Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you for allowing me in again to comment on this petition.

I meet CHAT quite regularly, and in July, it raised the issue of community participation with me. The group had contacted NHS Highland, but the health board refused to recognise it as a constituted community-controlled body. I believe that the group is controlled by the community and that it needs to be recognised as such. It has a constitution, which sets out that it is community led, and it holds regular annual general meetings and regularly meets the community that it represents.

I have taken the matter up with NHS Highland on the group’s behalf, but it is not changing its position. As there is no appeals process, CHAT has no chance to debate its case with someone from outwith the organisation.

Members of the public regularly contact CHAT to ask for its assistance and to advise it of issues that they have faced, and, to be honest, I think that that often puts it at odds with NHS Highland. Nevertheless, I believe that it fulfils an important role in the community. It is keen for the health authority to engage with its members before any action is taken up in Caithness; in fact, the team has given me examples of issues on which there has been no consultation at all. For instance, a midwife-led maternity unit that was introduced resulted in a 200-mile round trip to Raigmore hospital for pregnant at-risk women.

I agree that people in Caithness are victims of the centralisation of healthcare services and that rural areas are being left out of the decision-making process. An appeals process would let the team question the ruling of any public body, and I support its introduction sooner rather than later. I would also say that NHS Highland’s out-of-hand dismissal of an appeal on this matter is wrong, and an appeals process would at least give the team the right to call such decisions into question. At any rate, I think that the board’s approach is questionable.

If the committee will indulge me a little, I have some information that I would like to relay, having spoken to the petitioner.

As you have said, convener, HIAL and Prospect recently released a joint statement, saying that they had agreed a framework for discussion regarding a new way forward for ATMS. Some people have taken that to mean that air traffic staff will now remain local. However, that is not the case. Work on the remote towers is continuing; only the timetable has changed. It is widely believed that HIAL is not looking for a meaningful solution that does not involve remote towers.

I understand from the petitioners that HIAL has hit some of the problems that were predicted in the evidence that they submitted to the committee, and that is why it has agreed to a delay. HIAL has stated that it will review air traffic provision after it has implemented the surveillance programme—which is commonly referred to as radar. My understanding is that the ATMS timetable has effectively been put on hold by HIAL for five years while it develops surveillance, which is required regardless of whether it proceeds with remote towers. HIAL has said, however, that it will implement remote towers in Inverness. That makes no sense, except that it has already bought the building where they will be located. That has no support from staff, or indeed from the public.

Neither have remote towers been ruled out for any of the other airports. They are merely being postponed for up to five years by HIAL in the hope that the problems that are dogging the project at the moment will be resolved. There is obviously a concern that delays will add to costs.

The CAA currently requires both primary and secondary radar. Primary radar shows any aircraft flying in the vicinity as a blip on a screen while secondary radar requires equipment to be carried on an aircraft to identify it to the controller. HIAL want to use the form of radar that shows suitably equipped aircraft. That is an issue in some of those airports where flight clubs and light aircraft use airports quite often.

In evidence submitted to the committee, the Minister for Transport said:

“HIAL have had many discussions with the CAA around the direction of travel towards a more cooperative surveillance approach (which ADS-B is one element of such a system). The CAA has not, however, given HIAL a firm timeline for implementation.”

The CAA requires HIAL to install primary radar. That could cost in excess of £30 million to implement, which has not been budgeted for.

Benbecula and Wick John O’Groats airports are being treated separately. HIAL wants to downgrade those airports from an air traffic control service to a flight information service. The impact on the community that is served by Benbecula airport will be profound, and both Wick and Benbecula may have difficulty in finding airlines to operate PSO routes.

Downgrading will also decrease safety, which is unacceptable to the petitioners, air traffic staff and the communities that those airports serve. It could result in a less safe and less flexible operation and may lead to airborne conflict, putting passengers at risk. That is especially an issue in Benbecula, which is very close to the QinetiQ range. It could also prevent Wick from becoming a hub for offshore traffic, as it was quite recently in the past. At the moment, work is on-going to attract more, rather than fewer, flights to both those airports. It will also cause unnecessary delays and cancellations to aircraft using those airports in bad weather during the winter.

I will quote what one of the petitioners told me this week. He said:

“In short, ATMS has been a mess since its conception. It is continuing in the same way. The wheels are coming off HIAL’s ATMS juggernaut, yet it rolls on leaving damage in its wake. It needs to be steered into the scrapyard of history and left there. HIAL as an organisation must get a blank sheet of paper, sit down with the representatives of the communities it is meant to serve and redesign itself. The board and senior management have completely lost sight of their role, which is to run airports efficiently for the benefit of their communities, not squander taxpayers money on unnecessary vanity projects.”

I could not agree more.

In the short term, I suggest that the committee contacts HIAL to get a clear indication of its plans regarding surveillance and remote towers, and whether it will recoup or lose funds if it disposes of the building that it has bought to house remote towers in Inverness. In the long term, I suggest that we keep a watching brief on the petition, because I fear that those developments are designed to take the heat out of the situation but make no real change to the future direction of travel.

I mentioned flying clubs and people who use recreational aircraft. It might be worth trying to contact some of them to find out what their concerns are. When the remote tower model was first mooted, there were concerns about how the airspace would be managed and how that would impact on their activities. There is a flying club based at Inverness, but there will be other such organisations throughout the area.

Thank you for inviting me to appear before the committee to discuss the statement of reasons that accompanies my draft proposal for a right to food (Scotland) bill. It is quite fitting that we are talking about this in challenge poverty week.

The committee is being asked to determine whether it is content with the statement of reasons, which sets out why I consider it unnecessary to carry out a consultation on my proposal.

My proposal is, in effect, the same as the proposal that Elaine Smith lodged in the previous parliamentary session, that is, to incorporate the right to food into Scots law. Elaine Smith obtained the right to introduce a bill, but there was not enough time left in the session to do so. A consultation on her proposal ran for 12 weeks and received responses from a wide range of individuals and organisations from different sectors and backgrounds. The individual responses, and a summary of the responses, are publicly available online—the committee has probably seen them.

The variety of responses to the consultation from the public and other stakeholders across Scotland remain relevant to my proposal, as do many of the studies and papers that have been published on the right to food.

To repeat the consultation process for what is, in effect, the same bill proposal that Elaine Smith originally consulted on and lodged would be an unnecessary duplication of work, particularly given that the consultation closed only a little over a year ago, in September 2020, and such a timeframe fits with that of other bills.

Therefore, I hope that the committee agrees that further consultation is not required in this instance. I will be happy to answer any questions that committee members have.

As I said, a number of those organisations were statutory bodies, such as health boards, which might not have seen the proposal as their number 1 priority. They might have expected others to respond on their behalf.

I am aware that those pieces of legislation have been promised. It was promised that the good food nation bill would be introduced in the previous session, but its introduction has been held across to this session.

The Government has said that it does not plan to incorporate a right to food in the good food nation bill. It has made it clear that it is looking at the issue more in the context of its proposed human rights bill. However, it is not clear to me whether, as part of the human rights bill, it would have the vehicle for delivery that forms part of my proposed bill. If the committee decides that I can proceed with my bill, based on the previous consultation, the Government will have the opportunity, once I have introduced it, to take it over, should it decide to legislate in that way. Therefore, nothing will be lost—it will be able to go ahead and do that. However, if the Government did not want to have such a vehicle for implementation, I could proceed with the bill, and the Government could comment on it at that stage.

In the previous parliamentary session, I had discussions with the previous Cabinet Secretary for Rural Economy and Connectivity about the proposed good food nation bill, because I was interested in whether the bill would include commitments such as those that I am seeking. I have not had formal discussions in this session, although I have been lodging questions and trying to get more information.

I am happy to work with the Government on my proposal and would look forward to doing that; I would like to see what it is doing and how we can work together. I think that most people would agree that in a country that is as rich as ours and that has the food supply that we have—we are so proud of the food that we produce—no one should be going without food. I think that we can all sign up to that aim, and I would be happy to work with the Government to try to realise it.

I do not think so. We have had a Government consultation and Elaine Smith’s consultation, and a fair amount of discussion has taken place—the statement of reasons goes over that ground. Other proposals, including for good legislation, have come forward with much less consultation and far fewer consultation responses. The issue has been well consulted on and another consultation would simply delay action.

If the pandemic has shown us anything, it is the need for a right to food in Scotland. We have seen people going hungry. When people were self-isolating due to Covid, they needed things in place that ensured that they were able to eat. In the past fortnight, we have heard about the very sad case of a pensioner in Scotland who starved to death. I do not think that we can afford to delay action on an issue that is costing lives—it is also costing life chances, because we know that young people who grow up without having an adequate diet end up having huge health issues, for which we all pay, down the line. We see malnutrition and we see obesity—there are huge problems that we need to deal with, right now. The pandemic has, if anything, delayed legislation in the area. We cannot afford to delay further.

As Nick Hawthorne said, approving the statement of reasons and allowing the proposal to go forward today would not interfere with that in any way whatsoever.

I think that the convener is asking me why I am pursuing the matter, because he believes that the Scottish Government will do that. I am pursuing it because, although I know that the Scottish Government has said that it will enshrine human rights in Scottish law, I am not clear about whether it will provide a vehicle to ensure that those human rights are implemented. My bill would do both—it would not only enshrine in Scottish law the human right to food but provide a vehicle to oversee the implementation of that. That is the bit that I am not entirely clear about in relation to the Government. However, as Nick Hawthorne said, if the Government is clear that it wants to do that, it can take over the bill. Approving the statement of reasons would not affect that.

Given the complexity of the food system, it would—in a way—be better if the Government did take over the bill, because it could make it move in ways that I, as a member, probably could not. It could tie it up much better and produce much more complex legislation. I am pursuing the matter not to try to beat the Government to it but to make sure that that happens. If the Government decides to take over the bill, I will cheer it on and happily hand over the proposal.

I am not entirely clear about how the Scottish Government intends to introduce its human rights bill, so I am not clear whether there will be a vehicle for delivery in it. People could argue that human rights are all our rights and that they already exist. However, we still have people who do not have a right to food in Scotland. My proposed bill is designed not only to enshrine the human right to food in Scottish legislation but to provide a vehicle for its delivery, because that is hugely important.

If you were to push me, I would say that I would have liked to have seen the right to food at the heart of a good food nation bill. That is why I spoke to the Scottish Government in the previous session. We already invest £100 million—huge amounts of public money—in our food system. I hear from workers in that system that the front-line producers of food are the people who are going hungry. They produce the food but still do not have a right to food.

I would have wanted to see a right to food at the heart of a good food nation bill. However, my proposed bill, which would have a vehicle for delivery, would work alongside that. It is not one thing; it is not about ticking a box. It will take some time to implement a right to food and to change the system, because our food system is so disjointed. That is why everyone has been calling for a good food nation bill, which would not only highlight our natural resource but ensure that the way that we produce food does not leave people behind. My proposal is part of that.

Including the right in a good food nation bill would be my preference, but it does not look like that is possible. I hope that, if we have a right to food bill, it will work alongside a good food nation bill and changes to our food system to ensure that everybody has a right to food.

I am sorry—that was a bit of a long way round to a short answer.