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Good morning, cabinet secretary.

I am perhaps unique in at least one sense, in that I have been a resident in both national parks, and I have represented a large chunk of Cairngorms national park since it was established in 2003, and before that, the Cairngorm Partnership.

In their submission of 3 September, the petitioners said:

“a recent poll by a local community forum”—

the Aviemore and Spey valley community issues forum—

“asked its members if the Cairngorm National Park had performed well and 92 per cent said”

that it had not. A paltry 3 per cent said that it had. That is a North Korean-type majority.

The petitioners go on to make the point that

“surely a curious minister about to launch a third national park would want to find out why there was such overwhelming concern.”

What would the cabinet secretary say to them?

I was struck by the arguments that are contained in the petitioners’ written submission of 10 November, submitted by Mr Jim Mackie, who points out:

“Communities are not aware of any public consultations on flooding”.

Communities and community councils seem to be excluded from the process.

In its response, the Scottish Government said:

“We are committed to further strengthening these efforts, with a focus on community engagement”.

What does that mean? Does it mean consulting community councils, for example, which take an active role?

Over the years, the problems in my constituency have been serious. They have perhaps not been quite as serious as those of people in Angus but, nonetheless, they have been very serious. There seems to be complete control by SEPA. Mr Mackie points out that the

“Cost of flood damage in Potentially Vulnerable Areas … is calculated centrally using the Multicoloured Manual, a book first published in 2003”,

which

“contains flood statistics from three river basins in England. The figures produced are fictional. No research is done at a community level”—

none. What is that about? That sounds extraordinary.

Secondly, he says that, as Mr Golden pointed out,

“Councils have no legal responsibility”.

Who has responsibility? That buck is constantly being passed around.

He also says—this is the meat of it:

“Rivers and streams carry sediments, trees, and bushes downstream. More so in floods. These catch in the riverbed and/or banks. Sediments build up and raise riverbeds and banks. ... Riverbank erosion is seen as a ‘natural process’”

NatureScot and SEPA prevent practical solutions by landowners and community councils that know what the problem is. You cannot take soil or gravel from one area and put it into another area because of rules that SEPA and NatureScot apply. Therefore, obstructions build up, thus exacerbating or causing flooding problems. I have encountered that many times in my constituency. Every occasion ends up with SEPA saying no. Often, SEPA’s officials do not bother to come to visit anybody anyway. That is part of their modus operandi. It is not to get out of their office but to issue edicts from the warmth of their office, wherever it may be.

I feel strongly that Mr Mackie and Mr Christie, through their efforts and very detailed knowledge—they have really impressed me—have brought to us a set of serious issues. In due course, we might wish to obtain evidence from them so that the Parliament can hear directly from them about those concerns.

I support Mr Torrance’s suggestion. I was also struck by the petitioner’s most recent submission, of 12 November, which I hope the cabinet secretary will respond to at any such evidence session, and in particular, what might be regarded as a bull point, or the bull point, that

“We are amazed that anyone would try to build a road on the existing route under constant threat of landslides from 200,000 tonnes of unstable material. Work will constantly be stopped every time there is movement on the hillside, increasing building costs, and delay delivery of a solution.”

The submission goes on from there. Incidentally, the petitioner’s original submission, in December 2021, referred to a figure of 100,000 tonnes, which seems to have grown to 200,000.

No matter what the tonnage is, there is an awful lot of material. I am familiar with that particular area from the Munro-bagging days of my long-distant past and we all know that there is a constant threat of landslides in that area. I am mystified as to why that route could be chosen, particularly after it has gone through the process of preferred route selection. I am not as experienced, or as long in the tooth, as the convener and deputy convener when it comes to this petition—I am just a junior—but I find it baffling that we would spend £400 million or more on a solution that seems patently flawed. I wanted to make that point ad longum, as m’luds might say, because that has not been explained to me and I would like to know the answer.

My final point is that the argument will not disappear. Jackie Baillie and I have been around for quite a long time and we know that serious arguments, which can seem to the ordinary punter to be unassailable, do not go away. They just fester and that festering process results in disillusion with Governments and Parliaments. I wanted to make that point as best I could.

I suspect not—actually, definitely not.

I suggest, just for the sake of balance, that we ask the key operators in the relevant areas for their views, because we on this committee have a duty to listen to all sides of the argument. I would be interested to know what the operators’ view is, particularly with regard to the costs of franchising. I recall how, 20 years ago, when this issue was raised with the Local Government and Transport Committee, of which I was a member, we found cost to be a significant factor in the equation, because the costs of running a process are costs that could, some might argue, be better deployed in delivering a better transport system.

Mr Golden asked about how support in Galloway would be gauged. Indeed, I asked Francesca Osowska and Peter Rawcliffe that in a conference call that I had with them a few weeks back. Perhaps that is for later on, because NatureScot is going to meetings in Galloway and people are asking what the boundaries would be, what the national park authority’s powers would be, who would be on the board and what the authority would do but there are no answers to any of those questions. It is a bit of a pig in a poke at the moment.

If the idea of a new national park is taken forward, surely the only real way to measure opinion would be to ask the people who are resident within its proposed boundaries in a local referendum. I thought that our party was in favour of referenda.

The aims are very worthy and we all have great sympathy with them, because of the profound mental health problems that exist among young people in Scotland. It is a very serious point indeed.

In the light of the responses from Police Scotland and NatureScot that you have described—I will not repeat what you have said—there does not really seem to be any basis on which we can proceed further. Therefore, I suggest that we close the petition under rule 15.7 of the standing orders.

I am glad to hear that you watch daytime television.

Absolutely. Preferably not the general, vague answers that we are familiar with, but specific answers to the points that the petitioners have made. After all, that is our job. If we do not get specific answers, they can be sure that the committee will do its job.

In his evidence, Ian McKinnon—I should say that I have known him for 20 years—said:

“If we cannot provide the basics of litter collection, toilets and parking—and we are not doing that in our existing national parks—we should not be considering creating another one in the future.”—[Official Report, Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee, 30 October 2024; c 12.]

Is he not right?