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Just out of interest, what do you think of the trams now that we have them?

As I said at the start, I will now give you an opportunity to add any final reflections before we draw the meeting to a close.

We will come back to two things that you touched on. One is the proposal in relation to a national memorial, because I realise that, in your lifetime of politics, we have seen memorials to the Piper Alpha disaster and the Lockerbie tragedy. It would be interesting to touch on what might be appropriate—or otherwise—in relation to the loss of life. That is one of the imperatives that drives forward the interest of the committee, and, in fact, it was the original raison d’être for the commitment.

The manifesto commitment from the Scottish National Party at the time did not make particular reference to economic wellbeing or the benefit of potential expansion in the north-east of Scotland. It made particular reference to the fact that dualling could lead to a significant reduction in the loss of life on the route. Was that not a prime motivator in the underpinning of the commitment?

Well, I do not know; I suppose that, arguably, either might be possible. In any event, welcome; I am delighted to have you with us this morning. We will move straight to questions, if that is okay. When we conclude, if we have not touched on anything that you think might be helpful, we would be pleased to hear it.

Let me start with Alex Neil’s evidence. In painting a picture of his meeting with civil servants on the original commitment to the A9, Alex Neil said that one of them kind of looked at him and said that they could be pursuing lots of other projects. Alex Neil replied, saying that the A9 project had one thing that none of those other projects had: “a manifesto commitment”. Indeed, it very much was a manifesto commitment of the Scottish National Party as it went into Government.

What was your commitment to the project, Mr Salmond, and your understanding of the credibility of what was being proposed and the Government’s ability to achieve it?

I will bring in David Torrance next.

First, I listened with interest this morning when you were on “Good Morning Scotland”, being asked questions similar to some of those that we are exploring—

Good morning, and welcome to the seventh meeting in 2024 of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee—excuse my slightly hoarse voice. The first item on our agenda is a decision on taking items 4 and 5 in private. Item 4 relates to PE1975 and item 5 relates to the consideration of content for our annual report. Are members content to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you. Given that that is the case, our questions might be quite focused and to the point. I do not think that we are pushing a stone up a hill, in the sense that the Government appears to have accepted the argument. However, it would be interesting to explore some of the issues underpinning the need for all of this.

That remains to be seen. Thank you, Mr Ewing.

Do any other colleagues wish to come in?

Thank you very much for that, Mr Ewing. I think that that is correct.

It is open to us to write to the Government to say that we are closing the petition on the basis of good faith, given that the Government has said that it will progress the issue. It would be helpful to try to tie it down to a more specific timeline.

I thank Mr Izatt very much for bringing an important petition before the committee. In the event that no progress is made, it would be open to him to lodge a fresh petition. As matters stand, the committee has taken the issue as far forward as we can, given the Government’s response and assurance. Are members content to proceed on that basis?

Members indicated agreement.

PE2019, which was lodged by Alan McLeod, calls on the Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to prevent all owners of self-catering holiday accommodation from obtaining rates relief under the small business bonus scheme. We last considered the petition on 28 June last year, when we agreed to write to the Scottish Assessors Association, the Holiday Home Association, the Association of Scotland’s Self-Caterers and the Scottish Government.

We asked the Scottish Government whether it would consider adding self-catering holiday accommodation to the list of properties that are unable to qualify for the small business bonus scheme. Its response outlines the current arrangements for self-catering holiday accommodation but does not provide any indication of its position on the petition. Its submission notes that a consultation on council tax for second and empty homes invited views on the thresholds that apply for self-catering accommodation to be liable for non-domestic rates, and that the responses were being analysed at the time of the submission.

I am very disappointed in the Government’s response. What is the point of sending us a response that is almost like a public information leaflet but does not address in any way, either positively or negatively, the ask of the petition and the question that we put? I would therefore like to go back to the Government in a direct way and say that the committee does not at all appreciate receiving a statement that we could reasonably have downloaded from the internet; we are asking about an instrument of future policy relating to the ask of the petition; and we would appreciate the Government’s views on the petition as put.