Chamber and committees

Like Liam, I live on an island. Other than that, I have no relevant interests to declare, but I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests.

Thank you, Finlay, and congratulations on becoming convener. I also congratulate Liam McArthur. I look forward to working with everyone on the committee and the fantastic experts that the Parliament provides us with. I think that RAINE is probably the most appropriate title for the committee because, without rain, we would not have the wonderful green and blue Scotland that we have.

As everyone has said, this is a fantastic committee with a wide remit. As you know, I represent Argyll and Bute and, as I was reading the legacy papers, I felt that Argyll and Bute ticks many of the boxes, as does the rest of rural Scotland.

I will not repeat what everybody else has said but, like Alasdair Allan, I live on an island, and I absolutely understand the issues regarding housing, depopulation, ferries and connectivity. The situation is the same in rural, remote Argyll and Bute and in rural, remote Scotland generally.

We can build on the fantastic work that has already been done. Members have talked a bit about food and the Scottish brand that is food. Wonderful research has been done on the subject, and we are talking about top products. Could we perhaps widen that fantastic research to cover other rural industries, such as fabric, and use it in relation to tourism?

Ariane Burgess talked about communities, which is the one thing that I wrote down. We absolutely have to recognise the importance of our rural communities, and the input of farmers, fishermen, crofters and the aquaculture industry. However, we have to get the right balance between the environment and those organisations.

I also cannot not mention the issue of land reform, on which the members of the committee will have to work together. As Ariane said, with regard to the issue of people and the land, we are in it together, so we need to get through it together.

We have a huge remit, which is exciting, and there is loads of work to do. I am very pleased to be part of it.

Finally, one of the points that I picked up from the two legacy reports is about how we gather the evidence and people’s lived experience. We all have lived experience, but we need to get out into our communities to ensure that we are gathering information from people’s lived experience and what they know about their communities, as widely as we can.