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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.