Chamber and committees

I have a couple of questions. I will start with one on the numbers. What occupancy rates and footfall have been seen, particularly over the past few months? How have things looked in your sectors? What are you projecting for the coming year? I am interested in hearing about the short term at the moment.

I ask Marc Crothall to respond first, to be followed by Leon Thompson and then Stephen Montgomery.

Good morning Rob and Vicki; thank you for joining us. We heard from the earlier panel about the entrepreneurship, diversification and innovation that is happening across tourism to create what will probably look like a different industry post Covid and post recovery.

International experts say that a full recovery will not happen for at least another two years. We heard earlier about the tension between trying to go back to what we had—because we knew that—and ensuring that we make the most of seasonal and regional spread, which you have commented on.

There is something in this area that is to do with long-term resilience and sustainability. Much focus is placed on long-haul flights and bringing more people into Scotland, but we are likely to see rising fuel and air travel costs, and people might move away from air travel because of the climate emergency.

Do we need to do particular work to make tourism more sustainable in all senses, with regard to how people arrive here; how people with lower incomes, especially families, can afford to take part in activities; how accessible destinations are; different ownership models; and how costs can be met from smaller spends, but more of them? Can you say a little bit about the longer-term sustainability that we need to think of, given both the changes that we know will happen in aviation and the diversification and entrepreneurship that we have heard about?

The cabinet secretary will be aware of the excellent Campaign for North East Rail and its ambition to connect Peterhead and Fraserburgh to the rail network. Those are currently the two largest towns in the United Kingdom without rail links. I heard the cabinet secretary’s answers to the previous questions and I understand that those towns are not explicitly included in STPR2. Does he agree that such links are regionally strategic and that they will be invaluable for the economic transformation of the north-east? Will he support plans to develop those links?

Elections are one of the cornerstones of our democracy. None of us would be here in this place without them. They are not the only thing that matters for this Parliament or any other Parliament, but that is not what we are here to discuss. We are talking about the UK Elections Bill, which, as others have said, is complex and controversial and is certainly not something that we can or should support.

This piece of flagship Tory legislation will introduce voter ID in general elections, grant British citizens who live overseas the right to vote and make a number of other changes to the way in which elections are run. It runs utterly counter to the direction of travel of Scottish legislation on electoral reform. Here, we are working to make the Scottish franchise as inclusive as possible and enabling as many people as possible to exercise their right to have a say in how they are governed. At Westminster, the Conservatives want to exclude more people from having a say in who runs the country in which they live.

I have serious equalities and human rights concerns about the bill. Most significantly, the voter ID requirements for UK Parliament elections will apply in Scotland. As Neil Bibby clearly stated, approved forms of photo ID currently all carry a cost. That is restrictive, not enabling. Yes, a free electoral identity card will be available on application from local electoral registration offices, but that is another hurdle to participation for many people—mostly those who are already vulnerable or marginalised and excluded from voting.

We know that, already, people who are eligible to vote are not always able to exercise their right because of current registration processes, so why put another barrier in the way? One answer to that is, perhaps, that the UK Government knows that the people who will be excluded because of those measures are unlikely to vote for the Conservatives. It is voter suppression, as we have heard.

We have also heard that electoral fraud is very low in the UK. There were only 164 cases, with one conviction, in the 2019 general election. With such low rates, it is unclear what else the driver might be.

Earlier, George Adam quoted Ruth Davidson. I will use more of that quotation. Last year, she said:

“I think it’s total bollocks and I think it’s trying to give a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist”.

I extend my solidarity to polling station staff who will, if the measure is introduced, have to deal with checking voter ID documents. That is not a job that many of us would relish, I am sure.

I am of the view that people who live here should have a say about how they are governed, which is in line with our commitment to a residence-based franchise, rather than a citizenship-based franchise. Why should people who have chosen to leave the UK and make their lives elsewhere continue to have more say in what happens here than those who live and work in the country?

Members have highlighted several other concerns with the bill, such as postal vote changes and digital imprint changes, so my last point relates to the independence of the Electoral Commission. To quote the commission’s own words on the bill:

“The existence of an independent regulator is fundamental to maintaining confidence in our electoral system. This is particularly important when the laws that govern elections are made by a small subset of the parties that stand in elections. The Commission’s independence must be clear for voters and campaigners to see. As currently drafted, the provisions in Part 3 are not consistent with the Electoral Commission operating as an independent regulator.”

We cannot endorse the bill. We must stand firm in the face of a UK Government that is determined to ignore us, our Parliament and our wishes. We must withhold legislative consent.

Apologies, Presiding Officer. I want to come in on a later question. I have unpressed my button.

I thank Jackson Carlaw for his motion, for securing the debate and for his very passionate speech.

The Holocaust does not sit in isolation. It emerged from a broader culture of racism that was based on conspiracy theories. Although the actions of the Nazi regime stand out, they are part of a history of oppression of minorities in Europe that stretches back centuries. Antisemitism was widespread in early 20th century Europe. The tsarist forgery of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” crystallised a number of accusations against the Jews of Europe. Many of the antisemitic tropes that we see today, including the spurious claim about control of finance and the media, feature in those protocols.

At a time when the circulation of myths and untruths in the media is especially problematic, we must learn from that situation. Just as mass literacy allowed credulous people to be taken in by forgeries, so mass communication allows for fake news to spread.

Antisemitism was common at the highest levels of society, from Henry Ford to the British royal family. The actions of the Nazis were horrific, but they were based on a set of beliefs that circulated, and was accepted, widely.

One antisemitic conspiracy that we must confront is the replacement theory that is expounded by associates of former US President Donald Trump and others. As recently as 2017, neo-Nazis marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, chanting,

“Jews will not replace us.”

Given the determination of many to import US trends wholesale, we must ensure that we reject that pernicious idea.

It is dangerous to isolate the actions of the Nazis from those of wider society. As Primo Levi pointed out:

“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.”

Violence sprang from a well of prejudice and was not limited to the years 1941 to 1945. It sits in a long history of attacks on Jews, which stretches from the massacre of Jews at Clifford’s tower in York in 1190, through the persecution of the Jews of Iberia in the 15th and 16th centuries, to the tsarist pogroms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Each of those rounds of persecution was the result of threats to the established order. Lashing out at minorities is a common tactic, and we must not forget that it is not just Jews who have been treated in that way. The Holocaust was an act of power that attacked Roma and Sinti people and LGBTQI people. In a week in which the United Kingdom has been criticised for its growing culture of hostility towards LGBTQI people, we need to take that seriously.

We, in this Parliament, need to consider our actions very carefully. We have seen an enormous rise in anti-trans hate crime, and we have seen Roma communities and Scottish Traveller communities being used for the cheapest of political point scoring. We are at risk of contributing to exactly the atmosphere of hate against minorities from which the Holocaust sprang. Hate does not always come in jackboots; sometimes, it arrives wearing a nice suit, muttering about “justified concerns” and creating an environment in which prejudice can slip into violence.

It is a task for all of us to prevent the atmosphere of hate that leads to violence, so we have a duty to tackle prejudice right now, not just when hate turns violent. Then, one day, we will have created a better world.

It is clear that emergency legislation and the virtual trials project board give us real opportunities for changing things and doing things differently in the future. One issue that has been raised is how child contact proceedings can be used by perpetrators as a form of control and on-going abuse. Does the First Minister agree that online courts could play a role in securing justice and safety for vulnerable women and children, and that they could prevent perpetrators from abusing child contact proceedings?

Thank you—that was really helpful.

Perhaps I can dig a little deeper into your opening remarks, in which you talked about the diversification that many businesses undertook so that they could provide the things that we needed during the pandemic. Obviously there were financial incentives for them to do that as well as a moral imperative. Many of us would argue that there are similar imperatives around just transition.

You said that some people choose to reskill and retrain, perhaps particularly in energy and away from hydrocarbon energy intensive industries. There is a role for the funding and support of training and reskilling, and for courses to enable people to get the skills for the future economy. However, is there also something around incentivising people so that choice becomes easier to make?

There is something about labour market workers feeling that they have no choice and no power in all this. Is there something that we can be thinking about and implementing to support people? We talk about the labour market and the workforce as amorphic things, but they contain people, members of communities and individuals with hopes and dreams. That often gets lost in some of the planning, and sometimes even in the implementation. How do we bridge that gap?

Good morning, minister, and thank you for your opening remarks. I want to extend the discussion a little around labour and the gaps in skills and training. As you said, it is difficult to predict where some of the gaps are going to be, but there are some clear instances where we know exactly what is needed now and what will be needed in the future. There are some areas where we have clearly identified the problem and the digital skills gap that you have mentioned is one of those areas.

We already know from the construction industry that in order to meet its net zero targets it will need 22,500 additional members in its labour force over the next few years, and we also know that in the just transition away from hydrocarbons, whether that be in energy or other sectors, there will be significant requirements for agility and flexibility.

I have a couple of questions in that respect. First, how do we ensure that we meet the need for the additional workforce numbers in construction? Secondly, with regard to just transition, how do we ensure that the uptake of the skills and training opportunities that we are planning for and which are in train will be effective in delivering the changes that we need?

I thank the cabinet secretary for the comments that he has just made, in which he highlighted that the rights and welfare of prisoners are paramount. I must say that there was a very shrill anti-trans dog whistle in John Mason’s question, which is deeply troubling, especially given the rise in the number of transphobic hate crimes that are being reported.

What systems and protections are in place to deal with violence in prisons, regardless of who the perpetrator is? How can we reduce the number of women who are in prison for non-violent crime?