Chamber and committees

That is a really good question, and I think that it is an important question when we are considering any roads projects. We could talk about this in a lot more detail but, in respect of the A9 generally, no, I do not think that it did. The A9 was effectively excluded from the Bute house agreement—I am using shorthand here—but the commitment to it continued because of the important reasons for the dualling of the A9. It is not about providing extra road capacity for more cars; it is fundamentally about safety, so it is a roads project that is important to complete.

More generally, the climate cannot be divorced from the consideration of road projects in this day and age; it is an important part of any deliberation. However, I would argue strongly that the reason why we are sitting here talking about delays to the dualling of the A9 is not about the Greens being in government or because we downgraded the priority of it for some consideration of climate and emissions targets.

The impact of Covid on the A9 project would have been multifaceted, as it was on every aspect of Government priorities outside what was required to manage Covid. It would have impacted civil service time and wider industry engagement. Everything associated with a big project would have been and was impacted by Covid.

Again, I am using shorthand here, which is probably always a bit dangerous, but, effectively, outside what we needed to do to deal with Covid—this applied not just here but everywhere—the rest of Government shut down to some extent. That, of course, impacted on the A9 project, as it did on many other things.

I do not particularly want to think about climbing—sorry. [Laughter.]

I would be supportive of that proposal. It would be appropriate. We tend to have memorials to disastrous tragedies that lead to a significant loss of life in a single incident, which is entirely appropriate, but we do not do the same with loss of life over longer periods in situations such as the one that we are speaking about, and we should.

My views on that have possibly been strengthened by the Covid experience. I know from talking to bereaved families, because of my close involvement in that experience, how important it is to have recognition and somewhere that people can go to reflect, remember and come to terms with their grief. The importance of that cannot be overstated. Therefore, the proposal would and does have my general support.

On the process, I again draw from the experience of Covid to some extent. It would be wrong and inappropriate for Government to decide what that should be. The starting point in any such process should be engagement with people who have lost loved ones or who live on the route of the A9—those with, to use the term, lived experience of the loss that we seek to commemorate—and the process should work from there.

Memorials take many different forms. As you said, we all have particular images in our minds when we talk about memorials, but there are lots of Covid memorials that are open spaces, gardens and places where people simply go to reflect. Therefore, it would be important to properly understand what would be meaningful for people who have lost loved ones on the A9.

No—I think that we have covered everything that I expected us to cover. There were a couple of moments when I rather rashly offered to provide more written information. It would be good if the committee could remind me of those, as I no longer have an army of civil servants sitting behind me to remind me later.

This is probably a classic politician’s answer—I am trying not to give those—but, if it is possible, it is both. It is absolutely fair for people in the Highlands to say that the A9 should have been prioritised above the other demands on the capital budget. If I was living in the Highlands, there is no doubt that I would have that view, so I am not in any way suggesting that that is somehow an unfair view for Highlanders to hold.

The other side of it relates to the way that you posed that question to me. I understand why you did it—you are speaking on behalf of your constituents, so I am not criticising that in any way—but you were in the Government for many years, so you know that to point to a big budget when speaking about a particular project that is small, relative to the size of the budget, and say, “Well, why couldn’t that have been done?” does not fully encapsulate the budgeting process.

For most, if not all, of the time that I was in the Government, the demands on the capital budget exceeded the quantum of it. Fergus Ewing knows that as well as I do, because of his time in the Government. Within that, there is a legitimate question about the relative priority that is given to different projects, but in the process of budgeting we try to balance all of those things to progress everything that we want to do, and that will inevitably lead to supporters of different projects feeling, at times, that their project is not getting the priority that it needs.

However, it is not a fair characterisation of how such things work to simply point to the size of the budget and the cost of the A9 and somehow say that there was no problem with funding through our capital programme.

As an aside, I note that, against the wishes of the Government that you and I were both part of, the Parliament choosing the trams had implications for other aspects of the capital programme at that time.

All of the projects that you have spoken about were necessary and important. As a relatively new driver, I have only recently driven across some of those projects—I drove on the A9 for the first time just a couple of weeks ago. The projects were all important, but I do not think that that is the point that you are making.

It is not the case that we inappropriately prioritised the Queensferry crossing, the M74 improvements or the Borders railway. However, I suppose that my short answer to your question would be yes—although we ran into the difficulties that I have been speaking about, I certainly hope and expect that the Government now prioritises completing the A9.

The programme that has been set out, with timescales, will still face challenges along the way—I would be astonished if it did not. To me, it looks like a programme that will succeed, and it is essential that it is given the priority to ensure that it does.

No, not as far as I am aware. I think that you were in government during most of that time, Fergus, so you would be aware of any decisions taken there. You will remember as well as I do some of the difficult discussions that we had around the Cabinet table about budgets; as is the nature of budgetary processes, we had to balance the competing priorities. At different times, different projects will have greater immediate priority than others, but it is always about trying to balance and achieve the objectives that we have set.

That is an excellent observation. I know that we are talking about the A9, but that point is one of the things that is quite difficult conceptually for people to get their heads round, including people in Government at the time, but also very real across a whole range of issues. In the national health service, for example, the period in which elective treatment was shut down had a significant multiplier effect in terms of what it takes to recover that position.

On everything else, including the A9 project, it takes more time to catch up with such things than the period of the pause, for a variety of reasons. It is not that people are sitting round and not trying to get back on top of things; it is just the way that such things work. On a whole range of things and in many walks of life, the recovery period from the Covid experience will be much longer than the two years-plus of Covid.

Again, I am happy to set that out in more detail. My written submission covered the period when I was the Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities, not First Minister. I am not asking for more requests for information but, if it would be helpful to set a bit more of that down in writing, I will do that for the committee.

In summary, as First Minister, you have an overview. The day-to-day responsibility for making sure that things are being done as they should be on any project, as is the case on the A9 project, is with the relevant cabinet secretary. As First Minister, although I was not copied into everything, I was copied into significant briefings or submissions on things, and I would ask questions and get more involved in periods when I thought that there was a need for it. That is how these things generally work.

The A9 would have featured from time to time in Cabinet discussions—Fergus Ewing quoted from a Cabinet minute a wee while ago—and, at particular moments, the cabinet secretary would have brought things to Cabinet. I do not have all the papers in front of me, so I cannot say exactly when that would have happened with the A9, but I would be happy to provide more information on that if it is appropriate.