Chamber and committees

In the written authority process, a minister does not seek to intervene in order to override a decision with written authority. Rather, an accountable officer—in this case, it was the director general, Mr Irwin—concludes through the green book analysis under the Scottish public finance manual that the value-for-money test or one of the two other elements of the accountable officer process has not been met. He or she then has to seek the authority of the minister—in this case, it is me—to proceed with the work.

There have been cases at the United Kingdom Government level in which ministers have sought to override advice from officials. In this case, however, Mr Irwin concluded that, on the narrow value-for-money assessment, he could not conclude that the work represented value for money, which is one of the three elements that he has to consider. He therefore sought my authority to proceed and I gave it, given the wider considerations that I had to take into account.

If I, personally, did something that put at risk the delivery of a Government agenda, of course I would consider my position. However, in this case, the issues that we are talking about, particularly in more recent times, have not been due to ministers or Government issues. As I said in my previous answer, we are facing incredibly turbulent economic factors that are driving supply chain constraints and cost increases, not just for parts but also for labour. As a result, the situation is incredibly unpredictable. Mr Hoy is well aware of the economic situation that the UK faces, and the impact that that has on public contracts is obvious.

I therefore cannot foresee a circumstance where this would be something that I would resign over unless I had done something directly, myself, that had caused any issues. So far, I do not think that that has been the case, Mr Hoy.

The Government has been very clear about our view of performance-related bonuses. They are contractual obligations, and I am sure that colleagues on the committee would not wish us to be seen to be breaking contractual law, but we have made very clear to the yard our displeasure at there having been bonuses and at any likelihood of any future bonuses.

A process is on-going as to whether the contracts can be renegotiated in order to see those removed. I hope that that can be the case, because I share the upset and anger of colleagues on the committee, colleagues in Parliament and people in Scotland around those bonuses being paid when there has been such delay and there have been such cost overruns with the project.

The figure that is in the public domain is £105 million to complete it, which is part of the overall cost of £202 million to complete it from when the yard was nationalised.

No. That is the total cost from when the yard was nationalised.

How much has still to be spent, from today?

I would need to come back to you in writing with that figure in light of the estimate that the chief executive issued last September.

We took that decision as the Government, yes.

Yes. When I provide in writing the timeline of the process before issuing written authority on 14 May, it will become clear that sufficient rigour was given to interrogate that. I ensured that we had looked at all possible permutations of the cost analysis to ensure that I was confident that the process was rigorous and that it had been carried out fully and appropriately, not just within the Government but with our external advisers. We considered all possible permutations, and I was confident that that was the right thing to do.

There is an on-going process of interaction with the management at the yard to ensure that everything possible is being done to keep costs to a minimum. Obviously, decisions have been made on the design of the ships that have contributed a significant amount to the additional costs, and they have been part of your deliberations over a long period of time. We continue to have discussions with management at the yard to make sure that everything possible is being done to minimise costs and that cost control measures are in place.