Chamber and committees

Are you saying that we should know from your corporate plan where you expect to be in the next year and the following years?

Good morning. I want to follow up slightly on Fiona Hyslop’s point, and then maybe ask another question.

You talked about a three-year delay or backlog. What kind of organisations account for the cases that make up the majority of those delays? Is it large organisations, small organisations or businesses, or individuals?

Also with regard to the backlog, it is now three years. What is your target for it to be in one year’s time?

Thank you.

Looking at those headline figures, I see that Ireland is spending five times the amount on the tourism sector, which I can imagine, even with all our assets and the like, puts us at some disadvantage.

I also have a quick question about the rural side of things. We have talked about the impact on labour markets and the like, but one issue that has been raised is that, if in the next few years we have to rely slightly more on the domestic UK and Scottish market, we will have to remember that domestic visitors are perhaps more price sensitive than international travellers. How will the fact that some parts of Scotland—certainly in the Highlands and Islands—are harder to get to impact on encouraging domestic tourists to visit all the parts of Scotland that we know and love?

On a more focused rural matter, one of the biggest issues in the tourism sector is the introduction of short-term lets licensing, and it will have a lot of impact on guest houses and bed and breakfasts, which the move might not have been intended to cover. Can I get your thoughts on that? Perhaps I can start with Leon Thompson, as he is on screen at the moment.

Good morning, panel. I want to ask a question about support and another about the rural economy.

My first question, which is for Marc Crothall and Leon Thompson, is about competitive funding and support. The STERG meeting notes of 21 October highlight that the tourism sector in Ireland will be receiving €288.5 million for support, promotion and so on in 2022, which is an increase of €67.6 million. I think that the total fund works out at about £240 million. In the same year, VisitScotland will be receiving around £49 million. Although there are other areas that support the tourism sector, some of those areas—such as Highland and Island Enterprise’s budget and certainly local government budgets—are being squeezed as well. Can you give us an idea of where we sit with our support of our tourism sector compared to our competitor nations?

Rob Dickson, you mentioned that budgets are back to pre-pandemic levels. In 2018-19, the budget was £50 million and in 2019-20 it was nearly £60 million, but it is now down to £49 million. That looks like a reduction and it will also be cut this year. In comparison, one of our competitor nations, Ireland, has increased its spending by €67 million, which is greater than the total budget of VisitScotland. How does that impact on your ability to promote and support tourism across the country and internationally?

I imagine that our competitors will be saying that they are doing innovative and new things as well. Although I appreciate and welcome that, there is a big discrepancy in the budgets. Rob Dickson talked about investment in rural areas and Vicki Miller mentioned looking at areas where we could increase tourism while promoting responsible tourism. There is huge pressure in some of our most remote and rural areas in relation to tourism infrastructure, which will not be helped by councils’ budgets being cut, because they might otherwise have put in some of that infrastructure, such as public toilets and better roads.

How do we to increase tourism to those areas, if that is what we are looking to do, and ensure that that infrastructure is in place? It is a big issue in some of the islands, on Skye and around the north coast 500.

Thank you, convener. I take the opportunity to thank Sam Currie on the clerking team for all her support in getting the proposed CPG on islands to this stage.

Islands have been an area of considerable interest for the Parliament in recent years and, for those of us who were here in the previous session, the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018, with its aim of re-establishing the relationship between Scotland-wide public bodies and island communities, was a significant step forward. That legislation was part of a broader recognition of the distinctive status, challenges and opportunities that our island communities have.

There is a great deal of diversity among those areas. Some are represented by island authorities; some are connected with mainland local authorities; some have considerably better links to mainland Scotland than others; and, in recent decades, some have benefited from growth while others have faced problems around depopulation. However, it seemed clear to me that there is a great deal to be gained through collaboration, sharing of experiences and working to make the Parliament more aware of the island perspective.

The proposed CPG seeks to be a forum for discussion of issues that are relevant to those islands and to improve their links with the Scottish Parliament. When an initial meeting of the group was held on 14 December, five MSPs were in attendance, a number of others sent representatives and interest was expressed by parties across the Parliament.

I am keen to ensure that the group does not focus only on the Highlands and Islands, because a number of important island communities exist in other regions, too. During the meeting in December, a discussion was held on potential areas of work, which highlighted island transport—ferries, in particular—and energy, as well as the wider issue of the impact on island economies of population and depopulation. There was broad agreement that a future policy of, at least, hybrid meetings would be beneficial to the aim of increasing participation for those organisations and individuals who are at a distance from Edinburgh.

There is an existing all-party parliamentary group on United Kingdom islands, which a number of MPs with Scottish constituencies are involved in. As we go forward, I hope that we can explore collaboration—and, potentially, the holding of meetings—with that UK group. Naturally, there will be areas of overlap, because issues such as sustainable transport and energy are areas of interest across Scotland, but I hope that the proposed CPG will bring a uniquely islands-based perspective to those matters.

In some cases, the interest has been discussed but not yet formalised. The key thing was to go through the process and ensure that, once the proposed cross-party group gets approval, which I hope will happen today, we can have a clear agenda with timelines. We also wanted to help some of the bodies to be part of the development, certainly on the policy areas that we aim to cover.

There has been quite a long process. The work has not been done only in the current parliamentary session; it comes on the back of conversations with different groups during my previous four years as an MSP and, beyond that, when I was a candidate. I also have an interest as somebody who lives on the islands.

We know that the interest exists, and firming up that interest and ensuring that organisations that want to take part can do so will be the next process. The list is also not exhaustive. If there are other organisations in the Highlands and Islands in particular that want to get involved, we want to give them the opportunity to do so.

That is a very good question. In the Highlands and Islands region, in particular, there are a number of examples of island communities that face pressure from the impact of their success with tourism offerings. That has created issues that are unique to the islands. For example, capacity on ferries is stretched, and local people and businesses sometimes do not have access to them. However, the issue goes wider than that.

As I said, there will be overlap with other cross-party groups. I hope that we will work with other groups on areas of potential collaboration, but our approach will be to look at issues from a distinct islands perspective, because the solutions for us, in island communities, are often different from those for other parts of Scotland.