Meeting of the Parliament 25 March 2026 [Draft]
I thank Jamie Halcro Johnston for bringing this important debate to the chamber on this, the last day of the sixth session of the Scottish Parliament. This will be my final speech in the Parliament and, appropriately, the debate is on the sustainability of Scotland’s remote, rural and island communities.
It has been an honour and a privilege to serve in the Parliament. I thank colleagues across the chamber for their kind words and for their friendship, and I wish Oliver Mundell, John Mason and the cabinet secretary well as they step down.
During my time here, I have repeatedly spoken about the issues that affect the island and rural areas of Scotland. I have often said that islanders do not look for special treatment. What people seek is the means to live and work in their communities and to survive and thrive in them, which entails putting investment into infrastructure and public services. Despite Government promises, digital connectivity is still not 100 per cent available across island and rural areas, yet it is vital for sustainability in today’s world. The further away from the central belt a place is, the more it costs to deliver services there, and almost everything that people who live on islands need has to be brought in by ferry. A lack of housing for young local families and the high cost of travel are the two reasons that I most often hear for people leaving Shetland to live elsewhere. I have heard numerous accounts of people coming to Shetland to take up jobs in the NHS or the council, only to leave a few months later because they cannot find permanent accommodation.
This will also be the last time that I get to reinforce Shetland’s call for a network of subsea tunnels to link islands, which would be another development in the evolution of its transport connectivity. I am pleased to have been able to work with Alistair Carmichael MP and the tunnel action groups to make progress on that much-needed infrastructure development.
Of course, I did not plan to come to the Parliament: I thank former MSP Tavish Scott for stepping down halfway through session 5 and throwing us into a whirlwind of a by-election in 2019. I thank very much the people of Shetland, who put me here, and I thank my colleagues Willie, Alex, Jamie and Liam for their support. I hope that there will be more women on the Scottish Liberal Democrat benches after the election.
None of us could do the work that we do without the teams who stand behind us, and I am very grateful for my team of Will, Helen, Kevin, Joy and Theo, and past staff Lily, Erin and Louise, who have worked hard and supported me over the past seven years. I also thank all the staff in the Scottish Parliament building who do so much to enable us to carry out the work that we do.
I live in a wonderful community. Like any other place, it has its problems, including drugs, alcohol and domestic abuse, but it is also a generous community, as was demonstrated just last weekend. A plea was put out for funding to enable a well-known local man to access brain tumour treatment that is not available in Scotland. Within three days, the fund had raised more than £100,000 to help with on-going treatment in Germany. For a population of 23,000 people, that is quite remarkable. When tragedy struck my own family 18 months ago, when my dear son-in-law died suddenly, my daughter Louise and their children—Kieran, Leighton and Eve, my grandchildren—and the wider family felt the arms of the community wrap around us with love and support, and for that we will forever be grateful. I also appreciated the support from my colleagues across the chamber, including the Presiding Officer and the First Minister, during that difficult time. I leave now to return to my family and friends, who have supported me throughout my time here, and I look forward to a bright Shetland summer.
If I have a pearl of wisdom for the next intake of MSPs, it is that they should do what we all came here to do and make life better for our fellow citizens, and that they should do so by working together across the chamber, constructively and with kindness.