Chamber and committees

Good morning, and welcome to the 20th meeting in 2023 of the Economy and Fair Work Committee. I have received apologies from Colin Beattie and Gordon MacDonald; John Mason is attending in Gordon MacDonald’s place.

Since our last meeting, Fiona Hyslop has resigned from the committee and has been appointed as Minister for Transport. On behalf of the committee, I place on record our thanks to Fiona Hyslop for her work in this session as a member of the committee. We send her our best wishes in her new role.

Our first item of business is a decision to take items 3 and 5 in private. We previously agreed that other items would be taken in private. Does the committee agree to do that?

Members indicated agreement.

I want to go back to the start of the process and the awarding of the loan. The bank is independent from Government, but did ministers or Scottish Government officials make any representation to the bank about awarding the loan? Did any meetings or conversations take place?

I think that Jamie wants to ask a follow-up question.

I have a couple of final questions on this subject. You mentioned the Bank of Scotland, did you mean RBS?

Finally, I think that Mr Denholm has recognised that the description that has been given of the support and encouragement from ministers is something that the bank will reflect on. Is the project unique to the bank’s investment portfolio, or is there a comparable investment in terms of the reliance on political statements and Parliament’s support for an investment?

Before I bring in Jamie Halcro Johnston, I have a question that follows on from Maggie Chapman’s questions.

Recent annual accounts notwithstanding, Circularity Scotland reported a small loss of around £4 million, which I understand was due to the re-evaluation of investments. Could you say a bit about how that was within tolerance and what that means for longer-term investments and the approach toward investments? What will the impact of the expected loss from that project be? At the moment it is sitting at £4 million in the annual accounts.

Do you feel that that is the best approach, or would you welcome an opportunity to do the same as the UK Infrastructure Bank does?

Would you say that there was an expectation from the Scottish Government? When the loan was announced, there was quite a nice picture and press release that went out that included the minister, yourselves, RBS and Circularity Scotland, and it looked very much like a joint venture.

RBS provided the initial sum of £9 million.

It was the Bank of Scotland—apologies. Actually, the press release that came out in May last year said:

“The Royal Bank of Scotland money will be used to fund the start-up costs.”

To be fair, the photograph is captioned “Bank of Scotland”, so I think there is a mistake in the press release, so apologies for the confusion.

It was the Bank of Scotland that invested £9 million along with the £9 million from—