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In correspondence with HIAL, it would be helpful to tease out what alternative options it is actively considering. It has talked about delaying a final decision on remote towers but no alternatives.

I thank the convener for allowing me to participate in these discussions.

I do not have a great deal to add to what Rhoda Grant set out, which was comprehensive and which I agree with in its entirety. The five-year delay was almost inevitable anyway. The deadlines that HIAL was working to were always heroically overambitious. We therefore would have been at this point at some stage in the future anyway; alongside—as Rhoda touched on—an inflated budget, given the problems that the project has already hit.

I recognise that, from the perspective of the committee, building in that five-year hiatus makes it difficult to pursue lines of inquiry, because the response that the committee will get back is that it is all under consideration and that they will take a view in four to five years’ time.

However, given the investments that HIAL is making in a remote tower in Inverness and the reputational investment that the senior management has made in remote towers, the fact that they are not talking about alternatives to the remote tower model reinforces the impression that they have bought themselves a little bit of time. They have bought themselves a little bit of breathing space from the criticism that they were receiving from across political parties and, more importantly, the communities that are most directly affected. Therefore, I hope that there is some mechanism whereby the committee can make it clear that the matter remains in the crosshairs of scrutiny, however that pans out over the next few months and years.

Thank you, convener, and thank you for inviting me to participate in the committee’s discussions. I put on record my gratitude to your predecessor and to the predecessor committee for the work that they did on the petition, which was pretty forensic. As you have outlined, they did some fairly detailed work, which included holding a number of oral evidence sessions. Those were very helpful, not necessarily in getting to the conclusion that I was looking for, but in exposing some of the fundamental issues that are involved in the project.

I urge the committee to keep the petition open. I think that HIAL’s management have been unwilling to accept the deep concerns that exist across all the communities that are served by the air traffic services that are to be centralised in Inverness. Those concerns extend across the political spectrum and to people who have no political affiliation at all.

There is no question but that modernisation of air traffic services is needed—that is not contested at all. What is fiercely contested is that the remote tower model is the only viable model that will achieve that modernisation and meet the current regulatory requirements and those that are coming down the track.

Since the predecessor committee took evidence, the most substantive development has been the publication of the delayed island impact assessment. Certainly in the Orkney context, it identified no positive benefits and a range of significant negative impacts of the centralisation proposals. Therefore, there is a feeling in the community that I represent that, if the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018 and the island-proofing concept are to mean anything, simply setting aside that island impact assessment is not a sustainable position.

In response to written questions, ministers have confirmed that they have had no engagement with HIAL’s management on the outcome of the island impact assessment, which seems wholly unjustified and unsatisfactory. At the very least, I hope that the committee agrees that that needs to be addressed.

The other point to reinforce is that the proposals predate the pandemic and the impact on air services generally. There is a real concern that the commitment of hundreds of millions of pounds of public money to the rolling out of the programme will be compounded by further investment before proper due diligence and audit is conducted on that expenditure. We can all draw on examples of when that process has led to fairly unpleasant and regrettable outcomes in other areas of public expenditure. I hope that the committee agrees that the audit process needs to kick in earlier on, because we do not want to be told, “You really didn’t want to do that” some way down the line when the money has already been spent and we are well past the point of no return.

I am not sure that I can add much more at this stage. As I said, the island impact assessment has exposed many of the concerns that Rhoda Grant, our former colleague Gail Ross and I articulated at previous committee meetings. Those concerns were shared by many committee colleagues at that stage. It might be useful for this committee to follow that up with the cabinet secretary and HIAL.

Do you mean the island impact assessment?

It was aware that the assessment had taken place.

The assessment’s undertaking was delayed; that might have, quite legitimately, been due to Covid. Its publication was significantly delayed after it was handed to HIAL’s management, before it was shared more publicly. As far as I am aware, the predecessor committee did not have an opportunity to look at the detail of that in the context of our work on the petition.

Such assessments are provided for in the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018. The coming into force of the provisions was slightly delayed, so there is a question as to whether the proposals were legally bound to be subject to an island impact assessment, but given the nature of the programme, HIAL undertook the assessment, the conclusions of which—

First, I want to thank the committee for choosing me as deputy convener. Like you, convener, I feel that it is a real privilege.

I, too, have looked at the legacy papers of the committees that are relevant to the work of this committee, and I have to say that they do not lack options with regard to issues that there will be pressure and an expectation on us to cover. It seems logical to continue with the work on the operation of the internal market and rural frameworks.

In addition, we have the questions around future trade deals that are being pursued. Parliament has already given some consideration to them, but the committee has the opportunity to drill down into those deals.

On the good food nation, I assume that we will have a bill to deal with it in due course, but we should consider whether we can find some time before then to squeeze in pre-legislative consultation on some of the areas that the good food nation bill is likely to cover.

It seems that we will have to revisit aquaculture from more of an island perspective. I also have a keen interest in continuing to shine a light on issues around ferry procurement.

There is a bit of dubiety about whether digital connectivity sits in our remit or in that of another committee, but over the past 18 months, the issue has demonstrated itself to be one of almost existential importance to many island and rural communities. Therefore, if we have any locus in that regard, we could usefully turn our attention to the matter.

I will flag one other issue, which is not on the list. The Public Petitions Committee was looking at a petition relating to centralisation of air traffic control services, which cuts across the interests of this committee. We will need to wait to see what the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee seeks to do with the matter, because it is part of its legacy paper. However, if there is an appropriate way of following up on that, I am supportive of doing so.

Other than being an islander, I have no registrable interests to declare in relation to the committee, but I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests.