Chamber and committees

Thanks very much.

You do not think that there is anyone else who you could get the money back from.

Mr Denholm, you said that you are happy with the structure of the bank, but there is still a loss at the moment because you are still building up. I think that the Scottish Government has £5.8 million in resources for the budget this year, although you said that the income was up to £10.7 million now, which sounds positive. Where are we in terms of moving towards a balanced budget and even making a profit on the operating side?

You are in the space of investing and taking a slightly higher risk or a slightly longer-term approach and being more patient. I do not want to concentrate on Circularity Scotland, but is what happened there the typical picture? Is it the idea that you put in money first and then at some later point the private sector will come in with its money?

That makes a lot of sense.

You have had quite a lot of focus on ScotWind, and you have published a series of blogs on that. Just to choose one, I understand that part 4 of that series looked at accelerating transition in other sectors, including hydrogen. I am personally quite enthusiastic about the idea of hydrogen. We have had a number of briefings in Parliament about that. However, compared to electric vehicles and so on, hydrogen seems to be slightly further down the line and slightly less developed, and the likes of Friends of the Earth would say that it is very expensive. I just choose that as an example, but what is the bank doing in that field? Again, is it this idea of supporting the initial move?

Were other banks lending as well?

Assuming that you lose money, would you consider suing the relevant secretary of state?

As far as staffing levels are concerned, you have the right departments in place, but is your staffing where you feel it should be?

Okay—fair enough.

On a different point, on the concept of crowding-in private capital, I think that the ratio has been given of 2:1, which I take it means that, for every £1 you put in, there is £2 coming along. I think that we also saw a figure of £400 million from the bank and £1 billion from the private sector. Is that right?

Is that space of the next technology the kind of space that the bank is happy to be in?