Seòmar agus comataidhean

No; quite.

Pricing of fares is regularly raised with me. RET has been successful, and since its introduction there has been a substantial increase in the number of vehicles and passengers travelling on the network. It is now more than 5 million; it certainly was in 2019, the last comparable pre-pandemic year.

It also true that RET has reduced the average fare by 34 per cent for passengers and 40 per cent for car traffic, which is important. As I mentioned in an earlier response, it saves travellers around £25 million a year. However, I am keen that we use the ICP to consult island communities on their views on dynamic pricing. It is a fair observation.

I read in the Official Report of the committee’s previous evidence session that Mr Drummond, I think, was looking at that approach. As Ms Dunbar outlines, it is used in other transport sectors, so we need to be live to it.

I go back to my guiding principle from the start of the evidence session, which is that anything that we do next has to be informed by islanders’ views. We will not foist something on island communities. If more dynamic pricing is what they would like and would opt for, which would move us away from the current structure, I am amenable to that.

That is under consideration. As I outlined in my response to Mr Ruskell, a key part of the ICP will be the chapter on onward and connecting travel. We are looking for that to be completed internally in the first half of 2023, and there will then be stakeholder engagement.

Ms Dunbar is absolutely right that we need to ensure that there are more joined-up approaches to our broader transport network. There are already great examples of that in the transport network. I was in discussions with officials about that very point yesterday. In places such as Oban, for example, there is fantastic connectivity between ferry and rail, but that does not exist everywhere. We have that in other parts of the network, but we need to consider where we can build in opportunities to connect people’s journeys, because otherwise we are never going to facilitate the modal shift to get people out of their cars.

In response to Ms Lennon’s question about our net zero targets, we know that the transport sector is a significant contributor to our emissions, and we absolutely recognise the need to join things up better, whether that be through shared hubs or other approaches that exist in other parts of Scotland.

The committee will know well that not all island communities are the same. We need to be mindful in our policy development that they all have very different needs and that we should not try a one-size-fits-all policy, because that will not work.

CHFS3 also gives us an opportunity to do things differently, and there are definitely lessons that we will need to learn, particularly in relation to what CalMac has been able to come up with in quite recent times and how we will build things into the future contract.

That it is a fair question. Elise McIntyre will come in on the specifics, and I might speak about ministerial directions after that.

I take on board your point, convener; that is a vast area of Scotland. In the regulations, there is the power for local authorities to decide for themselves how to administer any hearings process; it is not for Government to dictate.

At this time, it is quite difficult for us to say what the future cost will be. Donald Morrison and I mentioned, I think in response to Ms Lennon’s question, that some local authorities are further down the road than others, while some are waiting and holding back their consultation and assessment processes until the regulations come into force. Therefore, we do not yet know where they are in their planning or what the associated costs with that would be.

We would certainly want to continue working with local authority partners. They have been part of the working group to develop the parking guidance for example. That has been pivotal. They have helped to shape and change the guidance as officials have worked with them during the past year and a bit.

We as a Government recognise the need to listen and respond to changes accordingly. I take Mr Kerr’s point seriously, because I recognise some of the financial challenges that local authorities and, it should be said, the Scottish Government face at this time.

We have provided funding of £2.4 million, and we will continue to work with local authority partners on those costs. However, at this time, it is not possible to give a quantifiable amount for each local authority, because some are further down the road with their assessments than others and others have yet to start the process and therefore will not have a cost associated with the work itself.

Yes.

I do not envisage there being multiple hearings, although that is a right that the local authority has through the regulations. Local authorities must also consult on any exemptions that they propose, which I discussed with my officials prior to the meeting. There is no statutory rate or level for the number of objections that might be received. Scottish ministers have the power to appoint a reporter and to conduct what would essentially be a hearing process. That would be a matter for the local authority to judge, because those are local roads. Local authorities should be trusted to do that and perhaps to measure where they see the greatest number of objections to a suggested exemption. If there are limited numbers of objections, we might expect them not to go down that route.

The legislation does not dictate the process to local authorities per se, but a hearing is an option that is open to local authorities. It is important that they get it right for local communities, because we do not want to see vast swathes of exemptions in relation to the legislation.

There is, yes.