6. Stewart Stevenson (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Government what matters the islands transport forum will discuss at its first meeting. (S4O-04473)
The Minister for Transport and Islands (Derek Mackay): Earlier this month, I announced in Orkney that a new islands transport forum will be set up to consider strategic transport issues affecting Scotland’s islands.
The forum will meet biannually and will include representatives from local authorities with island communities. It is intended that the forum will deal with internal and external ferry, air and other transport services on which each of the island communities so heavily depends for social cohesion and sustainable economic activity and growth. I am in the process of finalising the detailed membership and the working methods for the forum, in consultation with the island authorities. Therefore, no detailed agenda items have yet been set for the forum’s first meeting.
Stewart Stevenson: Thank you for that response and for the content of your reply to question 5, which also touched on the matter.
I will introduce something quite new with which the minister is unlikely to be familiar. Air navigation and approach procedures are changing with the move towards the use of GPS—global positioning system—instrument approaches, which have not yet been adopted in the United Kingdom but which are eminently suitable for Government and local authority airports and might make a contribution to improving reliability in poor weather conditions. Will the minister talk to people involved in the islands transport forum about that and, thereafter, consider approaching the Civil Aviation Authority and the UK Government to see whether we can pilot some of the new technologies, which are much cheaper than the previous ones?
Derek Mackay: I will give the matter close consideration and, in answer to the question, yes, I will.
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About Stewart Stevenson
Born in 1946 and brought up in Cupar, Fife, I was educated at the local school - Bell Baxter - and studied Mathematics at the University of Aberdeen, graduating with a modest degree in 1969. That's also the year Sandra & I married. Her family comes from the North East.Thirty years later I retired from Bank of Scotland as Director of Technology Innovation and was elected to the Scottish Parliament in 2001 as member for Banff & Buchan having first joined the SNP in 1961.
I then represented the new constituency of Banffshire & Buchan Coast Constituency in our Parliament. I retired as an MSP on 5th May 2021
I was also previously (2007-2010), Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change and (2011-2012), Minister for Environment and Climate Change.
I hold the honorary posts of President of the Scottish Association for Public Transport
and Vice-President of Railfuture UK.I am a Fellow of The Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, a Member at The Institution of Engineering and Technology, a Professional Member of the Association for Computing Machinery, a Member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists and an Associate Member of the Highland Reserve Forces' and Cadets' Association.
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