Councillor calls for more ambitious Islands Bill

A council leader has called for the Islands Bill to be strengthened as it faces its final vote at the Scottish Parliament today.

The Islands (Scotland) Bill was put forward following the Our Islands Our Future campaign carried out ahead of the Scottish independence refer- endum to demand more power for the islands.

Orkney Islands Council wants the bill to be strengthened to allow greater devolution of power to the islands and retrospective islandproofing of laws and policy and MSPS from opposition parties have proposed changes to enable this.

Council leader James Stockan said: “We believe the bill could be much more ambitious than it was at stage two of this process. We want it to be genuinely empowering, so that it has a lasting and positive impact on the lives of people in Scotland’s island communities. The Scottish Government has the opportunity to take forward ground-breaking legislation that would be transformational for island communities like ours.”

Orkneymspliammcarthur claimed he had secured support for a key change to the legislation on the eve of the stage three debate. He believes the government will now back changes to ensure law and policy are not just island-proofed in the future but this is also applied retrospectively.