Back in December 2023, I had the privilege of curating the H&I Voices @HI_Voices Twitter account, as one of its final few contributors before it was retired a few short months later.
I found the account fascinating, and I genuinely enjoyed offering my own musings on the good, the bad and the ugly of life in the Highlands and Islands. Given the interaction during my time “holding the pen”, I like to believe I found common ground with most folk – particularly on the fragility of transport links across the region, and just how much of life relies on them.
My final hurrah was to poll the account’s very engaged followers on a wish list of infrastructure projects that could genuinely change lives. An Oban-to-Inverness rail line, a Sound of Harris fixed link, a rail line from Garve to Ullapool and a fixed link to Ardnamurchan were all either enthusiastically proposed or supported. It doesn’t take much thought to understand why. Each could transform life in the Highlands and Islands.
For those who live across the Highlands and Islands, this is not about grand engineering projects or drawing new lines on maps. It is about whether communities can attract and retain working-age people, whether businesses can plan with confidence and whether the next generation can see a future for themselves at home. The only thing holding them back is a lack of political ambition.
But are we seeing signs that things might be about to change?
Maybe.
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A few weeks ago, Shetland Islands Council voted to support a 30-year connectivity plan involving tunnels between its islands. Last week, the Scottish Affairs Committee (SAC) at Westminster threw its weight behind subsea fixed links as a long-term solution to islanders’ ferry woes. There’s a phrase that fits here about the struggles of Dr Watson’s detective assistant with constipation, but it was what the SAC went on to say that offered real hope for beleaguered islanders.
The Scottish Government has already signalled its commitment to “a more detailed appraisal” of several tunnelling proposals, whilst stopping short of committing to actually pay to build them. But the fact that two parliaments now recognise the principle is a significant step forward, and one that deserves to be welcomed.
Angus Brendan MacNeil, the longstanding Faroe Islands-inspired tunnel campaigner and former MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, must surely have raised a wry smile to see a Commons committee finally grasp the thistle on a subject he was almost breathless in espousing. Perhaps political opportunism is at play as the new Burnham government turns its attention to a corner of the UK that has barely registered in Westminster consciousness for far too long. But a similar charge could be levelled at Bute House. Whatever the motivation, the fact is that this is now firmly on the political agenda, and as an islander, I very much welcome that.
It is easy to allow enthusiasm to cloud judgement. No spade has yet broken turf. But the SAC has stolen a march on the Scottish Government by confronting the question that really matters: who pays?
The Scottish Government has washed its hands of paying for construction, lazily arguing that it is a matter solely for the councils. The SAC has shown no such hesitation. Recognising that these projects could serve wider UK strategic interests, including energy and national security, it has argued that both governments could help fund them. That changes the conversation. These are no longer simply local infrastructure projects for councils to struggle to finance; they are potential investments in the security and prosperity of the wider nation.
It is inconceivable that the Scottish Government has failed to recognise the strategic importance of our islands to energy and defence, whether at a Scottish or UK level. Yet it has seemingly failed to turn that recognition into an argument for investment, leaving little more than words on a page in yet another rehash of its National Islands Plan.
Cynics will claim that “London” is only interested in Scotland when it benefits London, and they might well be right. An equally cynical counterpoint is that Edinburgh is only interested in the Highlands and Islands when they benefit Edinburgh. I know plenty across the entire region who hold dear to both points of view.
But the important point is that London is interested. It has dangled a very tempting carrot under the noses of the SNP, and the Scottish Government now has to decide whether to take it.
Does it cling to the position that funding is a matter for the councils it has starved of cash for well over a decade, or accept that wider UK interests justify a joint approach to paying for these projects? Whatever their constitutional preferences, I know which option islanders would choose.
The truth is that there is only one way the SNP can turn: it has to concede that the SAC is right and work enthusiastically with Westminster to make things happen. Even if it doesn’t like doing so, the argument about national strategic interests is no less powerful for an independent Scotland than it is for the UK as a whole. The fact that the Scottish Government failed to make that argument at all is frankly astonishing.
Of course, I understand the argument that independent nations can do things that devolved ones cannot. But while that debate rumbles on – having already done so for decades and showing no sign of being resolved any time soon – our island and rural communities are literally dying. At least this way, islanders can hope to see a real dividend for their contribution to keeping the lights on and the nation safe. That is worth far more in the here and now than any glossy strategy or warm words.
Not doing so would send a terrible message to islanders: that their contribution is welcome, but their future is somebody else’s responsibility. It would also confirm the suspicion that, when it comes to the Highlands and Islands, political ambition stops precisely where the hard decisions begin.
Calum Steele is a former General Secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, and former general secretary of the International Council of Police Representative Associations. He remains an advisor to both.
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