Chamber and committees

Do you feel that there are opportunities outside what might be considered to be the traditional solutions to this? We have talked about how there are plenty empty houses. What can we do to make sure that we work flexibly across sectors to do things such as bringing empty houses back into use in an affordable way?

In relation to that, how does your work on strategic objectives on fuel poverty in an island context relate to recent fuel price hikes? I am sure that other members who represent islands are more than aware of that. I am very aware that the price of heating oil, which is still the main source of heating in areas off the gas grid, seems to be accelerating even beyond the dizzy heights of the cost of other fuels. How do you adjust those strategic objectives as you go, to ensure that you take account of what is happening at the UK level?

I want to turn briefly to the islands survey and return to the familiar theme of housing. One theme that came out of the survey was that of younger people expressing the complications that they experience in coming back to an island after being away for education or work elsewhere. How can the Government respond to that problem, given that, as we have heard, many islands face a labour shortage?

Finally on this theme, looking at the issues that were raised in the survey about housing, you said that the situation is different on different islands. How does the Government intend to make sure that its response is tailored to those different situations? I will not go into all the examples, but some islands have an oil industry, some have a fishing industry and some have a shortage of housing. How do you make sure that an island’s policy is tailored to those realities?

One issue of interest to me is workforce dispersal, and I know that the Government has raised that issue. Obviously, as has been observed, the world has changed in terms of people’s practices around where they work. What can the Scottish Government do to give individuals the choice to work in an island setting? I am thinking particularly of those who work in public agencies or the public sector.

Obviously, not everyone wants to work all week from home. For hybrid working to make sense in an island setting, is part of the solution to establish or find places where people can hot-desk during at least part of the week, so that they are not stuck in the house all week? How do we make sure that there are the facilities in island areas to do that? What work can we do with others to achieve that?

This is an example of an issue where agriculture and environmentalists are actually on the same side. You have described the situation about the machair landscape and the need for that landscape to be grazed in order to be a habitat. Is there a common cause here?

On your point about cars, I have had people put it to me that geese can recognise number plates. [Laughter.] However, the serious point around that is the one that you have just made, which is that there is a dramatic change in the number of greylag geese landing on crofts. Can you say a bit about what it is that greylag geese do when they land on a croft?

My question was intended to be about unusual species, as it were. Does that tie in?

I declare not so much an interest as an appreciation of what you have said, given that I live in a place where, when I look out of my window, I sometimes feel as though I am in a Hitchcock film, so great is the number of greylag geese that are landing around my house.

Could you explain why the problem with geese is a particular problem in crofting areas? Not everyone appreciates the degree to which crofters are part time and the pressures that there are on their time. Could you say something about the scale of the task that would face a crofter or a village in trying to deal with the issue without external assistance?