Seòmar agus comataidhean

It might help if I were to provide Mr Simpson and the committee with the opportunity to have a more detailed briefing from the officials and teams who have developed the app. I would be happy to arrange that, if that would help to reassure members about the issues and practicalities.

In some circumstances, that happens in other environments. If I show my passport at an airport, I am showing it to a complete stranger who will know my name, date of birth and passport number.

I do not for one moment trivialise the significance of the issues raised.

Thank you very much, convener, and good morning. I am pleased to be here today to present the electoral arrangements regulations for the six council areas that contain inhabited islands.

The regulations give effect to the proposals submitted to me by Boundaries Scotland, and I have a legal duty to lay them before Parliament. The Scottish Elections (Reform) Act 2020 removed ministerial discretion to reject or modify the commission’s proposals. Instead, the decision to implement Boundaries Scotland’s proposals rests entirely with Parliament.

It is vital for local democracy and local service delivery that councils are as representative as possible of the communities that they serve, and regular reviews of council wards and councillor numbers are necessary to ensure that they reflect changes in population. Those reviews have been held under the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018, which offers additional flexibility to Boundaries Scotland to create wards that elect one or two councillors in areas that contain inhabited islands, as well as the two, three, four or five councillor wards permitted elsewhere in Scotland.

I am aware of the opposition of Highland Council and Argyll and Bute Council to some aspects of the proposals and that their representatives have asked the committee not to recommend approval of the instruments.

There will, of course, be differing opinions on the final recommendations, but I am pleased to hear that, in almost every case, the consultation process was meaningful and that elected members and communities, for the most part, felt that their voices had been heard. I am confident that Boundaries Scotland has discharged its duties competently and professionally, and there would need to be very strong reasons for rejecting its recommendations.

I hope that those comments were helpful. I am of course happy to answer any questions that members might have.

I think that that is a pragmatic proposal by Boundaries Scotland. Since we formed the Government in 2007, I have chaired the convention of the Highlands and Islands, which includes North Ayrshire Council as Arran and Cumbrae are part of the territory covered by Highlands and Islands Enterprise. The importance of viewing Arran as a distinctive entity was a point successfully advanced by North Ayrshire Council within the convention of the Highlands and Islands and a variety of other policy fora.

That approach acknowledges that that community is affected by a very specific set of issues around the delivery of public services—I refer back to the valid questions that the convener raised with me. Fundamentally, those are about the delivery on Arran, the maximisation of the connections between public services and the important connections between that community and access to public services on the mainland.

The approach proposed by Boundaries Scotland reflects, I think, the nature of that island community. It recognises its distinctiveness and the fact that so much of life is interlinked on that island and, frankly, has very little to do with what is happening on the mainland. Crucially, it provides a role for a representative of that island to advocate for the connections between the island of Arran and the mainland. That is an example of where Boundaries Scotland has looked carefully at the distinctive circumstances and come up with what is—as Mr McLennan fairly puts to me—a unique proposition.

There are different ways of looking at the question. Fundamentally, it is the duty of the whole of Highland Council to think about those issues, as it is the duty of the Scottish Government to think about the issues and take policy decisions that support the repopulation of those areas.

I am not certain that the composition of the council and the policy decisions that are taken necessarily lead to questions being asked about the availability of public services in particular localities. Given the strategic importance of the repopulation issue, it is for Highland Council, NHS Highland, the Government and various other public bodies to take those decisions in a way that advances such questions, rather than seeing repopulation as being driven by the nature of or the arrangements for electoral representation in a locality. It would reflect pretty badly on any public authority if it was not taking the steps that could be taken to support repopulation, if that was a policy objective.

As I think the committee has heard from Boundaries Scotland, the questions with which Boundaries Scotland has to wrestle are driven by internationally strong practices around the nature and configuration of electoral wards. Boundaries Scotland needs to apply those considerations principally around the question of electoral parity with an understanding of the geographical entity and community that they are addressing and considering.

It is important that, as Boundaries Scotland undertakes that work, it engages substantively with local communities. I am satisfied that Boundaries Scotland has done that to good effect. Its ability to do that with regard to the Highland Council provisions might have been enhanced, had there been greater co-operation with Highland Council. However, in the other local authority areas, as the committee has heard for itself, there has been feedback from communities about the value of the dialogue that was facilitated by the approaches that were taken. It is important that Boundaries Scotland listens carefully to the feedback from island communities and recognises their distinctive characteristics. In the case of a number of proposals, communities are very satisfied with the arrangements that have been proposed.

Island impact assessments are part of the statutory framework, so an organisation must consider whether, in its judgment, the nature of the approach that it takes satisfies the statutory requirement. It is therefore for Boundaries Scotland to come to a conclusion on that question.

The work that Boundaries Scotland undertook on the issue inevitably required it to wrestle with the question of islands impact assessments, as we have heard. In all its undertakings it considered the implications for representation and for engaging and involving members of the community. I am satisfied that Boundaries Scotland was able to pursue that framework in its work. Of course, advice that it would seek from the Government on the question would be given within the context of the statutory framework.

That is quite a difficult matter to resolve, because of the decisions that have been taken. The statute on the composition of Scottish Parliament constituencies has put in place particular arrangements for Na h’ Eileanan an Iar, Orkney and Shetland because of their distinctive island characteristics. That does not apply to any other constituency in the country. There is a place for specific measures of that nature—indeed, the point that Paul McLennan put to me about Arran is an example of how that has been deployed by Boundaries Scotland.

There will be a requirement for electorates to vary in size, because of the locality factor. However, if we were to do that in all circumstances, we would create very varied parliamentary constituencies and local authority wards, which would be unsustainable, given the necessity to ensure that Parliament and local authorities are representative of the areas that they are designed to represent.

Yes. If Parliament approves the propositions we will, essentially, be giving effect to processes that originated in the 2018 act. That was envisaged by the act, which expressly acknowledges, as is right, that we might have different arrangements for different communities. Boundaries Scotland has considered the point; if Parliament approves the propositions to take those steps, it is perfectly within the statutory framework for such arrangements to be put in place for the local authority elections.

For completeness, I should say that I cannot conceive, in the circumstance that Parliament does not approve the regulations, of how alternative propositions could be put in place in advance of the 2022 local authority elections. There is not sufficient time.