Felly, mae'r quesifol o'r ond y cyfrailwyr maen nhw yng Ngarl Gweithdoedd yna, ond ddulliannedd i'r swir yng Ngarl Gweithdoedd yn ei bod yn cydwylliannol. Felly, mwyaf am ymwyaf, cyfreithio'r gweithwyr yn nodi Cymru o'r cwrs i'r clywed gyda'r syniad hwnisiawol? Felly, fy mod i'r cymdeithasol gwylliannau'r cwrs, yn mynd i ddawn i chi gyd, dwi'n gweithio'r cyfrannod Cymru o'r gweithdoedd ar gyfer a Llywodraethau Gwyrnifol byddwn i rheinyddol ein firm Ysgrifianth y Jeremy Fifeiwyr yn fydag i'i fynd i dd stalking ond ysgrifianth yw ar Blynyddiwn i'r lly ac i'r hunain. Rwy'n meddwl i'r ffordd i'r bau iechydig ffyrdd y mae'r ffordd i'r gwneud unig ffyrdd gyda'r listeau, ac rwy'n meddwl i'r pethau tynnu'r pethau ond nid i ddim yn ddatblygu'r cwestiynau i'r gweithio, ac nid am ystod ar yr ysgrifianth yw rysun i'r is that all members should treat each other with courtesy and respect in the language within the chamber wherever they are. I now call on Fergus Ewing, cabinet secretary, to move and the motion and speak. Twelve minutes, please, cabinet secretary. Presiding Officer, I was immensely honoured to win the Politics and Business Award last week but I will also admit to a twinge of envy at Joanne Lamont's winning e-politician of the Year for her erudite and witty engagement on social media because I am struck on a daily basis even in my own household of the generational divide which exists in the digital world. It is a space that I and many others in this chamber have learned to inhabit. We are digital adaptives whilst children like my eight-year-old daughter are absolutely digital natives. It is for our children that we must ensure that Scotland and indeed future generations can realise their full potential in a digital world. We must equip our nation with the skills and attitudes to seize new opportunities and participate in this world. We must acknowledge that digital has fundamentally changed how we live our lives, access information, learn, communicate and do business and seek to develop that. We must have the right climate for business. We must drive economic growth. The digital strategy that was published by the Government in 2011 has served as well. However, we must now develop a programme of action, action on connectivity, digital economy skills, participation, security and transforming our public services. My Cabinet colleague Derek Mackay has overall responsibility for this area and he will address that and our vision in more detail. First, I make clear that if we are to succeed, we must be open to all ideas, knowledge and experience and indeed we are. Perhaps as proof of that, I am pleased to confirm that the Scottish Government will be accepting both amendments from the Labour and Conservative parties today. Although, in so doing, I would point out that I think that the reference to G5 in the Labour's amendment should be to 5G. I think that G5 does relate with respect to something else or somewhere else all together. However, be that as it may, I hope that we will have a constructive debate today and I am certainly willing to listen to what every member has to say irrespective of party politics. We have a strong foundation in which to build. Our investment in the digital Scotland superfast programme, DSSB, is paying off. The total programme investment is £410 million. We are on track to deliver fibre access to at least 95 per cent of premises in Scotland by the end of 2017. I am delighted to announce that an additional 660,000 premises across Scotland now have access to fibre as a result of our programme. Higher than expected uptake of services means that we are reinvesting in the programme to push coverage even further. Moreover, our achievements and progress are being recognised externally. Audit Scotland recently reported that the deployment of fibre broadband through DSSB is progressing well. Audit Scotland said that we have a higher than anticipated number of premises capable of accessing superfast speeds. Just on Monday this week, while attending the convention of the Highlands and Islands, OFCOM, who participated and took part in the proceedings, highlighted that superfast broadband coverage in Scotland has increased by 14 per cent in the past 12 months. OFCOM said that that is the largest increase in the UK. Around 2.1 million consumers and small businesses are now able to access superfast services and there have been improvements in urban and rural areas. OFCOM's figures show that mobile service has improved too. Voice calls are now possible at 92 per cent of all premises in Scotland, up from 90 per cent in 2015. 3G coverage has increased from 79 per cent to 86 per cent. Coverage of high-speed data services has also increased significantly. 58 per cent of all premises can now receive a 4G signal outdoors. However, we are not complacent. We know that there is much more to do. As OFCOM highlighted, there is still considerable disparity in mobile coverage between urban and rural areas. As Audit Scotland noted, meeting our commitments on broadband coverage, particularly in remote areas, will be challenging. Although the figures and facts depict a positive picture, that does not always translate into the actual experience of people and businesses. I am acutely aware of that disconnect and am determined to address it. We are proposively ambitious in this area. Our 100 per cent superfast broadband commitment far outstrips the UK Government's plans, which are limited to a universal service obligation at just 10 megabits per second. Whilst we welcome the contribution from the UK Government to help to meet the shared commitment of achieving 95 per cent by 2017, our progress would not have been possible without joint investment from the Scottish Lock Grant. Without that funding across Scotland, commercial deployment would have delivered only 66 per cent fibre broadband coverage, with as little as 21 per cent coverage across the Highlands and no commercial coverage at all in Orkney, Shetland and the Western Alps. Work is already underway to prepare for delivery of 100 per cent superfast access by 2021. We have published a prior information notice to provide potential suppliers with information on the superfast broadband access commitment. That is a necessary precursor to commencing procurement early next year. Before then, we will finalise the coverage footprint to be delivered by the Digital Scotland superfast broadband programme to complete the commitment to deliver fibre broadband access to at least 95 per cent of premises in Scotland. We will also undertake an open market review, formally consulting with telecom suppliers to determine commercial investment plans. We are absolutely committed to working with industry, especially to improve mobile coverage across Scotland and recently published the only mobile action plan in the UK with the four UK operators. We are learning lessons from the UK Government's failed mobile infrastructure project. Only three out of its planned 84 masks for Scotland were delivered, so we are taking a different approach to deliver the best possible result for Scotland working with industry to develop a mobile infill programme. We are actively supporting the development of new technologies alongside industry and higher education as part of our world class programme to extend connectivity to rural areas and to establish Scotland as a testbed for innovation. Our work with industry is key. Government and public investment alone cannot, should not and will not deliver the infrastructure that we all wish. There is a role for and a responsibility on private sector providers to support delivery of our ambitions. Although the UK Government has primary responsibility and powers over mobile connectivity—reserved matters—we are, so far as we can, getting on with what we need to do to realise our ambitions. I am, however, greatly encouraged by Sharon White, the chief executive of off-com, by Sharon White's work with us to find solutions. Sharon White has already made a substantial effort to enhance off-com's presence in Scotland, her office in Edinburgh, and she has visited a number of remote areas of the country to aid her understanding of the key connectivity issues. I found her interest in Scotland and her determination to work with us extremely positive and most welcome. Of course, the outcome of the EU referendum has created more unwelcome uncertainty, as in all other policy and funding areas, but I will continue to press for clarity. Clarity on whether Scotland will be able to benefit from the EU's recently announced WiFi 4EU programme, which aims to extend access to free WiFi in public places. Clarity on what happens to funding beyond March 2019. That is the £120 million that is associated with the EU's WiFi programme or the £941 million planned investment across the 2014 to 2020 EU funding programmes. Clarity on whether Scots will be able to benefit from the deal on roaming charges when they travel abroad. That is due to come into effect next year. Realising Scotland's full potential in the digital world is crucial to our ambitions to become a fairer, more inclusive and more prosperous economy. Achieving our commitment to deliver 100 per cent superfast broadband to all premises by 2021 is fundamental to this, and will require us all to put our shoulder to the wheel. We are open to ideas, we are open to positive contributions to create a shared vision. It is in all our interests to ensure that Scotland can realise its full potential in the digital world, because, as Bill Gates once astutely observed, the internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow. I move the motion in my name. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. I now call Jamie Greene to speak to and move amendment 2281.2, generous seven minutes, Mr Greene. Sorry, were you expecting— I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it was nine, sorry, but that's fine. Well, you can take nine, I have some time in my hand if you wish. I won't, I'll try not to. Don't tempt me. First of all, G5 is the brand new handset just out from a certain mobile operator. I think that it came out last week, so it's very topical, thank Labour for bringing that up. It is a great pleasure to open this debate as the Conservative spokesman for technology, connectivity and the digital economy, but also as a member of the cross-party group on digital participation. I also refer members to my register of interests. Today, I want to set out my vision on digital Scotland and to demonstrate the importance of universal digital participation for realising Scotland's full potential in a digital world. Here in this chamber, we often debate the subject in terms of connectivity and digital infrastructure by looking at targets and percentages, but when considering digital participation, it is important to look behind the numbers. Let me expand on this. I'm sure that every member in this chamber receives many letters and emails from constituents who struggle to access high-speed internet or sometimes any speed internet, and it's not just in rural areas, it's also in our towns and cities. I think that we'll hear many examples of this today. My tuppence worth on this is from somebody who lives just a few miles away from this chamber who can't access high-speed internet because he lives on the wrong side of the street, where I live in North Ayrshire, as I mentioned in my mating speech, in this place that I still achieve speeds of one and a half meg, which is speeds of years ago. It is important to acknowledge that the Royal Society of Edinburgh pointed out in their 2014 digital participation report that whilst investment has been forthcoming and welcome and targets are all well and good, those numerical targets still leave the door open for existing inequalities to go on addressed. Those inequalities include a lack of affordable internet, a lack of devices to make use of that internet and a basic lack of digital skills to use either of those tools. For those low incomes, for example, buying a tablet or paying a high monthly fee for broadband is not always an option. Therefore, your digital participation is already restricted, regardless of whether broadband is available or not. If you live in a city but have no 4G coverage in your area, your digital participation is restricted. If your children attend a school where there is no computing teacher, their future digital participation is already restricted and those restrictions create inequality, it holds us back from what the great online has to offer, namely making the day-to-day cheaper, faster and easier. I would like to look at one example of this, healthcare, where those inequalities are most prevalent in Scotland. In one community, you might be able to make a GP appointment or see your medical records or to repeat prescriptions online, drive a few miles down the road and the story is quite different. It is a phone call, it is a two-week wait and it is a piece of paper. Yet, in a small country like Belgium, you can use the same ID to access your healthcare as you can to download documents from your town hall. So, whilst other countries are investing in eHealth, in Scotland it is your postcode that determines whether you get your prescription by post or by email. I have seen how proper digital back offices work in other countries and those countries were substantial investment in digitised records, single logins and user-friendly websites and apps, lets the public access public services cheaply, faster and more easily. The NHS Education for Scotland's director of digital transformation, Christopher Roth, pointed out just last month that our health services also face challenges and part down to the lack of ICT skills within the healthcare systems. In Scotland, three quarters of firms say that digital technologies are essential or important for their own plans for growth, yet 30 per cent of the Scottish population lack basic digital skills. I think that it is up to the public and private sectors to use digital innovation to connect every citizen to those services, but to promote businesses that contribute to the social and environmental well-being of our country. The member is making some interesting and very valid points, but will he accept that, for Scotland and in the countries around the world, there is a huge opportunity to develop new interfaces between the human users of technology and the technology itself, and that the real triumph of the computer will be when we no longer know that we are interacting with one. Mr Greene. Wow, okay, and therein lies the answer. That leads nicely into my next point, which is about—perhaps he could explain what he meant to the chair. I have no idea what that meant. I shall respond to the Presiding Officer in writing to that intervention. It makes a good point. Networks are not just physical things. I really believe that we should be building networks of people, human networks, and those are networks of digital innovators, and entrepreneurs, designers, developers, content creators—for example, people working together to solve a problem such as identifying and removing the barriers that women have in reaching leadership roles and STEM careers, for example. What is at stake here? According to Deloitte, if Scotland were to become a world leader in digital industries by 2030, it would see an increase of over £13 billion in GDP, but if it continues as we are, we may only see an increase of £4 billion. That is a £9 billion loss to our economy over the next 15 years if we do not take immediate and visionary action. Now, perhaps something that you may not see very often from these benches especially is a copy of The Daily Record, and this is in addition from 1 January, the year 2000, and in it our predictions, such as bulky TV sets, will now be replaced by flat screen technology. If we're chilly, intelligent central heating systems will respond automatically, people will be able to order and pay for anything they want from their mobile phones if you can get a signal. Today, those predictions sound amusing to us, but 16 years ago they were like predictions from tomorrow's world, like the Sinclair C5, only a bit more useful. Progress has come much faster than we ever anticipated. My amendment today is important for two reasons. First, we must recognise the challenges facing us in achieving 100 per cent high-speed broadband in this country, and therefore we should be open-minded as to the technology mix that we might need to reach that last 5 per cent, and some of my colleagues are going to go into this in more detail. Secondly, and more importantly, we must remember that the end result of all this is not simply hitting a target. Our ambition must be to achieve full digital participation in Scotland. I therefore appeal to the Scottish Government to be entirely more visionary and I look forward to hearing more about their plans over the course of this debate. In conclusion, the reason for this is because we have a generation of Scots who have had mobile phones since they were five years of age. We have a generation of Scots facing automation in middle management jobs where professional, creative, design and manufacturing services may be automated, online or completely virtual. I do not want a Scotland that catches up with the digital economy. I want Scotland to lead it. I conclude with the final words of this paper's editorial from that first day of this new millennium. It said, the only limits to what mankind can achieve in our next 100 years, let alone the millennium, are the ones in our imagination. I move the amendment in my name. Thank you. We are most impressed that you have kept such an old newspaper. Could I now call Rhoda Grant to speak to and move amendment 2 to 8, 1.3, seven minutes if you wish, Ms Grant, and perhaps she will tell us what G5 is at the same time. Thank you. I actually do not have a clue what G5 is, but I know what G5 is. I think that it was a typo as much as anything else, so I apologise for that. I am sure that that will not stop the chamber supporting our motion, which I think makes an awful lot of sense. The debate gives us the opportunity to feed our views and priorities into the refresh of the digital strategy. There is nothing in the motion and, indeed, the Conservatives amendment that can be disagreed with. However, we need to make sure that we not only have an agreed vision but that we are also in a position to make it a reality. The Scottish Government has to do better, and the Audit Scotland report makes that clear, providing access to the digital economy in areas where the market has failed and progress is slow. We will continue to hold the Government to account on its performance in that area, urging for a better and faster response. Everyone, regardless of where they live and what their income is, should have access to technology to allow them to access work and information. They should also be able to participate in social interaction that digitisation can bring. Indeed, we take a lot of that for granted. I would take to point out that the Presiding Officer's phone has maybe gone off. That is so unkind of you to mention that in the video. Yes, so it switched on digitally. I couldn't help it. Well, it happens the best of us and the best of us. Presiding Officer, we have a digital divide, although you may not be part of it. In affluent urban areas, the market has provided and continues to provide the infrastructure that we require. Our cities are quickly becoming digitised in business sectors, and indeed the leafy suburbs with 4G and now 5G being rolled out, as well as dedicated city services and free wifi in public places. Unfortunately, our rural areas and our deprived inner city areas are being left behind. As more and more information and the provision of goods and services are digitised, those of us who do not have access are further disadvantaged. Benefits, job searches and the like are all on digital platforms. Those who do not have access have less chance of changing their lot or indeed getting the benefits that they are entitled to. Lack of connectivity means that our farmers are getting up in the wee small hours of the morning not to milk the cows but to try and submit their cap forms while nobody else is using that connection. At a time when we face deep population in our islands and remote areas, digital access has never been more important and indeed required. Our vision of a digital economy is one that breaks down barriers and makes us an inclusive society that leaves no one behind, regardless of where they live and what their income is. We agree with the Scottish Government that telecoms companies must play their part. They make huge profits from rolling out infrastructure in lucrative markets and they must reinvest some of those profits into the areas where markets fail. We also believe that there is a role for government where markets fail. Digital connectivity is necessary not only for the individual but also for service delivery, not least in health and social care services. We need to make sure that what is provided by government is as good as that that is provided by the market, that it can be easily upgraded and those areas do not fall behind again in the near future as the technology changes. Technology is changing and we need to make sure that all those installations are future proofed. New technologies are being developed. Last week, I learned of LIFI, which can provide solutions in hard-to-reach areas as well as making others even more connected. I find it hard to imagine that every light bulb would act as a digital router. We have seen in deprived urban areas that the infrastructure is as poor as that in rural areas because the communications companies do not believe that the people living there will be able to afford to buy their services. However, even having the infrastructure at your very doorstep can mean that you do not have access. We must find ways of enabling everyone in our society to have access to digital technology, to access health and social care services but to also introduce them to economic opportunities. Connectivity comes at a cost. You need money to buy a computer. You need money to pay for the broadband connection. When you are struggling to keep the roof over your head and the food on the table, connectivity is not always your top priority. I visited CAB in WIC some time ago now, and they recognised that as a problem. They had a room set up with second-hand computers that they had been able to get their hands on. That allowed their clients to come in and access the internet for job searches and benefits. That is helpful, but the technology moves on. All of us expect to be online all the time, and the service provision is built in around that level of connectivity. Therefore, those of us who do not have connectivity of that level are left behind. I believe that we are in the middle of a second enlightenment, an age in which the future is digital from reading a book to having your health monitored. The internet of things is growing where information is at your fingertips. Do you know how warm your house is before you get there and, indeed, you can turn up the heating? The opportunities available are only limited by our own imaginations, and yet knowledge and skills about our digital world are limited. We need schools to teach that as part of their very basic education from the youngest primary school child to those who are leaving with advanced qualifications. It needs to be taught as part of every subject in our colleges and universities, and part of lifelong learning and continuous professional development in the workplace. The speed of change is rapid. We need to make sure that our workforce keeps up to date. We need complex programming skills, but we also have to understand the technology. A farmer who can tell immediately not from looking at their field but looking at their computer screen which of their animals needs their attention. There is no area or line of work that will not need those skills in the future, and we need to make sure that we have them. Our amendment seeks to highlight the urgency that is required with progress and the need to sweep away the digital divide. We offer those as positive contributions, but we are also extremely concerned at the speed of progress. Other small countries are way ahead of us, and we must catch up and get ahead. Being more connected would provide us with work and life opportunities that we can only guess at, but to be left behind would be catastrophic. Therefore, we will support the Government to provide a digital infrastructure that is world leading, but we will also hold them to account should they fail. Thank you very much, Ms Grant. I now move to the open debate. I call Willie Coffey to be with Oliver Edward Mountain. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. If I learned anything when I did my computer science degree at Strathclyde University in the late 1970s, it was that digital technology, we should not expect anything to stay the same for very long. I started that course only seven years after the Americans had landed in the moon, and the technology and computing power to get them there is a tiny fraction of the computing power that we have now, even in mobile phones like this. The point of this is that there will never be a time when technological developments will slow down and we can stand back and admire our achievements. The challenge for us is how do we organise things, not just to embrace the technology of today but to prepare the ground and open the doors for the rapid progression to where it lies ahead in the future? What is certain is that we need the digital infrastructure or the super highway, as we used to call it. We need all of our population to be able to access it and to be engaged by the wonders and the possibilities of it all, and we need to create the potential for growth and attract the type of people who can imagine what that future could look like and to start building it, software developers principally. Those are also the key drivers behind the European digital single market strategy, which I will mention in a moment or two. I can see all of those elements in the work that the Scottish Government is doing, and the potential is there to open those doors to that future. Firstly, we are currently engaged in delivering the infrastructure to 100 per cent of our homes and businesses over the next five years, a huge task to achieve that in a country like Scotland. Secondly, we are working towards broadening access to digital technologies to all sections of our community, and we have to make sure that no one or no section of our society is excluded. Thirdly, we are creating the opportunities for our young people to excite them about the fantastic possibilities of a career in software design—a career that can take them anywhere in the world that they want to work with. There is also some good work being done to get more females into technology, and initiatives such as CodeClan and the Digital Skills Academy and various coding clubs are perfect for nurturing the new talent that we will need. None of that is easy, and there will be no end points, even if we think that we have made good progress, but those interventions are essential if we are to deliver that better digital world. As the great Alan Turing, the father of computer science, said, we can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done. If we embrace that view as we plan our digital future, then I think we won't go far wrong. Presiding Officer, if we look around Europe at the moment, we will see that we are short of about 600,000 ICT personnel right now, and by 2020 this could be just under £1 million. So the success of the digital single market strategy in Europe is absolutely crucial if we are to develop and expand the economy, estimated to be worth over €400 billion in additional growth. If we look specifically at the digital market, only 4 per cent of online services are done cross-border amongst the European countries, compared to about 42 per cent within each country's jurisdiction. That is why the three aims in the digital single market strategy of better access, getting the right environment and creating the potential for growth are crucial not just for Europe but for Scotland too. If we make e-commerce easier and with no tariff barriers, it will simplify copyright so that people can buy and develop content much easier across Europe. The digital single market, as you might expect, will be a key driver for economic growth here in Scotland, and it will be interesting to see whether the UK Government plans to walk away from that when it departs the European Union or whether it wants to be part of it, as I think it must do. Presiding Officer, as convener of the cross-party group on digital participation, it is clear to all of our colleagues who attend that technology can be the greatest tool we have to help us to deliver social justice. I am grateful to the Carnegie Trust for their briefing and for their support in the cross-party group. Social justice or inclusion or access does not happen by default. I am afraid that it gets worse by default unless you do something about it, and digital exclusion also gets worse unless you do something about it. It is no surprise that the groups in society who are most excluded are usually the elderly, the unemployed and people living in poverty. The Scottish Government's digital participation programme, with nearly £2 million allocated to it, will help those who would benefit most from being online, particularly by our most vulnerable citizens. The work that is being done with the voluntary sector and housing associations should help us to peg that digital divide. The Scottish Government's approach to all those matters is the correct approach. The mirror and enhance what Europe is also trying to achieve. It is ambitious and forward thinking, and it should help Scotland to make that step change towards realising our potential in the digital world that we live in. In that digital world, we will no doubt continue to see only those short distances ahead of us that Alan Turing referred to. As long as we are willing to accept that and the new challenges that we will have to overcome, I think that our digital future will be even more exciting than the one that we live in today. I do not think that there is a single MSP who represents a rural regional constituency who did not campaign during the election on the ticket of sorting out the lack of broadband and mobile connectivity in the area. What we said and what we published in our electoral literature will undoubtedly be quoted back to us and waved in our faces at the next election if we fail. I therefore welcome the Government and the fact that they have made a commitment to superfast broadband and deliver it by 2021. I do however believe that it will be a real challenge and an ambitious promise, and we put it on record that we are happy to work with the Government to achieve this, but we would also put on record that should they not deliver it or be doing enough to deliver it, then we will become their fiercest critic. Scotland as a whole has the lowest proportion of premises with access to fibre broadband in the UK, and the Highlands and Islands is the lowest of all of Scotland, with only 79 per cent of premises having access to fibre broadband. 26 per cent of properties in the Highlands have broadband speeds of less than 10 megabytes, but it is these premises that will prove to be the most difficult places to deliver superfast broadband to, and it is perhaps the fragile rural areas that most need the broadband. Why? I am happy to give way on that. I, like you, contributed to my own material in the election and my leaflet that I put around our broadband. If you are prepared to be critical and help the Scottish Government in this issue, you also appear to be critical of the UK Government if we cannot get there, given that telephony is still a reserved matter. I am sure that the member would like to listen to the rest of my suggested remedies before you ask whether I should be removing the plank out of other people's eye, before we have removed the plank out of our own. Of the 26 per cent properties that have broadband with less than 10 megabytes, as I said, those are the ones that will be the most difficult to produce superfast broadband to, and I was explaining why, in these rural areas, we need to have it. Allowing those residents to contribute to the economy and for their children to use the internet for learning is not just vital, it is an imperative. Let us be clear that the digital divide in Scotland is massive and the Highlands are without doubt at the bottom of the league. On the basis of delivering broadband to the last 5 per cent homes in Scotland who will not have access to the fibre broadband, one has to ask how we will ensure that they get what has been promised to them. I would support calls at the outset now for BT who will be the main suppliers in these areas to outline the exact areas that they cannot reach by 2021. Then we can see where the problems are. We then have to accept that the costs of delivering fibre to these super remote properties and houses will only increase. We heard the other day that this is no... I'm afraid I'd like to crack on having already taken one. You've plenty of time if you wish to, it's up to the member. I actually have heard one or two things from the member on broadband at committee meetings, so I'd like to push on with this, and I'm sure I'm going to hear more. So I heard the other day that the price and the cost for delivering to these houses is costing at the moment over £3,000 in some cases by a house. As we get to the last 2 per cent of these super remote houses, the cost of delivering fibre could be well in excess of £50,000, which just makes it unjustifiable. We have to look at other options. Some of the areas that might benefit from it is the community broadband initiative that has been led by Highlands and Island Enterprise. Most of those projects are based on radio connection and nearest cable. There are other options, but those are limited by the final connection to the cabinet. We, as a party, support community broadband, and we believe that it needs an increase in funding, but we'd like to see that the support that community broadband gives Scotland is increased from just communities to individuals and businesses. We hope that the Government agrees with us, and we'll wait to see that when they announce their budget. There are some other areas that we might have ability to consider, and that's satellite, but those have huge high start-up costs. The Avanti pilot project with over 500 connections in Scotland offers speeds of 30 megabytes, but that concludes shortly. Again, if it's going to be used as part of the solution, then the Government will need to consider increasing and extending funding. Those who have satellites will argue rightly, in my mind, that they have to pay increased costs, and if satellites are going to be part of the final solution, it is unfair that those people who have to rely on them have to bear the costs that are substantially more than those people who live in urban areas. I believe that the Government is going to rely on satellites to deliver their promise. They've got to be prepared to fund them and to make the running costs of them equitable to urban landlines. I would like to offer some potential solutions that I would like the Government to consider. There are all issues that could be addressed, and there will be issues in addressing them, but I would say whether there's a will or there's a way. Many hydro schemes operated in Scotland are run by central control rooms and use satellite connections. I can give you a perfect example at Dalnesi at the top of the Brawer. There is a satellite there. There is no connection to the telephone in the house next door to that site. Perhaps the Government could consider working in this, working with Hydro to see if there are ways of connecting that to remote and the remote houses in the area. Many people will have seen masks next to bridges on railway lines. Those are masks that are owned by rail track and usually have fibre connection to central control stations. There might be the possibility of connecting into those fibre cables and using them in remote areas to deliver broadband. I suspect other utilities, and I know that other utilities have fibre connections in remote areas, and we might be able to use those. Before I close, Presiding Officer, I'd just like to mention telecommunications. We have 30 seconds to mention it. It will be quick. There are so many parts of the highlands that are not covered by mobile communications, not spots. For those in the rural areas, we would like to consider 4G. We have no G and we certainly don't have G5 or whatever it is that the labour is progressing, but we'd like to see that rolled out. My message to the Government in conclusion is that your promise is admirable, and we'd like to work with you in delivering it. However, it cannot be delivered on a postcode lottery with the last 5 per cent of the difficult houses bearing unequitable costs to what is faced in urban areas. Thank you, Mr Mountain. That's fine. That's good. I now call Tom Arthur to be followed by Daniel Johnson. As we meet here today, it can be all too easy to take our digitised world for granted. It's been over 40 years since Arthur C. Clark stated that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic to an average citizen of say the 1960s. Our digitally connected world of today would have been scarcely imaginable, and would have been deemed perhaps not the stuff of magic, but certainly the stuff of science fiction. Now we are all the inhabitants of Marshall McLoone's global village. It's difficult to overstate the impact that has had on our way of life. At no point in the history of our species has it been easier to acquire new knowledge. Goethe may have said that one who cannot draw in 3,000 years is living from hand to mouth, but today, via a smartphone, one can now access the entirety of human knowledge from hand to eye. Never has it been easier to trade from the streets of Moncoc to the slopes of Monmartch, from Tokyo's Akiabara to Glasgow's Barra's, not one of those great districts rightly famed for their markets and street trade can compete in range and reach with the omnipresence of a world-wide web and its vast array of shops and traders.  It has, for instance, never been easier for people to contact and interact with their elected representatives in governing bodies. Online platforms have posed challenges for traditional print media and given opportunities to others. The results of that have been as complicated and unpredictable as any other aspect of life. As significant as the impact felt to date has been, the developments and advances in the digitalisation of our life in the coming years and decades are likely to be monumental and potentially redefine our understanding of what it is to be human. However, before turning to those more speculative matters, I would like to put on the record my support for this Government's approach to realising Scotland's full potential in the digital world. I applaud the ambition to deliver fibre optic broadband to 95 per cent of Scottish premises by the end of next year and the commitment to 100 per cent by the end of this Parliament. That is something that will be warmly welcomed by many of my constituents in Renfrewshire South, particularly in Howwood and Loch Winnock, where there are too many who are currently unable to enjoy the internet speeds available in other parts of my constituency. Equally welcome are the plans to work with industry and a mobile programme to address gaps in 4G coverage, of which again there are several in Renfrewshire South. With mobile connectivity now such importance in our lives, it is vital that coverage is as wide as possible. The Government's vision for both superfast broadband and 4G is one, which will contribute significantly towards achieving digital equality. However, digital equality requires more than equality of access. For Scotland to realise its full potential in the digital world, it is vital that digital literacy is enhanced. I welcome the Government's recognition of this in its motion, which refers to both skills and participation. The realisation of the Government's vision for Scotland's digital future will equip the country with the infrastructure, resources and skills that will allow Scotland to realise its digital potential. Realising that potential, however, is also vital that it is informed by the values of equity and equality. The digital revolution has been an enabler for the emergent gig economy or access economy. Although that represents an important development, allowing individuals to monetise their existing assets and skills, it is also equally another manifestation of the economic instability experienced by the contemporary precariat generation. Scotland's digital future must be one that is inclusive of the benefits that are shared by all and not accrued to the privileged few. We must also be aware of the role that digitalisation has in relation to automation and AI. Many professions from paralegals to truck drivers will be challenged in the coming decades by the introduction of machines that can perform tasks more efficiently and for less cost. Although the Government cannot be realistically expected to predicate policy and such in quality technologies, it can take the opportunity to embed values and principles that will ensure that the human cost of the disruptive effects of continued and future digitalisation are minimised and mitigated. Of symbol of importance are the areas of security and of data, its regulation and privacy. It has been said that when something online is free, you are not the customer, you are the product. Regardless of whether or not we are paying, data generated from our online activity has a huge number of applications, both positive and negative. As we move into the era of the Internet of Things, where even the use of household appliances will produce data capable of capture, it is vital that we are continually vigilant of any attempts by corporate interests to undermine citizens' rights to privacy and ensure that our frameworks and regulations keep a pace with technological developments. I think that it is fair to say that there is broad agreement across this chamber that Scotland must realise and embrace its digital future. Scotland realises that its digital potential stands to benefit significantly, both economically and crucially, socially. I commend the Government in bringing this motion to Parliament and I look forward to both my constituents in Renfisher South and, indeed, communities across Scotland enjoying the benefits of greater connectivity and digitalisation. Thank you very much, Mr Arthur. I remind members that, once you have spoken, there is a protocol in this chamber that you remain for the two following speeches. You do not nip out immediately afterwards. I say this without looking at anybody in particular. I call now Daniel Johnson, who is followed by Patrick Harvie. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I do not think that I am alone in thinking that human history is very much the history of technology. It is technology that has shaped both how we live and what we do from the wheel to the printing press to the silicon chip. I do not think that anywhere else in the world could that be more true than in Scotland. It was our steel, our ships and our railway locomotives that brought about the first wave of globalisation, allowing us to reach places that had not been possible to reach before. We were also aware in this country about the profound impact that technology change can also bring when those same technologies become obsolete and when the people who work in those industries find that their labour is no longer as efficient and is replaced by other places in the world. In this debate, we have talked much about connectivity, but I would ask the question of what are we connecting to. I am sure that I am not alone in regard to Stuart Stevenson as something of a visionary in this chamber, but I think that his comments about the seamless interfaces and integrating the human mind are relevant. I think that we have to understand that the change that technology brings are profound. Indeed, I think that Tom Arthur is absolutely right to raise automation, because that is the next wave of technology, but it is also going to be different. It is thought that as many as 36 per cent of jobs in this country could be made obsolete by automation. While previous technological leaps have improved productivity, making us able to do more things as individuals, the difference now is that automation threatens to replace us altogether. We need to talk as much about digital obsolescence as we do about digital exclusion. As we look towards renewing the Government's strategy on technology, I think that an omission of how we deal with automation and how we cope as a workforce would be remiss in the extreme. Let me spell out just some of the impacts that automation will bring. Indeed, Tom Arthur again mentioned automated vehicles. Trucks cost something like £200,000. We have an ageing workforce in the haulage industry, so it does not take much of a leap to understand that there is a big driver and a huge benefit to having trucks that can drive continuously 24 hours a day, greatly increasing the return on that investment and improving the efficiency. When you realise that 6 per cent of the workforce work in transport and distribution, and as many as 10 per cent include wholesale industries, you understand the impact that automated vehicles could bring. While news reports might regard automated vehicles with the punchline of look no hands, the reality is that we might seriously be looking at a situation where it is look no jobs. However, it is more than just the economy of things. Administrative jobs are also under threat from automation. The recent Deloitte report mentioned earlier in the debate highlighted that 88,000 public sector jobs could be lost in our public services, people who are administering and organising our vital services in our society. However, if you think that somehow our analytical capabilities might save us, again, in healthcare, cancer screening, AI algorithms are already identifying cancers more effectively and efficiently than the human eye and identifying drug interactions that, quite simply, no physician can keep in their head. The legal industry, too, AI is able to analyse documents for loopholes and are already being used to draft legal documentation. While that is a problem that we have to take very seriously, we are starting from a good place. In this city alone, we have hundreds of high-tech start-up companies employing thousands of people. However, we need to take the steps now to make sure that we can take those thousands of jobs and turn them into hundreds of thousands of jobs. However, we also have to recognise the issues that we face. For all the warm words and seriousness with which we take STEM subjects, we need to recognise that, since 2007, we have been losing two STEM teachers a year in Scotland. Likewise, we have seen a fall of 187 computer science teachers. We need to urgently address those issues in our education system. I welcome the comments about reskilling in the skills framework and the enterprise agency review document last week, but we need to again make sure that our skills infrastructure is as much about reskilling people in the workforce now who find themselves and their skills obsolete, giving them new skills so that they can renew and refresh and update and make their skills relevant to the workforce. We also need to bake in technology into our learning. It is not good enough to treat technology as something separate within the curriculum. We need to make sure that our pupils and our schools are learning to use technology in English and history and other subjects, because, frankly, technology will be pervasive in part of every single activity that we undertake. Likewise, we need to make sure that we support businesses to tech up. Every single business needs to be a technology business in the economy of tomorrow. We need to make sure that we are focusing as much on software companies as much on whisky producers being able to use big data to produce the perfect drama on software and technology companies. I would just conclude by saying that this is a big change and we have to stop treating it as a novelty. When we faced the unemployment of 12.5 per cent in the 1980s, we viewed that as tragic. When we are facing a potential proportion of the workforce being made obsolete of 36 per cent, we need to take that very seriously indeed. It is happening now and it is happening fast. I think that Willie Coffey was absolutely right to highlight the pace of change in technology. We have to recognise that, with automation, we face the complete removal of people from the entire chain and the economy, from design to manufacture to the supply of goods that we use every day. I would like to see the Government take automation as seriously as that as it reviews its strategy. We have already had some quite interesting quotes to set up the debate and to frame the argument so far. Mr Ewing quoted Bill Gates in his opening remarks, telling us that the internet is fast becoming a town square for the global village. No doubt a global village in which the Prime Minister will be appalled to learn that we are all citizens of the world. I see more opportunity in that than threat, but we need to recognise the profound change that is coming upon us, as others have mentioned. Willie Coffey mentioned Alan Turing, saying that we can see only a short distance ahead. However, Alan Turing was writing about thinking machines what, 70 years ago and more? While Jamie Greene is right that technology is moving very fast in this area, I question whether we are really talking about events that were unimaginable a generation ago. E.M. Forster's science fiction story, The Machine Stops, prefigured ideas like the internet and instant messaging over 100 years ago. Some of the consequences that Mr Johnson was talking about around automation is that we can see taking to an extraordinary extreme by our own late and much lamented E.M. banks in his imagination. I think that human beings have always been far better at imagining and inventing those kind of technological changes better at that than we are at controlling how we use them and how the consequences impact on our lives. We will keep on imagining and reimagining not just the middle management jobs that have been mentioned. Who knows? Even legislators might one day be replaced by AI or software that is as close to AI as makes no practical difference. The Internet of Things, as Mr Arthur mentioned, and the Internet of Things that people can hack will also have profound positive and negative consequences for all of us. Part of my problem with how we have debated this so far, though, is not about what is in any of the motions or amendments. I will be supporting all of them very happily. I welcome a lot of the work that the Government has done in this area. However, there are questions that we have not yet begun to grapple with. For example, digital participation. What does participation really mean? When we talk about democratic participation, we do not just mean being on the electoral register. We mean having a sense of control and power in the citizenry, the ability to hold power to account. If we talk about economic participation, we do not just mean having a job or having an income. We mean fair work. We mean ensuring that the way that the economic systems work benefits the common good. Will digital participation as well do not just mean having a connection? It does not just mean having access to some technology or being a passive recipient of software products. I think that digital participation means something much richer than that. It should mean something much richer than that that involves a digital rights agenda as well. That is the amendment that we wrote that sadly has not been selected for debate today, but I think that the digital rights agenda is absolutely critical if we want this change to be one that is beneficial. If we want to maximise the social, cultural and economic benefits of the technologies that are being rolled out around the world, we absolutely have to look at issues of digital rights.  We have become much more aware of the state and corporate surveillance around the collection of data and metadata around the world. The way in which that is being used is already stripping way beyond what most people are aware of. If we want the agenda of big data to be one that creates benefits for our society and people, we absolutely need transparency and control on how that data is being used, either by state or corporate players. If we want some of the barriers that Mr Greene was talking about, some of the barriers to participation, we should recognise that that implies net neutrality. That implies saying no to the idea that internet service providers can decide which packets of data will get beneficial or preferential treatment in the internet. If we all want access, if we all want fair access and if we want that access to networks to be something that generates a fair benefit for all of us, net neutrality absolutely has to be a principle. Although the European Union has taken some steps in that direction, it is not nearly as strong as it ought to be and some individual member states have stronger legislative requirements on net neutrality than the EU itself has. Whatever happens with our future participation in the EU, and I hope that that continues in Scotland, we absolutely need to be going further than Europe has gone in the past on principles of net neutrality. There are issues around intellectual property law. Few people, other than perhaps the pirate party, would argue for an abolition of intellectual property law. Intellectual property law needs to strike a fair balance between the stimulation of creative goods, the dissemination of creative goods and fair recompense for the people who have undertaken that creation. At the moment, the balance is all out of kilter. It does not properly promote the dissemination of creative goods in very many cases, it restricts it. For those who are trying to get their first foot in the door of the creative industries, whether it is a back bedroom operation of people coming up with their own software or any other aspect of the creative industries, their fair recompense for their work is often far below the interests of large corporate players who can decide which relatively narrow aspects of intellectual property they can own by, sell and milk. Those are just a few of the examples of the digital rights agenda around privacy, around open standards. Freedom of speech is another one that would take probably another six minutes to begin to discuss. In closing, I again welcome the motion and the amendments but argue that the Scottish Government's strategy must embrace and develop a digital rights agenda because the internet is not just going to be our town square. It is fast becoming critical to every part of our community, our economy, our personal and interpersonal lives and what matters is not just what might happen if the machine stops, as E.M. Forster wrote, but what happens if the machine stops working in the common good, stops serving the interests of citizens and puts the interests of the apples or the googles or indeed the state players ahead of the interests of citizens. Those are wider issues that I hope that the Government's digital agenda will begin to embrace as it develops in the future. Thank you very much. I call Mary Todd before I might rummles. Ms Todd, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The benefits of digital innovation are well documented. We must aim to ensure that Scotland is a global leader in this area of innovation. In order to do this, it is important to have a clear strategy to ensure that technological innovation benefits communities all across Scotland. This motion acknowledges the importance of the role of digital connectivity in any such strategy. As a representative of the highlands and islands, I have to say that I appreciate the challenge. I come from an incredible part of the world, high mountains and a breathtaking coastline. The topography and geography of my region are the reason that it is one of the most beautiful areas in the world, but the terrain and the population dispersal poses serious challenges in providing the level of digital connectivity that we need across the region. At home, we say that we need this connectivity more than most people, because we are already hard to reach physically. We must not be hard to reach virtually. The Government's target to deliver 100 per cent superfast broadband all across Scotland is very welcome. From 2013, by the end of this year, fibre broadband will have increased from 4 per cent of premises to 84 per cent of premises in the highlands and islands. I think that that is to be congratulated. Uptake of fibre broadband in the Scottish highlands has been so high that a clawback clause has kicked in and the digital Scotland scheme is getting an extra funding boost. A new investment of £2.3 million means that 6,000 more premises will be connected to fibre. Investing in improving the coverage and the quality will have a huge impact on connectivity and it is fantastic news for our region. Rural communities such as the Highlands and Islands face additional challenges, not just when it comes to digital innovation and connectivity. We all know the issues relating to ageing communities. I have said before in the chamber that we face that ageing demographic more than most in the Highlands and Islands. The delivery of health and social care in rural and remote communities and the restricted employment options are all challenges, but a high-speed, resilient broadband connection provides the means to overcome those challenges and to transform our communities. In fact, those very challenges have forced organisations and businesses in the region to innovate and to develop solutions and collaborations that have the potential to lead the world. NHS Highland, just one example, has been developing a resilient digital connection through a commercial provider Omnihub and providing a robust connection with Armadale surgery in north-west Sutherland. I have to tell you, if it works there, it will work anywhere. Another example of such a digital innovation in the Highlands and Islands is the fit house collaboration between NHS Highland, Albin housing, a housing association and carbon dynamic, an SME, developing modular housing. Those collaborations developed houses co-designed with end-users, embedded with technology that meets the need of both the person living in the house and the requirements of NHS Highland. That will enable digital gateways to be placed in their homes that will send data to NHS Highland and capture data from modern devices such as wearable health monitors, one system for all, the information being captured by a safe, secure network. With people's consent, that will allow health and care agencies to intervene more quickly if it is appropriate to do so. The fit home project is going one step further than most. It is also focusing on preventative interventions. Using artificial intelligence developed around case-based analytics, it originally developed for the oil and gas industry and transposing that knowledge base into the health and care field. The project is using digital interventions to increase face-to-face contact within the home, to improve public service delivery, develop and commercialise digital systems and, through a social enterprise model, reinvest some profit back into health and care delivery. NHS Highland is aiming to keep people in their homes for longer, enable earlier hospital discharge, lower the number of emergency admissions and bring the latest technology and cutting-edge technical ability into mainstream health delivery. That is what the patients want. Small companies in the Highlands working with the NHS are also creating a range of other state-of-the-art digital applications that range from using smart devices to send and receive health information, home investigations, home consultations, information and messaging portals for patients with cancer in long-term conditions. Delivering health and care in the community in this way enables jobs to be repositioned back into that community, allowing people to remain or return to more rural communities around Scotland, creating resilience in those vital areas and job opportunities for the Highlands school leavers and graduates. Collaborations between commerce, the NHS and the third sector are thriving in the Highlands. Those unique alliances are solving problems that each organisation could not fix on its own. They are also creating innovative digital health and care solutions that can be exported across the world and might therefore have the potential to feed some much-needed money back into our vital public services. The investment and commitment that this Government has made in superfast broadband is creating the infrastructure to enable technology companies to locate in the Highlands, not only making the Highlands and Islands a fantastic place to live but also a world-class place to work. Developing superfast broadband connection has the potential to transform Scotland on many levels, and it is already happening. I would like to begin my contribution by quoting from the Scottish National Party Government's programme for Scotland. On page 33 of the document, it says that our commitment is to deliver the superfast broadband access to at least 95 per cent of premises by next year, end of next year and 100 per cent by the end of this Parliament. That will transform connectivity, improving the productivity of businesses in remote and rural areas and the prospects of people who live there. I am going to return to this because at the end of my contribution, that is why I wanted to start with it, because they are grand words full of promise, reiterated again today by Fergus Ewing. Forgive me for being somewhat sceptical of this. Deputy Presiding Officer, I could give examples of what many of the people who have contacted me about this have to say about it, but I do not want to involve them in this debate. Forgive me, I am going to use my own experiences to give a touch of reality to the debate that we have heard so far. I live in a beautiful part of rural Scotland, not so remote really because a trunk road to A97 runs right past my front door. I mention this because we have a terrible broadband connection. I, together with my neighbours, were really looking forward to being connected with superfast broadband as advertised, as it says on the tin as it were by the Scottish Government. 18 months ago, we were delighted to see that the roadside outside our homes was being dug up. Guess what? Yes, the superfast broadband cable was being laid right outside our homes along the length of the A97 at Kildrummy in Aberdeenshire. We were happy to put up with the disruption of the road and all that that made. But yes, Deputy Presiding Officer, I hope that you may have guessed it. Imagine the disappointment to be told that even though the superfast broadband cable is being laid right outside your home, you're not going to be connected. This is despite seeing adverts all over the place, all over the local villages, telling us that superfast broadband has arrived. So why is this, one might ask? It can't be the cost of reaching us in a remote area, can it be that? We're not in a remote area, Minister. Well, the superfast broadband cable isn't being delivered to each home, despite the warm words. It's being delivered to a series of green boxes along the route. My house and that of them, my neighbours, isn't connected to a green box. They're connected to the telephone exchange. So even though the superfast cable is going right by us, we aren't any distance from it, we're not being connected. Several members from across the chamber have highlighted their view that it's because we're in the remote areas that can't really be reached effectively that it's slowing the programme down. It's the last 5%. Well, I'm afraid it isn't. Now, I've no doubt, and the minister is listening, I've got no doubt that the minister genuinely believes that this roll-out programme is going well and that the statement made in the Government's plan for Scotland is being fulfilled. However, the reality is that broadband access isn't being delivered to every home, just to every green box in the land. I repeat my point. Superfast broadband isn't being delivered to every home of business premises, as promised, and I would be interested to know from the minister whether my home, and I'm using mine as an example, is being counted. Is it being counted as being connected because the area is connected? Well, I'd like to hear that from the minister rather than from the back benches, and are we actually counting the green boxes that are actually being... Well, from a sedentary position, one of my colleagues on the rural committee keeps saying, no, I'd love to hear that from an intervention from the minister. I would like to hear some reassurance, not just from my own benefit, but from all the people in my local community who have contacted me about this. Still, the minister is not intervening on me. I take the message that is being given me. I would certainly give way to the minister if he can tell me what to get. Fergus Ewing. I'm sorry to hear Mr Rumbles hasn't been connected, and if he gives me the details of that, I'll happily look into it. Does he not accept that, as I said in my opening remarks, that both Audit Scotland and OFCOM, the regulator, have actually judged and highlighted that although there is more to do, which I've said in the opening speech, that we are making faster progress in Scotland than elsewhere in the UK, and that we have clearly set out our plans for a tender exercise next year in order to achieve our target, which, of course, as he opened by saying, is the target that we must achieve within the lifetime of this Parliament. Mike Rumbles. The point that I'm making is that I'm certain that you believe that. I believe that you, in good faith, believe all of this. I'm trying to give you a touch of realities to what's actually happening out there. This was a year and a half ago that went by. I'm being reliably informed from those that are in the position to tell me that, far from improving my already poor broadband service, the likelihood is that this service will actually get worse, as those who are being connected will adversely affect the signal. I genuinely believe that if the minister really is of the belief—I hear no-no being noted—that all is well with this programme, and I can go back to my communities in the north of Aberdeenshire and tell them all of this, that 95 per cent of premises will be connected by next year, and that all the premises will be connected by 2021, then either he's being duped by the providers of the service, or he doesn't understand the contracts that the Scottish Government has signed. It's all very well to boast. As he does in the blurb, that 7,700 kilometres of cable have been laid enough, and I quote, to stretch from Glasgow to Kathmandu, as it says in the Scottish Government. It might be good for Kathmandu, but it isn't certainly any good for Kildromy. Scotland's a small nation that could be a demonstration of digital potential. For this, there needs to be trust, security and convenience. Government has to empower citizens, charities and SMEs for potential through innovation to be reached, a point made by Patrick Harvie. In her first speech as the UK Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham said, it's not privacy or innovation, it's privacy and innovation. Consumer trust is essential to achieving growth. It's this I want to focus on, but first I want to touch on the wider issue of broadband. Much is said about rural areas missing out on high speed broadband, but there are many urban areas that do too, and sometimes without any apparent logic, as Mike Rumbles has just touched on. My street in East Kilbride gets high speed broadband, but just down the road on the same estate I have a constituent who lives in one of two houses in his street that doesn't, and we have those green boxes very nearby. It's frustrating enough, but what's even more frustrating is that there's no way for him to find out when he'll get connected, and I'd urge the government to act on this specific point because it affects a lot of people, they just need to know when. So back to trust. Scotland is missing out on reaching its full digital potential because there hasn't been enough collaboration between private, third and public sectors. The general data protection regulation provides individuals with increased control over how their personal data is collected and used online, but more can and should be done to ensure that individuals are able to take back control of their online identities. The member has asserted that the problem is that there hasn't been collaboration between the Scottish Government and operators. The opposite is the truth, since we are the only part of the UK to have an action plan, and the mobile operators have commended us for the approach that we are taking here as opposed to south of the border, where, in the mobile infrastructure plan, only three out of 78 masks promised were actually delivered. Graham Simpson. Thank you.  I'm saying that some work is being done, but not enough. The European data protection supervisor, Giovanni Buttarelli, recently gave his views on personal information management systems. He said, our online lives currently operate in a provider centric system where privacy policies tend to serve the interests of the provider or of a third party rather than the individual. Using the data they collect, advertising networks, social network providers and other corporate actors are able to build increasingly complete individual profiles. This makes it difficult for individuals to exercise their rights or manage their personal data online. A more human centric approach is needed, which empowers individuals to control how their personal data is collected and shared. I agree with that. It's human nature to resist snooping and meddling in your life. Scotland will face cyber security threats now and in the future. Citizens look to the government—I say government, that could be UK government, it could be Scottish government—for safety and security. They do not look to any government to spy on them. Local authorities still ask citizens to fill in paper forms and have made no real progress in enabling citizens to live their own lives with dignity, in control and with their own choice of digital identity that is privacy friendly. Their attitudes to sharing data do not raise digital potential hopes as there is no trust. A report by the Market Research Society puts consumers at the heart of the privacy debate, highlighting that up until now, privacy has largely been treated as a, quote, political football with too much focus on the legal and technological aspects of holding personal data. It shows that only one in 10 of us feel incomplete control over our personal information being kept private. It also reveals that government is only marginally more trusted than supermarkets when it comes to looking after personal information and that banks are more trusted than charities. Digital participation is starting in some areas, but it's not yet achieving its full potential. Reports such as tackling poverty in Renfrewshire recognise that empowering citizens includes digital empowerment. Think Local, Acts Personal and Citizens Online, which has an innovative project in the Highlands—which will please Marie Todd—are examples of this. Citizens do not currently have reasons to use online services provided by the public sector. Public services IT is built for public services organisations and not for citizens. People are excluded. Inequality is perpetuated and Scotland does not benefit from advances in technology. The Carnegie Trust, mentioned by Willie Coffey in his measured speech, recently reported that Scotland is still not yet reaching its potential in digital services. It called for a new focus on tackling digital exclusion. Scotland will not reach its full potential until government trusts others and is trustworthy. That's why reality is so far behind the digital potential. Government must recognise that citizens are the nation's most important asset and empower them so that Scotland can reach its full potential. I want to give the minister one more idea. That is to look at the issue of procurement. When we are procuring IT projects, we should make sure that Scottish firms get those projects, because far too many don't. So empower citizens, better information and procurement. Those are three ideas that Fergus Ewing will take forward. Digital connectivity will have the biggest impact on rural Scotland. I speak as the member for a constituency, which is in real need of coverage to bring us up to a power with our urban neighbours. With enhanced connectivity, we can flourish in terms of the amount of businesses that can locate themselves in rural areas, or the start-ups that would have a chance of even being in a level playing field with those in an urban environment. With today's technology, a graphic designer, business consultant, PR manager or an accountant should be able to work remotely from anywhere and still deliver the same level of service of someone working from an office in a town or city high street. We shouldn't all have to travel miles from our rural homes into a city to sit at a desk and clog up the roads to do a job that can just as satisfactorily be done at the end of a phone and with a decent broadband connection. With Scottish Enterprise estimating that to bring Scotland's productivity up to an optimum level, we need 150,000 new businesses to be created. In my view, digital connectivity for our rural areas is key to meeting that target. In the business that I ran before coming to Parliament, I could work from home uploading video files of my work for clients to review and holding Skype meetings with clients in other cities and countries. If I had lived just three miles to the east in maybe Forverin or Ardney station, I wouldn't have stood a chance. Like one of my constituents, just a quarter of a mile outside the village of Fivy, who called me last week to say that he would have to move as he was struggling to run his graphic design business without access to broadband. On a basic level, one of the most constraining things about poor access to broadband is the lack of access to everyday services and advantages that being online can provide. I suppose that I would call this digital justice or digital equality. In my constituency, I have a recent example, which really brought it home to me how internet poverty could impact on the community's options and success. In Newpitt's lego, we had an unfortunate situation for the local bakery, which had been established for over 100 years. John Smith and Sons was forced to close permanently. My colleague Ailey Whiteford MP and I worked with the group responsible for the bakery and the staff who faced redundancy to help them through the process and try to find them alternative work and access support. Many of Smith's employees had not had to look for work in many, many years, as they have been long-serving employees of the bakery, as Smith was the single biggest employer in the village. I must admit that, in attempting to give practical advice to some of the workers, I did not anticipate how much of an issue their lack of digital connectivity would be. In May this year, Newpitt's lego was not particularly well connected digitally, and most of the people who came to seek support were not online. Additionally, Newpitt's lego does not have particularly good mobile signal, so many did not even have mobile phones. How does one even attempt to find a job in 2016 without access to the internet? The monster.coms and the S1 jobs, the LinkedIn and the human resources pages on the company website with the most up-to-date recruitment opportunities were not available to most of the people who came to us for help, and neither were the online resources that allowed them to access the advice and information that they needed to access jobseeker allowance that they were entitled to until they found new work. Their employment opportunities were limited because of their internet poverty and were compounded by the rural location that has been serviced by very few buses that would actually get them to facilities that were better connected than publicly available. Many of them did not even have an email address. Rural homes have been disadvantaged as well when it comes to accessing services like distance learning programmes such as those offered by the open university, or setting up business from home, accessing savings offered by internet shopping, or changing energy to us online, or even accessing news outwith that broadcast on traditional media, or using internet banking. It is not amazing that internet banking is not available to the very places who need it the most—those who are without an actual bank. The biggest unleashing of potential has to come from rural areas like this, with 100 per cent broadband coverage promised by 2021. Not only will we directly tackle digital inequality, but potentially dramatically increasing Scotland's productivity. I would like to end by picking up some of the things that the criticisms that have come from Mr Rumbles and Mr Mountain about issues. I have just been reading a thing in the telegraph where your own leader, Tim Farron, does not matter whether I read it, criticised the regulator for some of the issues that you have just described. It seems to me that he maybe has a better grasp on the technology and who is to blame for the type of issues that you describe. I suggest that you look it up. He criticised BT Open Reach, an off-com for BT's continued monopoly of this and asked for action there, not necessarily the Government that is trying to make things better. Monica Lennon, to be followed by Stuart Stevenson. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. The importance of the digital world to the smooth operation of daily life is something that I must admit that I can often take for granted. To be connected to the internet is a vital part of daily life, whether it be for sending work emails, communicating with friends and family or checking social networks. For the range of uses that we put it to, internet uses simply become second nature for so many of us. Even here in the chamber, I know that I can include myself among the group of MSPs who frequently check our mobile devices to respond to emails—it's allowed now, isn't it? Can I have a quick fact check or send that all-important tweet? We all do it. The digital world exists alongside and is indeed now interwoven with our reality and it provides so many opportunities for growth and increased productivity. I welcome the recognition and the motion for debate today that digital connectivity is vital to achieving Scotland's full potential in the digital world and that the Government will build on its 2011 digital strategy. However, achieving Scotland's full potential in the digital world requires not only the delivery of infrastructure but also the ability for Scotland's population to access that infrastructure and to be equipped with the skills to use it. I therefore welcome Rhoda Grant's amendment to the motion. Even if we are to achieve the goal of access to the 100 per cent superfast broadband by 2021, there will still be work to do to ensure that everyone can access the internet regardless of their income or location. The biggest risk to not achieving our full potential in a digital world comes from the inequity of provision when it comes to access to the internet and the skills required to use it. We know that deprivation hampers the progression of Scots in many ways from educational attainment to health outcomes and the link between deprivation and internet use is no different. It has been a persistent problem that contributes to a vicious circle of inequality and one that needs to urgently address if we are to make use of the potential digital talent from all of Scotland's population. The 2015 Scottish household survey that was published in September this year found that just 60 per cent of households with an income of £15,000 per year or less had access to the internet compared with 98 per cent of households with incomes of more than £40,000. Research from Ipsos Moray, commissioned by the Carnegie Trust, as others have mentioned, in the analysis of that survey data, finds a strong degree of overlap between digital exclusion and commonly cited characteristics of deprivation. We know that those who are older on lower incomes or living in more deprived areas are statistically less likely to have digital access compared with the rest of the population. Closing the digital divide must be a vital component of the Government's strategy going forward if reaching our full potential in the digital world is to be achieved. I fully believe that that is entirely possible, but only if all relevant partners are working together to more closely monitor the levels of internet access and are making the necessary interventions and investment to tackle areas that need improvement, certainly. Derek Mackay I absolutely agree with Monica Lennon in tackling the digital divide. As we approach our reshaping of the strategy, are there any specific suggestions that the member would like to make to inform that strategy so that we tackle the digital divide? I hope that that will be taken in the spirit in which the question is offered. Monica Lennon Thank you. I would be more than happy to email you after today to make some suggestions. I would like to talk about some examples of projects in my area and show how we can continue to support those. What I was about to say is that the benefit of expanding internet access to those who are currently without it are numerous from young people in education. We had some in the gallery, but they have gone. I recently visited a community development charity, Community Links in South Lanarkshire, which operates a range of projects aimed at tackling poverty. I met volunteers and service users at the select hub at Hillhouse in Hamilton, and that is a digital inclusion project run by volunteers and staff to support people to use internet as an employability tool. Local people use the service to increase their digital skills, including to apply for jobs. I find that it is really popular amongst older people who are aiming to retrain and are finding it difficult to navigate online-only applications, such as those that are used by the Department of Work and Pensions for applications for job-seekers allowance. I declare an interest as a South Lanarkshire councillor. The select hub is jointly funded by South Lanarkshire Council's tackling poverty fund and the Scottish Government's people and communities fund. It is a really good example of good practice in relation to community-led digital inclusion. The service users that I met were really clear about the benefits of the project and the huge difference that it can make to them and otherwise free access to the internet and a helping hand that they would not have. I hope that the projects like the select hub and others like it will continue to attract support from the Government. In conclusion, Deputy Presiding Officer, expanding digital access is a vital component in tackling inequality. It will help not only individuals but will also boost the position of Scotland as a world-class digital nation if more and more people have the digital skills that enable them to get on in life. I welcome the Scottish Government's motion and its support for Scottish Labour's amendment today. Presiding Officer, I suspect that at the end of my contribution I may be judged either as a conoclast or heretic. I am reminded of on 23 July 1633, Jenny Heriot threw her stool at the Minneson St Giles Cathedral at the first use of the Anglican common book of prayer. She sought to overturn the prevailing norms and I am going to do something rather similar. I do not think that any of this digital stuff matters at all. What we should be debating is communication and services, because that is what we are actually trying to get to. Digital is merely one of a range of ways in which we might support those broader aims. Let us just talk about communication. The Roman Empire had a series of hilltop signalling posts that enabled the message to get from Londinium to Roma in a mere six hours. It did not work at night and it did not work if there was fog or low clouds, but a lot of the time it meant the pretty good, for 2,000 or so years ago, communication from the outposts of the empire to the centre. That was one of the reasons why the Roman Empire was so much more successful than the Greek Empire, who was still sending messages around with cleft sticks and a message there, or alternatively, if it was a secret message, shaving the head of the slave, writing the message on there, waiting till the hair grew and then sending the slave off. It took months. What we are actually talking about and we are interested in is communication. Communication, too, is something that in the digital world has been around a lot longer than we might think. The Scots invented the first fax machine in the 1840s. It was probably analogue rather than digital, and the technology that we use today is very different. However, the telegraph, which was the first real digital communication medium, was the key thing that opened up America. Two communications to the west coast made that big country, whose future we will be all watching with interest next week. The first telegraph line between Edinburgh and London was private telegraph line. It was opened in 1868 when the Bank of Scotland, for whom I worked for 30 years, installed the telegraph line between Head Office at the Mount and its office in Broad Street in London. The telephone came along a wee bit later in 1882. Like banks everywhere, they were cautious about technology and the board only approved the telephone on the strict understanding that it would not be used to conduct business. Computers, too, have been around for quite a long time. There were astrological computers used in Arabia over 1,000 years ago. I will. I am always amazed at how much knowledge the member has. I am hoping that we are going to move beyond faxes shortly and get to broadband. Can I encourage the member to ask how we are going to get broadband into the remote parts of the Highland to be weaved into his history? Mr Stevenson. We can certainly do that, of course, but I will say in part that the broadband is not necessarily digital. It is actually digital data carried on analog signals. That is neither there, but it just illustrates why, when we talk about digital, we should not get bogged down in all this techy stuff. What we actually want is people to get access to services and good communications. Now, I am disappointed that Mike Rumbles is not here to hear me just mildly correct one or two things. Let me just start by his living next to the trunk road called the A97. That is going to be news to people. There is no trunk road called the A97. The A97 is a local road, the responsibility of the local council. He has been told on empty occasions that he is on an exchange on a line, as indeed I am. My exchange is on fibre. I am not. I am in the 5 per cent. I am counted in the 5 per cent. He is counted in the 5 per cent. My brother lives in the centre of Edinburgh. He is on an exchange on a line. He is in the 5 per cent. Different technology will be needed to connect different kinds of people connected. For reasons of history, that go back more than 100 years to when the first telephones were installed in Scotland in the late 1870s, and some of that was still around. If I am—I have got a wee ass—yes, I will. Daniel Johnson. On the one hand, I take the member's point that, in essence, we are not dealing with something new and that it is essentially about communication. However, I think that the key difference here is that we are actually facing a change in technology, which is not just about communication, but it replaces every single step that humans can do in the supply chain across a great broad range of things. That needs to be addressed and is new in a way that we have never faced before. Mr Stevens. By the way, I absolutely agree with the member, because the member is absolutely correct. We have been through that in the mechanical era when we automated the looms and we saw the huge disruptive effect of that. We are going to see the same disruptive effect here. I think that one of the things—not from that source—one of the things that you would not take mind—I have corrected your problems. Please refrain from having conversations with each other. Could you speak through the chair, please? I will address my remarks to the chair as I properly should do. I think that the big challenge is certainly making sure that there is equality of access to the services that we can deliver via the internet. Rural areas at the moment are behind the pace. That is why it is so important by 2021 that we get on pace and we are connected. However, as we develop those services, we are going to have to look at who gets the rewards for work that is productive. A lot of work will be of a social nature—we have a cultural nature—because the production of goods, the engagement in the delivery of services will employ a lowering proportion of people as time goes on. That is the fact that we will all have to face whatever our political views. We will have to have that debate about the wider effects of changing the way in which we run the modern world. We also have to consider—very carefully, and Patrick Harvie touched on it but did not develop it— homogeneity versus diversity. If we get to a position where there are very few sources of services, a mistake or an error in the implementation of those service deliverers now have much wider effects, the first law of epigenetics says that the more highly optimised an organism is for one environment, the more adversely affected by changing that environment the organism is. The bottom line for this debate is that we need diversity of delivery. That way, we can move forward together, and I am sure that we will do so. I will hope that, in future contributions, Mr Rumbles will take the opportunity to correct the almost totally misleading contribution that he has made today. We now move to the last of the open speeches. Ms Harper, you have the enviable task of following Mr Stevenson. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I do not know if I can ever compete with Stewart Stevenson in any of my speeches. We have heard a lot of examples of digital connectivity and things that we can do. I was part of a surgical team in California who developed robotic surgery so that we could do remote access surgery with a surgeon who wasn't even in the same room as a patient, and that was quite exciting times for me. Today, this afternoon, I want to concentrate on the importance of high-quality digital connectivity for rural communities so that Scotland can realise its full digital potential and the importance for social inclusion, business growth and development and provision of public services. In a very rural region such as Dumfries and Galloway, digital connectivity is increasingly important. Indeed, it is vital to a wide range of activities. It is the number one issue for many of the constituents that I speak to. I have already held two broadband surgeries, one in Stranraer and one in Dumfries, with the assistance of Digital Scotland, which was much appreciated and common to both were the concerns that constituents were bringing about the more difficult to connect parts of a very large and very rural area. Many of the constituents still have little or no access to the internet and, in several places, not even access to mobile phone coverage. It is fair and important to recognise that good progress is being made with 34,294 premises across Dumfries and Galloway that are already connected to fibre broadband and are capable of receiving download speeds greater than 24 megabits per second. At the end of the first quarter of this financial year, 74 per cent of the premises in the region were connected to fibre broadband. That is up from an assumed 26 per cent in 2012. The progress is significant and demonstrable, and it is important that we do not lose sight of that. With 26 per cent of the region still to be connected, recognising good progress should not distract from the significant challenge of rolling out the next generation broadband and, in some cases, any broadband at all, so that the locations and businesses that are ready to catch up can catch up. Businesses in Galloway are, of course, already capitalising on improved connectivity to expand their operations and exploit new opportunities. One of the businesses is Jaspy Wilson, a dealer and manufacturer of forest machinery, which the Minister for Employability and Training, Jamie Hepburn, visited recently. They are marketing their products into European countries and developing markets, which will allow the company to expand and secure its future as an important local employer. On the other hand, an excellent visitor attraction, the Galloway activity centre, on the beautiful shores of Loch Kenne has no broadband access and little current prospect of being able to arrange broadband at a reasonable cost. They have investigated every option that is currently available and they found that those options are either logistically impossible or require costs that the business cannot afford. Like Jaspy Wilson, however, they have the potential and the drive to expand what they do and grow as a business. Affordable digital connectivity will make a huge difference to their ability to perform and expand. Digital connectivity can also have huge benefits for the delivery of healthcare and, in particular, can help patients to avoid at least some of the lengthy journeys that they previously had to make to manage long-term health conditions. A good example is the nurse-led diabetes clinic at Galloway community hospital in Stranraer, where patients can upload data from blood glucose monitors and insulin pumps remotely and video conference with their consultant, rather than making the 150-mile round trip to Dumfries or waiting for a consultant appointment in Stranraer. Given that this sound day-to-day management is key to long-term wellbeing for people with diabetes, it gives them easy access to the sort of regular appointment that makes a huge difference to the management of a condition that can otherwise be personally debilitating and costly to the NHS if it is poorly managed. Education can also benefit with our digital progress. I know that the Dumfries learning town project is looking at ways in which digital connectivity can be used to widen the course choice in the senior face of secondary school, where small numbers of students in more rural secondary schools might otherwise not be able to access the variety of specialised higher courses commonly available in their urban counterparts. Finally, Presiding Officer, I want to touch on mobile coverage and mobile broadband in particular. Mobile coverage in Dumfries and Galloway is patchy and access to mobile broadband even more so, particularly outwith the urban centres of population. Indeed, the regional tourism monitor this year highlighted access to mobile broadband as the single issue of greatest concern to tourism businesses. Tourists expect to be able to navigate by their phone, research visitor attractions in the area and make bookings on the move and, increasingly, people expect that of rural areas they wish to visit as much as they would in urban centres. I warmly welcome the cabinet secretary's commitment to working with the United Kingdom mobile network operators on an action plan to fill in those blank patches in my region. Presiding Officer, I am happy to support the motion and I have outlined some of the benefits that digital connectivity has for rural areas and some of the challenges that those same areas face as we become increasingly connected and interconnected. Above all, I am confident that the action that the Scottish Government is taking to maximise digital connection and participation across Scotland are the right ones and will help to realise Scotland's full potential in a digital world. I now move to the closing speeches. I call on Neil Bibby. Around six minutes, please, Mr Bibby. Thank you, Presiding Officer. This has been an interesting and important debate on a wide range of issues, and I will try to touch on some of them. Above all, we have heard from many members across the chamber today on our digital ambition for Scotland and how important connectivity is for our economy. I agree that one of the key themes emerging from this debate is that we cannot and should not underestimate the importance of access to a digital communication structure fit for 21st century Scotland. Just as we rightly expect that our children learn to read and write in today's Scotland, we must also recognise that having knowledge of and expertise in digital communications is absolutely essential if our young people are to access jobs in our economy. As we have heard today, it is not just the workforce of tomorrow that needs to be equipped. As Daniel Johnson and other members have said, the companies of today, large and small, need to be able to compete in an increasingly challenging market, where they are often up against companies whose Governments are prepared to invest in state-of-the-art digital infrastructure. We therefore need to recognise, as Audit Scotland has, that we can and must do better in Scotland. Nobody in this chamber would disagree with the four themes outlined in Scotland's digital future—connectivity, digital economy, digital participation and digital public services. However, as many members have said, we need to make sure that those objectives are being met and delivered in reality on the ground and in our communities. Members today have rightly raised issues facing their constituencies and regions, and I will do likewise. I represent West Scotland, one of the most urbanised and densely populated parts of Scotland, but it also has a number of rural areas. One of the key themes of the debate today has been that of the digital divide, not just between affluent areas and areas of material deprivation. As Rhoda Grant said earlier, the market has provided for many areas, but rural areas and, indeed, too many urban areas have been left behind. Tom Arthur was right to raise the issues in his constituency, affecting people in Howard and Lachwynnach. One of the examples that I would like to raise is in Scotland's largest town in Paisley, where there are still many issues about broadband. A number of householders in the hot head are living in new homes but are using dial-up broadband, despite residents saying that the developer has installed the necessary infrastructure. There are a number of other examples in my region, and I am sure that other members have talked about it in their areas as well, where households are still unable to access fibre optic broadband because they are directly connected to the local telephone exchange and not through a green cabinet. As has been mentioned, there are problems that have been experienced in recent years. It can be resolved with effort, application and investment. Many members have rightly made the point that what is far more difficult is the one of access by those who do not have the resource or the training to be able to benefit from what our new digitally enhanced society can offer. It is therefore important, as the minister said at the start, and as other members have done, to recognise the generational digital divide. We cannot ignore the elderly households whose bewildering of this new technology excludes them from the financial advantages of being able to control their heating system, for example, from a smartphone. Why should they be excluded from the best online deals for goods and services just because they do not have access to a computer or a smartphone? Emma Harper and Marie Todd made some very good important points about the NHS and the role of technology. However, as we have developed telecare systems in social care, we need to ensure that those elderly and disabled people, already on the wrong side of the digital divide, are in no way disadvantaged. I thought that Willie Coffey made some very important points about digital inclusion, and the use of digital technology is a tool for tackling social justice. If we are serious in this Parliament about tackling poverty, we need to be serious about digital inclusion. Why should poorer households, with the lowest disposable incomes, be forced to pay the highest prices? Prices that members in this chamber can avoid because of their ability to access the internet. Monica Lennon made some very important points about the scale that the numbers of people who do not have access to the internet. If we truly want a digitally inclusive society, we must address those households and communities that are being left behind. Many of our councils are trying their best to bridge the digital divide. Monica Lennon talked about examples in South Lanarkshire, with a number offering computer and internet access in libraries and other public facilities. However, councils will be able to continue to offer that access to the excluding disadvantages if their budgets are being slashed, forcing them to make even harsher cuts. I hope that the cabinet secretary and the Scottish Government will tell us how they will fund and ensure public access to digital facilities right across Scotland. The Scottish Government must also consider how they support the expansion of town centre access to modern, fast broadbanders. Renfrewshire Council wants to deliver in its town centres. As members have said, digital inclusion is also vital in terms of education and skills. Daniel Johnson made some very important points about the number of STEM teachers that have been cut and computing science teachers that have been cut as well. It should not be left to those children whose parents can afford it, either at home or through private education, to have access to iPads, tablets and other digital devices. Such devices are becoming the norm for communication and research and for learning. It cannot be right that young people in deprived communities are trying to enter competitive workforce without having the same familiarity with modern systems as young people from more affluent backgrounds. We want to break down barriers to invest in infrastructure and do what is required for those individuals and households where age, income or connectivity is leaving them behind, but we need to follow that up with real meaningful action. That is why we will support the Government to provide digital infrastructure and access to it. That is world-leading, but we will also hold them to account where they must do better. Colin Martel Fraser Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I think that there has been a very interesting debate with thoughtful and well-informed contributions from all sides. All the better, because it must be the first debate that we have had in quite a while. There has been hardly a mention of Brexit, although the cabinet secretary could not really help himself eight minutes into his speech and not a single mention of a second independence referendum. Long may that trend continue. We had Mike Rumbles talking about his frustration with his green box beside his non-existent trunk road. We had the customary history lesson from Stuart Stevenson, although, if I can correct one thing, I think that if he checks, he will find that the riot in St Giles on 23 July 1637 was not occasioned by the reading of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, but a new common prayer book devised specifically for Scotland. Mike Rumbles On that point? Yes, of course. Mike Rumbles He is also one of the issues that Mike Rumbles is one of which. Of course, there was no such thing as the Greek Empire, which he kept talking about, but he was wrong in so many things that I cannot list him here. Michael Freeson I still want to say to Mr Stevenson that, if he is interested in reading more about the politics and history of the mid-17th century in Scotland, I can recommend a very good book that was written last year that is still available in good book shops. That is not the only reason I welcome this debate. The digital economy has long been an interest of mine. In my very first speech that I made in the Scottish Parliament in 2001, I talked about what was then called the new economy and the need for better connectivity in rural areas. I went back and re-read that speech. Interestingly enough, in that debate, the word broadband was not even mentioned, never mind superfast broadband, but the principles, of course, are the same. In opening the debate, the cabinet secretary referred to his award. I congratulate him on his award, incidentally, for politics and business at the Politician of the Year awards last week. He congratulated, as I do, Johann Lamont for being e-politician of the year. Despite being nominated three times in a row, I was once again cruelly snubbed by the judges, but there is always next year, Deputy Presiding Officer. I was struck by contributions from much younger members and myself, recognising how much society has changed. Jamie Greene, reading out from the daily record of 1 January 2000, thought that the world was changed. Tom Arnoldo thought that it was very good setting out some of the changes that he has seen in his much shorter lifetime than mine. We have come a long way in 15 years. We now have a Scottish Government that has a manifesto commitment to delivering superfast broadband to 100 per cent of properties by 2021 and a UK Government committed to a universal service obligation. However, there is a lot of challenges ahead. In their briefing for this debate, the Federation of Small Business tells us that three quarters of Scottish firms say that dignital technologies are essential or important to their plans for growth. To make the most of those opportunities, firms need access to the right infrastructure and the right skills, and Willie Coffey and his contribution touched on the need for skills to be available in the workforce. According to the FSB's survey in June of this year, 83 per cent of Scottish premises could access superfast broadband compared to 89 per cent of premises south of the border. Sadly, superfast broadband roll-out for small or medium-sized businesses tends to lag behind the roll-out for the wider population. As we have heard throughout the debate, there is a particular issue in rural areas. Rhoda Grant, Edward Mountain and Marie Toll are all referred to the situation in the Highlands. I know from my own experience in areas such as Perthshire and Stirlingshire that we have large gaps still in terms of broadband provision, but it is not just rural areas that the attention Graham Simpson reminded us that there are many urban locations that have similar problems. There is a big problem with a lack of mobile connectivity in large parts of Scotland. Emma Harper reminded us of that just a few moments ago, and Scotland is worse place than the rest of the UK. I remember in my early years in the Parliament when we had an issue around mobile phone masks, it was largely because people would come to their MSPs to complain about mobile phone masks. People thought that the radio waves would fry their brains or their children's brains. Now, when people come to complain about mobile phone masks, it is because they are not being built fast enough. I think that there is more that can be done to encourage the operators in terms of sharing of masks. Yes, of course, I will give way. Derek Mackay. That is a very fair point around existing and new mobile phone masks, and would Murdo Fraser then welcome the actions to extend permitted development to encourage mobile operators to extend and deliver the kind of technology that will achieve the coverage that we all want to see? Murdo Fraser? In a spirit of consent, I am very happy to agree with that point from the cabinet secretary about how we can encourage the private sector to work together to deliver these masks more efficiently and get involved in sharing of masks, which I think is important. What I would like to touch on having talked about the private sector is the situation in the public sector, where a number of members, Daniel Johnson and Graham Simpson, made reference to that. On Tuesday, we saw the launch of the state of the state report from Deloitte's and Reform, which contains a lot of very interesting information about the future of the public services. As Daniel Johnson reminded us, it says that more than 800,000 public sector jobs could be lost across the UK by 2030 because of automation. That would save something like £17 billion annually in wages compared to that current year. Such a shift would be gradual, but it shows the challenges that we face in terms of the changing workforce, but the potential for lower costs to delivery of the public services. Yet, as the report makes clear, digital transformation is struggling to meet that ambition. Many of those who interviewed for the report told the authors that they felt that organisations should be more digitally advanced than they have been able to achieve. One permanent secretary said that he felt that his department was always a year away from an outcome. The head of a national body in Scotland is quoted as saying, we are at digital 1.0, but digital 3.0 or 4.0 is where we need to be. Sadly, the experience of too many in the public sector moving towards digital systems has been a negative one. Another public leader quoted in the report said, we have wasted time digitising systems that weren't fit for purpose in the first place, is rethinking the systems that will radically improve productivity. Our experience in the public sector in Scotland with IT systems is not always a happy one. We all know about the IT system for the common agricultural policy payments. 158 per cent over the original budget, and Audit Scotland said of that, we do not expect this programme to deliver value for money. The IT system for NHS 24 is 73 per cent over budget and four years later than originally planned. Police Scotland had to abandon their project and intended to provide a unified integrated IT system to the country's police force, which had been due to go live in December 2015. The Deloitte's report quotes the leader of one national agency saying, most people in the public sector would rather die in a ditch than roll out a large IT system, it will end their career. Views like that are disappointing but perhaps not surprising. We need to get better in the public sector if we really want to fulfil our potential in the digital world. The opportunities are there for greater efficiency, more productive public services and, at the moment, we are simply not making it work. There is room for improvement in both public and private sectors. I think that we have seen in this debate that the way forward is to work together and in the spirit of consensus we are happy to support both the Labour amendment and the Government motion. I call on Doudd Mackay to close this debate. Up to eight minutes please, cabinet secretary. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I think that it has been a constructive, very helpful and consensual debate with a number of fair suggestions that will feature in our refreshed digital strategy. To pick up exactly where Murdo Fraser left on to achieve that transformation, we will need to be bold and radical and work across the public and the private sector and work in partnership. I have been doing so with the digital lead that I have at the Scottish Leaders Forum, working with local authorities just today, working with a range of people with an involvement in digital, and certainly that approach will continue as we embark on doing things differently to be able to realise our clearly shared digital ambitions. I want to cover as many points as possible that members have fairly raised through the course of the debate. First of all, Edward Mountain's point is correct to draw attention to the fact that the fibre infrastructure will not physically reach every part of Scotland. We will take it as far as we possibly can, but there will have to be other technology solutions for the areas that we cannot physically reach to achieve the 100 per cent coverage of superfast broadband that we want to achieve while expanding on mobile. It is beyond just fibre, so that was a very fair point to make. Jamie Greene covered issues of digital participation, as did Patrick Harvie. It is also the use of data and the potential of public sector transformation, and it is also a sense that things in the past felt quite futuristic. It is a further lesson in how we should try to future proof as much as we can in recognition of the technology mix that will be there. Rhoda Grant covered the potential of the strategic refresh and made a number of suggestions that must turn into actions. That is a fair point. It cannot just be rhetoric, but there must be clear actions coming from that strategy. I hope that you will believe that that is the case when we are able to publish it next year. One of the reasons that we cannot publish it now is that it connects to Neil Bibby's question about resourcing for capital, for infrastructure and the actual connectivity. Of course, it is closely aligned with the autumn statement, the budget that I will propose and then what parties bring to the table as well. Only a few hours ago, I met the chief secretary to the Treasury to discuss our requests around capital stimulus and supporting the economy, so that we can grow the economy and tackle the digital divide. Willie Coffey covered the rapid progress in technology. He is well placed to talk about that. I am not talking about his longevity but his experience in the sector. How can we stay ahead at the cutting edge of doing things differently, like other small European nations that have a different culture? I focus the mind on how they want to use data in a safe way but to deliver better public services. I think that we have something to learn from some of those nations. Tom Arthur and other members' concerns about constituency coverage and that experience must be taken on board. Equally, Daniel Johnson's comments about productivity, automation and smart technology have downsides that we need to consider, as we accept our positives on that journey. In terms of particular expertise, it was refreshing to hear from Emma Harper and her personal expertise and involvement in how technology transformed surgery and, of course, Stuart Stevenson's ever-present expertise on that subject. To Murdo Fraser, I have to say that I was up for a politician of the year award as well, but I can say with all modesty to Murdo Fraser that he was robbed as a politician of the year, but I will credit to Joanne Lamont. Patrick Harvie was creative and used quotes to make the point around digital participation as well. I will quote from Steve Jobs, who said, "...great things in business are never done by one person, they're done by a team of people." That maxim applies equally to Government, hence the double act, the kind of silver surfer that is Mr Ewing and maybe the salt and pepper surfer that is me, thanks to Jackson Carlaw for exposing my previous issues. I can say that this partnership will ensure that the physical infrastructure is there, working with Mr Swinney on skills and me taking forward public service transformation, then hopefully will deliver along this route. When we publish the refresh strategy, hopefully it will cover all the areas of interest across public and private sector. It's not just a Government strategy, but a strategy indeed for Scotland that looks at skills, physical infrastructure and cybersecurity that some members have touched upon. Of course, we want to engage on that to continue building the picture of what will work for Scotland. Today, I am delighted to announce that we have launched an online interactive dialogue app, so that we can capture a wider and more diverse range of views as we take our strategy forward. The possibilities that digital creates for our citizens are vast and how citizens engage with society, Government and access public services and how we deliver those services more efficiently and effectively, how people manage their health and a whole host of other services, how they learn, how they engage and how we get more out of the education system and how businesses operate and can capitalise on the opportunities that exist. We are making significant progress in promoting digital participation. Over 80 per cent of Scots now use the internet between 2013 and 2015. There was a 20 per cent increase in broadband access at home among social housing tenants from 42 per cent to 63 per cent. That is why our digital inclusion toolkit is so important to expand on that. The Scottish-wide area network telecoms section in relation to reaching out through the public sector and further interventions to tackle the digital divide. I could go through a range of actions that we are taking, but some good examples of where e-services have worked well have included e-planning and e-building standards that are projected to save £73 million over five years, having cost just under £2 million. The digital first approach to services can make a difference for the client and the determining body. However, we want to enhance business digital capabilities as well. The enterprise skills review will support us in that, so will new initiatives such as CivTech, which I have had the pleasure of being involved with, and harnessing new support to support the talents of technology start-up companies to address our joint civic challenges. A range of other interventions will support our digital strategy to capitalise on those opportunities in the wider economy. A brief mention of Brexit that I have engaged with the sector, it says that there are serious challenges about loss of expertise, and we must take those concerns seriously. However, we must focus on the opportunities before us to build our economy, tackle the digital divide and transform our public services in a way that focuses on the new infrastructure that will release the potential of our country, partly the way that Daniel Johnstone described, as investment is very much well worth supporting. With the consensus, I believe, that we have established in the chamber today puts us on a very strong footing as we take that revised strategy forward. That concludes our debate on realising Scotland's full potential in the digital world. The next item of business is consideration of a parliamentary bureau motion, and I would ask Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion number 2121 on behalf of the parliamentary bureau on the council tax substitution of proportion Scotland order. I will now call on members to speak in the debate, and each member shall have up to three minutes. I will call on Andy Wightman to speak to and move amendment 2121.1. Scottish Green Party MSPs will be voting for the statutory instrument this evening, regardless of what recent amendments end up as part of the final motion. The substance of tonight's vote is whether the statutory instrument is approved by Parliament or not. It should be. We have considerable criticisms of the overall approach of the Scottish Government in this matter, however, but we do agree on some matters. We agree with the First Minister's adviser on poverty and inequality, Naomi Eisenstadt. We agree with previous commissions, including the Burt commission. We agree with statements made by the First Minister on the matter in previous sessions. We agree with the commission on local tax reform in their first recommendation that, as I quote, the present council tax system must end. The statutory instrument does not do that. It merely provides a tepid reheat of a discredited system. However, I repeat, we will be supporting the statutory instrument tonight. We will be voting for it. We do so because it provides an extremely modest but welcome step in making the council tax, probably the most regressive tax in the UK, that little bit less regressive. However, as a tax proposal, it is fatally flawed, since people's tax liabilities will be levied without an accurate or up-to-date assessment of the tax base. The consequence is that many people will be paying more tax who should be paying less. However, although the debate is technically about this modest change, it is about something more fundamental. At this time, the Parliament, four and a half years out from the next election, has a unique opportunity to build a majority for far-reaching reform that strengthens local democracy, accountability and fiscal autonomy, which endorses a fiscal framework for future local government settlements, that provides communities with real power to choose for themselves the scope, the extent and the quality of local services and how they will be funded. My amendment alters nothing in relation to the legislation. It does not alter the bans, it multipliers the rates. What it does do is to provide Parliament with an opportunity to express its views on the future of local taxation and local democracy. Will the council tax ever be abolished? Who knows? Will the council tax ever be based on an accurately assessed tax base? Who knows? Will local government in Scotland be granted the kinds of fiscal freedoms enjoyed by municipalities and councils across most of Europe? Who knows? Above all, will the statutory instrument become law tonight? It will if the SNP votes for it. This evening's debate makes it clear that the ball is in the SNP's court. If it votes for the motion, it will pass. If it abstains, it will let the Tories win. Next week, our minds will turn to further important matters. Let us pass this legislation tonight. I move the amendment in my name. My amendment delivers the key points in the Greens amendment. This Government recognises the importance of local accountability and local democracy, and we agree to continued discussion on the reform of local taxation. Crucially, we insert a key aim of embedding fairness and progressive taxation into those reforms. The Greens amendment does not mention progressive taxation as to enjoy the support of the Tories—of course, only long enough for the Tories to then pull their support in a bid to halt an increase in council tax for higher-value properties despite their own manifesto proposition. Opportunistic opposition may well be convenient, but the mature and responsible actions of a Parliament of minorities requires opposition not only to provide a critique but principles on which we can all build, and surely fairness is one. This SSI is purely about the council tax multipliers considering the proposal that won the support of the local government committee. It is a proposal that, according to the resolution foundation, will see council tax become fairer and more proportionate. In the report of April this year, resolutions stated that this policy would raise revenue in a progressive manner with the tax rise falling harder on higher-income households. It will see council tax bills increase for those who live in properties in bands E to H while protecting those on low incomes from any change and protecting the 75 per cent of taxpayers who live in bands A to D. Changing bands E to H will generate £100 million each year of additional revenues for local authorities, and that is £100 million that local authorities would not otherwise receive. We will continue to engage with local government on distribution matters and have been clear that every penny raised in council tax stays with that local authority. I have also set out to the chamber and to the committee this Government's commitment that the steps that we are taking today are simply the first in a journey of reform. Those are the earliest changes that we can make, which ensure that additional resources are available to councils from April. Over this Parliament, we can work together to make local taxation fairer. Both the First Minister and I have put that on the record, and I gave that commitment to the committee. If Parliament votes for our amendment tonight, that principle will be embedded in future reforms. Next month, I will bring a budget to this chamber. I have already written to each party asking for your proposals so that we can enter into a constructive discussion. We must be able to go into that discussion, knowing that it will be based on positive engagement on all sides, on honouring commitments and that this Parliament embraces new powers. We all have a duty to show that we are beyond the political games on such significant matters. I move the amendment in my name. We sit here today in uncharted waters. Parliament could be about to vote to allow the Scottish Government to impose a tax rise on local government, claw that money back and then spend it as it sees fit on a nationwide school attainment fund. It is totally unprecedented. Let us first of all be clear that we on these benches are in favour of a school attainment fund. We need to close the attainment gap after nine years of failure by the SNP. I imagine that the chamber will be united on that, the first part anyway. But as the green amendment makes clear, funding a measure, any measure, by the Scottish Government on the back of councils is an attack on local democracy and local accountability. As I said in a previous debate on this matter, it is a basic principle that money should be spent by those elected to raise it, those who are answerable for it to the electors. So if council tax increases, then it should be spent by councils. It should be entirely a matter for East Renfrewshire Council, for example, to decide how to spend the £4 million raised by increasing the amounts charged in the top four bands, or Edinburgh, it's £15.6 million, or South Lanarkshire, it's £5.5 million. However, in a financial slate of hand that would do Darren Brown proud, Derek Mackay will allow local authorities to keep their extra council tax because legally he has to, but will take it back by cutting grants. It's the