Chamber and committees

Yes.

I will make no comment.

There were lots of sensitivities about the opening that I became aware of only afterwards—it is a sore point.

As I look at this from the perspective that I have now, some of the questions that the committee is posing are reasonable. That does not mean that there is anything sinister there. As a Government, we were desperately trying to find a path to meet a 2025 target. Obviously, the prospect and chances of doing that were diminishing with every month and year that passed, but we had not given up on doing so.

The 2014 date is significant because of the Office for National Statistics issue with the classification of NPD. That was not the point at which we had to consider a private finance option, as that was always a requirement; it was the point at which we had to effectively scrap the one that would have been the option and try to find another one, which took considerable work and time.

Then there was the period around 2018. As I think I said in response to the convener, if I look at the issue now, in hindsight, that is a point at which it is reasonable to at least pose the question about whether we should have been airing a bit more of this publicly. If I remember correctly, the original estimate for construction was about six years. By 2018, you are getting to the point at which, even if you have the finance procurement route settled, you are starting to get tight for a 2025 target.

If I was to go back to relive that period, I do not think that I have read anything that would make me think that there is something that we could have done to change things and to hit that target, but I would say that we should perhaps have been airing a lot more of the difficulties that we were in or the challenges that we were facing at that point a bit more openly. However, that is me applying hindsight.

I think that it is for the reasons that I have spoken about. Again, I say this with hindsight—that is one of the features of exercises such as this; we look at all these things from a different perspective. The 2025 target was always a massive mountain to climb, and to get to the summit by 2025 was going to require everything to go our way.

We then had certain things that did not go our way, such as the 2014 ONS issue, and austerity—I am not making a party-political point there; austerity put huge pressure on budgets. There was also Covid, which I have just spoken about. Those things were over and above the inherent complexities of the project around design, route selection, public consultation and environmental assessment—the project runs through a national park, and there are sites of historical significance. When we add on some unforeseen complexities, that is the reason why we are sitting here.

That does not make it easy or acceptable from the perspective of the Highlands, but nor does it equate to a situation in which the Government simply did not bother trying to progress the A9 project. We had significant commitment and drive behind it, but we encountered very significant challenges along the way.

This is where I will be candid with the committee. I have looked again—as you would expect me to do in advance of being here—at all the papers that I would have seen, and some that I did not, which I would not, as First Minister, routinely have seen at the time.

Before I say what I am about to say, I think that it is important not to sit here and say that there is nothing that we could have done to speed it up. It is important that there are processes to enable us to look back and really ask those hard questions. There will undoubtedly be points at which different decisions might have speeded things up to some extent.

Do I think that there is anything, in the context that we were, and that we came to be, dealing with, that we could have done that would have meant that the 2025 target turned out to be deliverable? My honest answer is no, I do not, because of the nature of the challenges with which we were confronted.

If I was First Minister then, is there something that I think that I could have done to meet that target? I genuinely do not. If I was First Minister now, which is not a prospect that I really like to contemplate, I would, I think, be confident—with all the caveats that one always has to add around major infrastructure projects—in the programme and the timeline that the Government has now set out.

Therefore, clearly, he will have views, and I might have more sympathy with some of those views than with others.

Throughout that whole period, the Scottish Government was largely looking at how we could help deal with the cash flow financial issues because, without that, we could not make progress on the vessels, and we rigorously looked at all options. The Scottish Government gave the budgetary cover for CMAL to change the milestone payments and accelerate the final payment. We looked at and delivered loan provision for CMAL. Later, after the second loan, I certainly had concerns about Jim McColl’s adherence to some of the agreements that we had reached. We also looked at the different option that CBC put to us.

I would go further than that. Certainly, at the point at which we got to nationalisation, had we not nationalised, in my view, the yard would have closed, and the vessels would never have been completed. Every decision that a Government takes on any issue involves a balance of risk. Clearly, in the period before we took public ownership in December 2019, there was a whole process of exploring and considering all the issues around nationalisation and alternatives to it but, by the time that we got to that point, it was not just the preferred option; it was the only viable option that was available.

Sure, but, to be clear, that would have meant that—undoubtedly, in my view—the yard would have closed, and there would have been no route to completing the vessels. However difficult and unsatisfactory the route to completing the vessels has proved to be, at that point, there would have been no route to completing the vessels, and those employed at the yard would have been without that employment.

Our—and my—fundamental responsibility is to ensure that we deliver the contract, that the vessels are completed and that we properly learn the lessons that need to be learned. I am very serious about that responsibility.