Jamie Stone
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Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
Congratulations on your appointment, Mrs Lewell-Buck. I am sure you will do the job with elegance for many years to come.
It has already been said, has it not? My right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) made the point that some of us have to use roads to get to airports to fly here. He mentioned the disgrace of the A9. I was in Holyrood when Alex Salmond promised the dualling of the A9, and when he promised the dualling of the A96. The response to that one is hollow laughter—there are still traffic lights at the railway bridge at Oyne. These people are simply not competent to run the transport of Scotland.
But here is the point: just like my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland does, we need flights to make up for the lack of proper transport on the ground. Right now, we have one flight in and out of Wick airport, run by Eastern Airways—which is better than none, I admit, but we had to fight to get the public service obligation for that. If we are to ensure the economic regeneration of the far north of Caithness, as Dounreay, which was the dynamo of the economy of the farms, runs down and is decommissioned, we will have to encourage other industries to come in. I am sure the Government will do laudable work on that front, but if we do not have the flights in and out of Wick airport, it will not help very much.
Although the Aberdeen flight to Wick is welcome, we need flights to Edinburgh and Bristol and to wherever we can get them. That will make all the difference, so I conclude with a simple plea: please can we get more flights in and out of Wick airport? We need them desperately.