Chamber and committees

I want to ask Ewan MacDonald-Russell a question about just in time. John Lee talked about his members using a range of wholesalers to maintain stock levels. I notice that, increasingly, the shelves in larger supermarkets are filled with advertising cards rather than products and that more space is given to certain products—previously, a product might have had a frontage of two or three columns, whereas it now has six, seven or eight columns. Are the challenges for larger supermarkets in maintaining stock levels different from those for the convenience store sector, given that it has its own distribution system?

Does anyone else have any concerns about the infrastructure in Scotland and the need to address it?

[Inaudible.]—environmental issue. What are the benefits of moving from road to rail with regard to achieving our climate change targets?

On HS2, which you mentioned, I read a report in the media that the freight industry was the big loser in the cancellation of the northern part of that project. Can you touch on that, too?

My questions are addressed to Maggie Simpson, as they are predominantly about rail freight. We have talked about the international situation, but I am keen to understand the UK domestic situation in terms of opportunities for growing rail freight. Network Rail’s industry growth plan from April 2019 to March 2024 aims to try to grow rail freight by 7.5 per cent by March 2024. One of the written submissions suggests that, if we accelerate the transfer of freight from road to rail, we could reduce loads from Scotland to England by 900 loads per day. Where are we on trying to grow rail freight in Scotland?

I also want to ask about ferries and sea alternatives. Perhaps I can address the question first to Richard Ballantyne of the British Ports Association.

Because of congestion on the roads, increased fuel costs and, of course, the situation with HGV drivers, companies are looking at alternatives. One such alternative is rail. However, what are the possibilities with regard to introducing direct ferry routes from Scotland? In Ireland, according to the latest reported numbers, there has been a substantial 21 per cent reduction in container trade with the UK, while direct trade with the European Union has gone up by 36 per cent. Is there a possibility of reintroducing the Rosyth to Zeebrugge route, for instance, or of establishing the much talked about Norwegian connection, given the change in circumstances?

Bryan, do you want to comment on that?

We spoke earlier about problems with the supply of people. There are vacancies in agriculture, hospitality, manufacturing and construction, and for HGV drivers. What should the Scottish Government or, indeed, the UK Government be doing immediately to try to address those issues? We have had various calls from VisitScotland, Scottish Chambers of Commerce and the Royal Society of Edinburgh for the UK Government, predominantly, to intervene, but what are your views on how we improve the supply of people?

A lot of the questions that I was going to ask have been covered, but I would like clarification on a couple of points. We have talked a lot about upskilling and reskilling the existing workforce, but the SDS submission highlights that the percentage of Scottish businesses that provide training for staff has fallen from 70 per cent to 59 per cent over the past seven or eight years. Chris, as a starter, will you provide some background to that data?

The number of businesses that were training staff was fairly consistent over a long period before that so, if the figure is an outlier, are we roughly where we were pre-pandemic?

Does anyone else want to respond?