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It is a live planning application. Having pondered that, I really cannot see how it would be correct for us to interfere in a process in which a clear set of rules has been established and the petitioners and others can submit their objections to the local authority for consideration within the determination.

We want to reach out to help petitioners in every case. However, in this instance, and this particular circumstance, I cannot see how—other than by interfering with legitimate existing proceedings—it would be for us to seek review of an on-going process. If people are dissatisfied at the end of it, they can lodge a further petition to Parliament on the perceived defects in that process. We have considered applications of that ilk before.

Lastly, I want to record that I am very grateful to the council for taking the time to give us an extensive briefing, not least on misinformation in the BBC’s reporting of the issue, which is unfortunate. I just wanted to allude to that while expressing our thanks to the council for pointing it out to us

I am very sorry. It is so easy to be rude to people who are attending online. I apologise.

Would it help if the committee made a request to the current Scottish Government minister—I think that we are now on transport minister number 4 in the current parliamentary session—to see what specific ideas they can come up with? Excuse me, Angus. I may be teaching my granny how to suck eggs, but I am sure that the three of you must have pondered on many occasions how to advance the situation. The reply seems to be, “Well, we advertise posts but we don’t get the applications”. That seems a pretty pathetic approach.

I know from my work in the islands over many years as minister that there are a huge number of very able, knowledgeable and experienced people all over the islands. I feel that the current efforts to reach out to empower those people, to benefit from their local knowledge and direct experience of ferries, seamanship, Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd or HIAL and to get them involved not only on the board but in senior management positions are not enough. We need to disperse jobs to the islands. When I was the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Economy and Tourism, we managed to disperse a couple of Crofting Commission jobs to the Western Isles. My God, it was difficult—I can tell you that. The grand promises that you start off with get diluted as they go through the sausage machine.

This is a very long question, but it seems to me that so many other approaches could be taken. Could the councils play a structured role in coming up with specific recommendations of people who might be suitable to serve on the main bodies of CMAL, CalMac and HIAL? Elected councillors are often really plugged into their communities. Is that a way—it is not one that is currently used—in which we could reach out to empower people on the islands?

Have you had any feedback from people who have been keen to apply to play a part but have been rejected? Has there been any systematic review or consideration of that? Has any work been done to consider why that has happened? Many of us suspect that the selection process results in what we might call the usual suspects, with a pool of kenspeckle figures getting picked again and again, and that it discriminates against newcomers, outsiders, outliers and, basically, people who live on the islands. I am afraid that that is my view from having been involved in quite a lot of selection work over the years. Perhaps I am at fault as much as anybody else.

If you are saying, as you did just now, that a cohort of people have been spurned—unfairly, in your view—and that that has created ill feeling, what can we do about that? Can anything be done? Has anything been done about it? I am sure that the committee would be willing to pursue that if there are concrete, specific things that we might be able to do about it.

I hope that we hear from the minister and from the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland.

Right, and the Government’s response, which is that it is up to the police, is an abnegation of leadership.

You want us to find out why the values to which the police have referred have resulted in changing the previous practice. To many of us, such matters seem to be fairly straightforward and have always been so—for decades, if not centuries.

I do not oppose that proposal, as it is very clear that the Scottish Government is not going to change its practice. However, I want to record my full support for the petitioner’s views in every respect.

Ethical leadership. My understanding is that, at the moment, Police Scotland has the primary responsibility for accurately recording the sex of suspects. What is your view about that? Are you happy with that? Is it your view that you are happy with that but that the police do not carry it out in a way that you regard as displaying that ethical leadership?

So your concern is not so much who is legally responsible for recording the sex of suspects but the fact that there is an abnegation of responsibility on the part of the Scottish Government. Instead of giving very clear instructions, it gives guidance that is vague—perhaps for political considerations.