Chamber and committees

My question is to Bryan Hepburn. I have visited Shetland Transport and have seen some of the great work that is being done there. To an extent, I am aware of some of the issues.

You touched on some of the issues around ferries. We have talked about ferries to the continent and about rail infrastructure. However, for some of your producers, even getting to your depot can require one or two internal ferries in Shetland. You then need reliability in, and capacity on, the ferries down to Aberdeen. I know that Serco and others have done a lot of work with organisations such as yours to make sure of that.

Will you expand, as I think that you were looking to do, on some of those issues of infrastructure in the islands, and on what needs to be done better in order to improve the reliability of ferries, roads and the like?

I might come back to Bryan Hepburn on the point that he made about road transport. I will go to Richard Ballantyne first on his point about transhipment. There has been talk for a number of years of a transhipment hub in Orkney and in other places across Scotland. Do you think that there is potential for more transhipment infrastructure in Scotland—for example, a transhipment hub that would give greater options for freight coming in and going out?

I suppose that what I am trying to get at or find out is how much of the labour supply shortage can be met by those who are currently economically inactive. Of course, they may not be suitable for some of the positions that are out there. My question is really about whether we have the correct balance between supporting those people back into the workplace and using other more forceful ways of encouraging them back in.

Another matter that has come up again and again is automation, which is progressing in various areas. We are also likely to see changes in how we address climate change, for instance. How does trying to get more freight off the road impact on the need for HGV drivers? If we are considering more local sourcing, which could be a positive rather than a negative, how does that impact on demand and need within certain sectors?

How does Skills Development Scotland engage with business on future needs where automation is likely to lead to pressures or relieve them in certain areas? How easy is it to do that? How on the ball are you—that might be a slightly unfair term—in relation to where automation might be able to relieve some of the pressures in the future?

Does anyone else on the panel want to comment on that?

Good morning to the committee and witnesses. I am sorry that I am not able to be with you in person today. I hope that you can hear me okay—it is blowing a bit of a hoolie here at the moment, so I apologise if I am slightly disrupted.

I want to highlight what Marie Hendry said about parity of esteem. I support that approach. As a former spokesman on skills for my party and convener of the cross-party group on skills, I think that it is vital. Support for small and medium-sized enterprises is also important, and we need to do more to encourage and support them to get involved.

The topic of my first question has been covered, but I want to get confirmation of something from Chris Brodie. Chris, perhaps you can remind us of the number of current vacancies across Scotland in comparison with the number of people who are economically inactive. What you said was really interesting. Are we doing enough to get those who are economically inactive back into work, whether by supporting them or through other ways of encouraging them? To use a crude term, it is about the balance between the carrot and the stick. What more could we be doing right now?

Thank you.

Some interesting points have been made. I have a few questions, on the back of them. I will go first to Professor Simms, then to Paul Hunter.

The vote to leave the European Union was in 2016, and although I understand the argument that there was uncertainty about what the exact deal would be, there has been time to prepare. Looking at the Scottish context, do you think that the Scottish Government, the agencies and the industries and sectors have done enough, or been proactive enough, in considering what the impact of leaving the EU might be, and what we needed to do to ensure that the people and the supply chain were in place?

We also know that there is, for small businesses, an issue with recruitment and reliance on EU workers. The importance of stakeholder engagement has come up repeatedly. Is that harder for the small business sector, even with representatives such as the Federation of Small Businesses and others, which do great work? Is that a particular issue, and how do we get over it in order to hear the voice of small businesses?

It always comes back to broadband for rural regions, does it not? Thank you very much.

I am a Highlands and Islands MSP, so many of the businesses that I represent are in rural areas. What do you think is the impact of rurality on the transition to net zero? What more can be done? Do you feel that your organisations can deliver support in rural areas?