Chamber and committees

I think I have been kicking around the Parliament for too long, because I remember Stewart Stevenson—in a previous incarnation of your current role, minister—outlining the situation.

I want to clarify something. First, thank goodness there is a cap, because we have to protect the public purse—that is a positive, not a negative, thing. However, my understanding is that, if we reach that cap and we get the data, no service will be impacted. What will happen is that we will get the data for the next round of negotiations on setting the budget for the next concessionary travel scheme. Reaching the cap will inform the data for the next discussions that we have with bus operators, rather than put at risk any bus service, anywhere. Is that the situation?

Thank you.

That is where I wanted to come in, convener. However, first of all, someone out there will be watching this exchange, and we keep talking about capex. Can we not speak in code, and can you be clear about what you mean by capex?

I knew that, but let us not codify in a way that is not accessible to the general public. That is really important.

We have had some reassurances that the small vessel replacement programme will be more stable, there will be fewer risks, and there is already more certainty about delivery compared with that for the two complex vehicles. Mr Ruskell established that in exchanges very well. There was a bid for £23 million or so of capital money to upgrade the yard in order to make it more competitive for bidding for anything commercial, including the seven vessels that may come from the Scottish Government. Mr Miller talked about the initial bid being clunky. Can we not speak in euphemisms? What do you mean by clunky? Apologies—you said “chunky”. The bid was too high, was it not?

Okay. I know that you have to answer this question in a roundabout way, but for every £1 of capital investment the public purse gives Ferguson, does that take £1 off the cost to the taxpayer of delivering the small vessels in the first place? That is what we want to know. If you are saying that we could deliver them more efficiently, I hope that that means more speedily, to a higher standard and cheaper. For every £1 of capital investment that the Government gives to Ferguson, does that shave £1 or more off the overall cost?

Without giving how much you could shave off the tender that Ferguson could make for the small vessels fleet, can you give an idea of the relationship between capital investment from the Scottish Government and cost savings on any future procurement?

Technically, you have surpassed the seating requirements of your client. That is what I am trying to get at.

I do not think that this is contentious at all. I just want clarity. I assume that you want to curtail my line of questioning, which is quite a mundane line of questioning actually. I just want clarity. Thank you.

Let us get that clarity now. Did the original document say 127 cars and 16 lorries all at the same time? If you are right, convener, I am happy to apologise, but I just wanted clarity on that. I was not saying that you were wrong.

Convener, let me apologise to you if I was a little bit prickly in our exchange there. I was not trying to undermine your questioning; I genuinely wanted to get clarity to better understand it. If I have done that, my apologies to you, convener.

That would make it more palatable to the public purse.