Chamber and committees

We have received incredible interest in that consultation. I believe that, at the previous count, there were more than 1,400 responses to it, which is almost seven times the number of responses that we had the previous time that we consulted on an energy strategy, so there is clear interest in it. We need to ensure that we give that proper consideration, but we will seek to publish our final strategy as quickly as we can off the back of considering the consultation responses.

Wellbeing economy elements already run through NSET. Indeed, we have built in a wellbeing economy metric that allows us to continually monitor our progress in the areas that we want to chart, including our sustainability, our child poverty targets and ensuring that we are narrowing the gender pay gap and that more people are going into employment.

The job title has been changed to refocus things and ensure that prominence is given to wellbeing elements. The First Minister has also set me the very clear task of resetting the relationship with business and ensuring that that relationship is strong and that business continues to perform well so that we can deliver the wellbeing elements of what we want to achieve in Government.

There will be no change to NSET. We will be sharpening our focus as a result of the policy prospectus, which covers the areas that I have set out and which come directly from the national strategy, but we are also committed to delivering the priorities in the strategy.

We are working on that now with the investments that we are making and through the energy skills passport to ensure that we offer opportunities for people who work in the oil and gas sector to transition. That will be an on-going process, but we will maintain a focus on ensuring that we give as many opportunities as possible to our indigenous workforce. However, we will also put pressure on the UK Government to ensure that the international labour force—which we must accept will need to play a part—is able to play a part in some areas.

My colleagues will correct me if I am wrong, but I think that we are currently sitting at 21 per cent, despite the challenges that, as Mr MacDonald has mentioned, we have faced with Brexit and the global pandemic. Decisions of the UK Government, which are outwith our control, have clearly hampered our performance.

As I have already outlined, our international network does an incredible job of supporting not only inward investment into Scotland but our exports. I have seen that in the international engagements that we have carried out, as indeed one of my predecessors, Ms Hyslop, was able to do. In particular, the SDI network does an incredible job of embedding itself in target markets, understanding those areas, building strong relationships with business and also understanding domestic business needs for exporting. We continue to support the 1,200 target businesses in Scotland that have the greatest propensity for export in that important area.

We will get back to Mr MacDonald in writing on that question, as it is about something that predates my involvement in trade.

We continue to reflect on that, to ensure that our work as a trading nation is ethical and sustainable. We continue to take the areas that you have suggested into regard, to ensure that, where possible, we do our work in a sustainable way that ensures economic performance that is not too much to the detriment of our net zero ambitions.

I was pleased that one of the first meetings that I had on taking office was with the Fair Work Convention. Its role as a partner is important but it is also a critical friend in that it holds us to account and ensures that we are doing all that we can to honour our fair work commitments.

Our refreshed fair work action plan was published in December last year. It sets out our approach to embedding fair work and tackling workplace inequalities.

I am hopeful.

I am happy to do that.

On-going decisions about investments will lead to job creation. I will bring in Mr Cook to provide more detail.