Thank you. That concludes general questions. Before we move to First Minister's questions, I invite members to join me in welcoming to the gallery theita Burmisteri, Ambassador of Latvia to the UK. Thank you. The next item of business is First Minister's questions.

And at question number one, I call Douglas Ross.

Thank you, President.

This week, a third of the population of South Uist turned out to protest against ferry cancellations.

They are rightly furious that this month every ferry to their island has been scrapped.

Reports today quote, Christina Morrison, who runs the Crofton-Cueen near Lock Boisdale Ferry Terminal.

She said, we don't want compensation, we need compensation.

Jobs and businesses are on the line because of SNP failures. So will his government compensate

Islanders for his mistakes?

First Minister.

First and foremost, can I recognise what a disruption that has been caused by the failure of that ferry

that has been caused by the breakdown of the ferry in question.

So nobody in the Government, certainly not I as

First Minister, I'm doubting the significant impact in the South-Eust community.

The former Transport Minister did of course visit South East and

indeed North East. He also spoke to the South-Eust Business impact group as well.

We do understand the level, the degree of disruption that is taking place to the community.

What I will say is that, of course, we will look at what we can do to support business.

I have looked previously at the issue of compensation.

It has been raised in this chamber, rightly so, by a number of MSPs across the political

chamber.

The reason why we haven't, for example, brought forward compensation is because the money that

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