Chamber and committees

Convener, can I ask—

My only other observation, which I am keen to get your views on, is that, compared with those in most European countries, supermarkets in Scotland and the rest of the UK have far more power over the market in relation to what people eat, and they are far less likely to stock local goods. You seem to be talking about a dramatic shift, but supermarkets in the UK do not seem to be signed up to that in the way that they are in other countries. How do we tackle that attitude?

You have given us a clear picture of some of the challenges that you think that there are sector by sector in achieving our shared aims in emissions reduction. In what you have said so far, you have been concentrating on examples of what is happening and the challenges ahead, so it is perhaps more difficult to tell how far you have to go and what mainstreaming would look like in your sector. What would the mainstreaming of the things that we are trying to achieve with carbon emissions look like in your sector, and how far away is it?

The BBC in Scotland has a fantastic resource in the form of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Is BBC Radio Scotland making any significant use of that resource? Is a place being given, or should more of a place be given, to the orchestra’s output?

I have a great deal of sympathy with what you are all saying. My point was anticipated by Professor Smith, who talked about how European countries manage the issue. NRK in Norway—I do not know whether you were possibly alluding to another country—has several national radio stations for different types of music, so you can listen at any time of day to jazz, classical or folk music, as well as a news channel and so on. Is it realistic for BBC Scotland to try to shove all that stuff into, essentially, one frequency? Why are we not looking to have more frequencies with more diversity of music, instead of trying to save a couple of hours a week?

You were talking about multiple frequencies and so on.

I will address my question to Donald MacKinnon. One thing that often gets lost in the debate is how modest crofter incomes are. Could you say a bit about making crofter incomes more viable through a new form of agriculture, where that balance would lie and what we should be doing to recognise the environmental benefits of crofting?

On the back of that, Pete Ritchie raised an interesting point, which you might want to talk about, about prioritising grass-fed livestock. How practical would such a policy be in large parts of the crofting counties?

A completely different issue that was raised by the consul was the question of people who are looking for employment in Scotland and who feel, with some justification, that they are underemployed, perhaps because their qualifications have not been recognised so that they can work here. Again, I realise that some of this touches on reserved matters, but I am interested to know what progress there has been in that conversation about ensuring mutual recognition of qualifications, where possible, to allow employment.

One issue that has been raised by the Scottish Refugee Council is arrivals and welcoming people effectively in a way that provides some of the information that we are talking about. I realise that some of this involves the co-operation of the UK Border Force, but the Scottish Refugee Council mentioned the lack of predictability of arrivals being one of the main challenges: it no longer receives any information from the UK Border Force and, therefore, has no access to pre-arrival information. I realise that that is for the UK Border Force to organise, but where does the Scottish Government come into the greeting and arrival process, and are you trying to overcome some of those co-ordination challenges?

Some of the argument is about introducing a variation on the historical limit. As you will know better than I do, that limit was brought in to keep steam-powered vessels out of coastal areas. From what you are saying today, it seems that the proposed variation is about trying to find a spatial management system that works. Spatial management comes up often in this committee. It seems to be a bit of a holy grail. How would a variation on the historical system work, and what would the spatial management system look like?