the way forward for my net zero point of view if you have large numbers of family groups coming over to Ireland. What does the future look like for you? Fundamentally, the future has to be placing net zero at its heart of the thinking. We need to find a better balance between the needs of residents of businesses, including tourism and the business piece to be explicit, and freight use. From our perspective, considering the overnight use for freight seems to be an obvious option to explore, as Martin indicated. Recognising the needs, the seasonal needs, the time of day needs, the day of the week needs between different sectors is critically important. We lack some sophistication in the models that we are using and in the dialogue that is happening around how markets can be better supported in the way that services—as they currently stand, and that is not to suggest that they should stand as they are for the future, but as they currently stand are best used for economic development purposes of the islands. A more sophisticated, calibrated, strategic and flexible system between industry and business and the transport is what you are asking for, and I see that you are nodding to that. I am sorry, Martin. Do you want to come in on that side? Very briefly, I did qualify that subject to contradiction and I have been contradicted, so we are engaged more formally with Transport Scotland on the island connectivity plan, and it is along the lines that outline data and connections. Once I have got Martin, I just maybe want to contradict you as well. Potentially, you talked about perhaps looking at main links for transport being hubs, whereas shorter ferry crossings but with renewable energy either by electric vehicle or eventually hydrogen vehicles on the other side would actually be a better net zero solution than necessarily everything coming into major hubs like the example of Aberdeen, but shorter. Is that something that you are aware of, because that contradicts a wee bit what you were saying earlier on? I absolutely think that more of the emerging technologies are part of the mix of how we look at the sort of modal connections between ferries and terminals, so yes, I think that absolutely will be part of the mix and I know that, in particular, island communities are very keen on the sort of greening of the islands. That is something that island communities seem to me to be taking to heart, so I am definitely sure that that will be part of the mix and so see no reason why it would not be, which is a key welcome. Martin, well done. No one noticed you being kicked under the table to correct your earlier answer with more information, but Liam wants to come in with a question on the back of that. Just very briefly, thanks, convener. Martin Johnston, you talked just there about being consulted on the island's connectivity plan. Are any of your organisations consulted on the spec of future vessels being brought onto the route? In any event, who do you believe is consulted and of all those who get consulted, who has the loudest voice? I do not know how well competent we would feel to be to comment on ferry design, but, again, subject to clarification, I do not believe that we are formally or even informally consulted on what you think of this design or that design. I think that where that is best put is through some of the structures that I have already mentioned, such as community board, stakeholder groups, high trans and zet trans, which would bring together stakeholders to talk about what they need in terms of the characteristics, capacity and capability of the vessels. They would then be beyond the characteristics that would be people that are informed on vessel design. Who has the loudest voice? I guess it is Transport Scotland. That goes back to my very early statement that my sense of speaking to people in preparation for today is that how island communities are consulted, listened to and heard and how decisions are prepared and choices are whittled down and ultimately made has to be improved. My sense is that island communities do not feel ownership of key decisions that are so material to their wellbeing, to their economy and to their society. I am not aware that VisitScotland has been consulted. I am not sure that we would have much expertise to contribute. Because we are not involved in that process, I am not clear about how it is managed or the loudness of any voices within it. On vessel design, under communication and engagement, we certainly were not involved in any systematic or structured consultation on the design feeding in our needs. I mentioned that we co-funded the study that looked at the volumetrics for the island routes. Having that detailed nuance conversation with users and hauliers, because a lot of our freight is managed through the hauliers, just to understand behind the numbers, it is not just the tonnages, it is not just the number of vehicles, but it is the type of vehicles as well. I would just make that comment on engagement on vessel design. Very helpful. Thank you. I am going to push a bit on this bit, if I may, is that we seem to have gone for just on the route that we were on yesterday, but we seem to be going for a bigger ship 102m in length compared to the 30-year-old Caledonian Isles nearly, which is 94m, and the Hebridean Isles serves that that is 84m. We seem to be going for a bigger boat with an increased passenger capacity. When we heard at a previous meeting with Western ferries that they favored the idea of having smaller boats that they could make sure were full and were operating full and flex up and down as required to meet demand, Peter, would you support more flexibility in delivering the reliability and resilience that we believe islanders demand and rightly demand for their ferry services? In terms of flexibility, in terms of the actual services themselves and not in terms of the vessels, but if you are looking at flexibility, one of the things that came through from the logistics study was that there is a need or will be a need for a freight only service and it does not have to operate five days a week necessarily. It could be three days a week initially and that can be flexed. It is having the flexibility to manage the services. In terms of the actual size of the vessels, for Islay, the vessel size is increasing. That has been part of the process. It is a longer crossing, roughly two hours, so it is not a relatively short crossing where you can have a frequency number of vessels operating on the Islay route. We have two vessels that are normally operating, but they operate over a longer distance, so it is a slightly different type of service. Particularly to you, Rob, do you think that the flexibility to flex up and down when there is demand so boats are not running it half full is the way forward and it allows more maintenance? I certainly think that increased flexibility in the system would be beneficial. There is a need for all of us to recognise the challenges about the ferry services themselves being financially sustainable. I think that trying to find the most efficient way of securing that as an outcome is an important part of the equation. In some routes, on some routes, smaller vessels with more frequent services may well be the answer, but there is a delicate balance between the length of the journeys, the type of vehicles and the frequency, particularly in relation to some of, for example, Peter's members, to be met there. The tours and peace I think can fill the gap in many ways, but it has to have a core position as well when you get to summer months, so that ability to flex is highly desirable, I would suggest. Martin, do you have a comment on that? I still think that the islanders themselves are the best people to speak with authority about what they need from the ferry service in terms of size and capacity. That said, I tend towards, from the discussions that I have had with people, that the bigger is not necessarily better and that two vessels rather than one large vessel is better in terms of overall capacity and also builds in resilience and redundancy. On a side point, I think that people do speak from what I have heard positively about on this aspect in terms of the two new ferries that are being constructed for Islay and the proposed two new ferries for the Euwig Triangle are all, essentially, sister ships, so they can be used on the same, well, the different vessels can be used on the same routes, they can all dock to the same infrastructure, the crew are all trained in the same way and the operability and redundancy or, I suppose, resilience within the system is therefore much better. That strikes me as being something sensible and to consider long and hard as we think about the overall nature and makeup of Scotland's fleet, but there will be horses for courses and, ultimately, islanders are best places to say, in my opinion. That is very helpful. Peter, I want to come back to you and then ask a general question to everyone to close it, if I may. Demand has never been greater, we heard, as far as your industry is concerned on islanding particularly well and freight demand. Is it getting to the stage where you might have to consider purchasing or acquiring the services of a ferry operator just to service your industry to give it the reliability that it needs? As I said earlier, third party operators have approached us and have looked at putting on a service. Those conversations took place two or three years ago before Covid struck. Ultimately, it would be up for a third party to decide if that was compatible or fell in line with what their expectations would be as an operator of that service. As I said, we are open to facilitating conversations between the members and third party operators. I think that what we heard yesterday was concerned that if people did come along that they would not be able to use the facilities because of the restrictions placed on them on the use of those facilities by current users. I do not know if that is a problem. We can find out. Finally, if I may, Rob, I think you said at the beginning that a bad ferry experience is not something that you get over quickly, paraphrasing your words, if I may, and there are a lot of people out there who may have had bad ferry experiences in the last few years. We heard yesterday it would take a long time for people to get over that. How long do you think that is, Rob? I think that we have got challenges in the marketplace that make tourism more difficult to predict in the years ahead than perhaps it has been up until the period of 2019. It is fair to say that, over the course of this summer, tourism has not fully recovered. There are parts of Scotland where recovery is strong but there are parts of Scotland where recovery is much weaker. On the islands—as I said at the beginning, your paraphrasing is accurate, I think, chair—they have had a set of challenges that are unique and particularly difficult to deal with in the short term and are undoubtedly listening to the businesses operating on the islands, a barrier to visitors. Demand and interest is very high. The most recent campaign that I mentioned with CalMac demonstrates that quite conclusively. The ability to ensure that we have a ferry service which, if it does not meet the demand, at least caters realistically for the demand that is there at the moment and is reliable and predictable, is critically important. As long as we continue to have the problems that we have experienced, we will continue to see visitors voting with their feet in decision making about not visiting the islands. I cannot answer your question with a definitive timescale because I do not know when that more reliable service will be available, but I think that it will pay dividends if it becomes available because the demand for visiting the islands remains strong. If the service suddenly became perfect today, would it take five years or two years or three years? No, I think that it would be pretty quick. If the service became perfect today, I think that you would see bookings coming forward and demand for visiting and recovering very strongly, perhaps even next season, because what we see with the marketing that we have done and the interests of social media is demand to visit the islands is there. I think that people are put off by either what they see in the media or some experience in some cases. Martin, do you want to comment on that in relation to businesses that are doing businesses on the island? I guess that if we are in the scenario that we have waved a magic wand and it is a reliable, robust ferry service, I guess that it would take a whole season of that to address the negatives that people would have experienced previously. For those who have had a bad experience, they would need to show me the type of answer to be persuaded that they are not going to get the same experience again. In that sort of scenario, one season would probably do it for them. Peter, do you want to add anything to that? For a whisky industry, I guess that we are a long-term industry. Members have invested in islands where we are facing difficulties at the moment. That is part of the industry that we are a part of. I guess that there is not really too much to add to that. There is huge pressure basically on getting this right as soon as possible, and industries will respond to that and pick up from that. The longer it goes on, the more difficult it will have been for those industries to survive as a whole. On that note, it is probably a very good point to end it. I would like to thank you, Peter, Rob and Martin for giving answers to the committee today. Really interesting. Time has flown, and it does when you are having fun and interested in the subject. Thank you very much, and we are now going to move into private session.