Chamber and committees

Obviously, you are the principal accountable officer in the Government. Is it your view that the Government’s policy objectives are affordable and sustainable?

We are a little bit against the clock, but we want to ask you about a couple of other areas. Before we move on, permanent secretary, what is your view of the fact that the written authority that was sought this year was the first one since 2007?

Let me move on to another industrial intervention that is contained in the report, which is the Lochaber aluminium smelter. That brings us into the relationship between the Scottish Government and the GFG Alliance. The Auditor General’s words are again pretty clear this year. Not only has he chosen to include that in his section 22 report on the Scottish Government’s consolidated accounts, but he says:

“There continues to be uncertainty regarding the financial stability of GFG Alliance”.

He goes on to point out that the potential liability to the public purse has increased by £21 million since last year to an exposure of £135 million. How are you managing that? What is your response to that? Is it not looking increasingly likely that this whole investment could run into difficulty?

It was reported at the weekend that the former chief executive of Wyelands Bank, which was part of the GFG Alliance, was fined £110,000 by the Bank of England’s prudential regulation authority. There are Serious Fraud Office investigations into the GFG Alliance. Various House of Commons select committees have cast doubt on the business model of the GFG Alliance. The last time that we took evidence from you, we heard that the group had failed to submit audited accounts. Where is your relationship with the GFG Alliance, and what is the current position, as you understand it, given that risk and uncertainty identified by the Auditor General?

You said that you met representatives of the GFG Alliance. When was the last time that the Scottish Government or one of its representatives met Sanjeev Gupta?

Is that the company name?

Not to paraphrase the Deputy First Minister too heavily but, when she presented it to the Parliament, she accepted that there was no fundamental change and that it was a rather modest improvement. Is it reviewed every five years? Is that how it works?

When you say, “similarly”, do you mean that we can expect other public sector organisations to downsize as well?

Against those listed items that were purchased with the e-card, the report uses the expression “out of scope” quite a lot. Can you just elaborate on what that means? Does it mean that the things that Mr Simpson spoke about are still in scope, or are they out of scope? Are they out of scope full stop, out of scope for the e-card, or in scope?

Okay. Karen Watt, do you have a perspective on that?

Okay. Thank you.

I will move things along now. I invite Colin Beattie to put some questions to you.