Chamber and committees

We are committed to that, but when our budget is determined by another Government deciding how much money to give us, and in what form, there is a ceiling to the assurances that we can give. We can give an assurance that the bank is a priority, that we are really proud of it, that it has an important role to play and that we will do our level best to protect it. Ultimately, however, the funding comes from a budget that is determined by another Government.

There are examples of the Scottish National Investment Bank joining forces with others. For example, an investment of £100 million in the regeneration of Ardersier port was announced a couple of weeks ago. That was done in collaboration, with the bank and the UK Government each providing £50 million to create that £100 million package. Those opportunities for collaboration are also important.

In answering that, I go back to my experience in my previous job. They have really fluctuated. The UK Government became really interested in financial transactions in 2016 or 2017, when there was a rapid increase in use of them as a means of funding. There were various reasons for that. The UK Government was using financial transactions as a means of funding its own house building initiatives. I am very conscious that you are sitting next to the former housing minister, who will probably be able to speak more knowledgeably about housing budgets. The UK Government has severely cut the house building that it is doing, and that has had an impact on the consequential financial transactions that have been given to the Scottish Government.

This is crystal ball territory. I can neither tell you what will happen in the next few weeks, nor can I tell you how keen the next UK Government will be on financial transactions, or whether it will be keen on them at all. We find ourselves in the remarkable position of trying to budget for policy areas that rely on long-term certainty without having any long-term certainty of our own.

No—not at all. We have made a commitment to capitalise the bank, and we will capitalise the bank. In a sense, how we manage our budget in such a way that we continue to capitalise the bank is our problem. It is simply the case that that would be a lot easier to do if we knew what budget was coming to us.

However, it was definitely not short-sighted to establish the Scottish National Investment Bank using financial transactions. That is an obvious funding stream for our national investment bank. It makes sense to use financial transactions. It is a form of funding that a bank in its position, whereby it lends and then makes returns, really needs. It would probably have been quite short-sighted of us not to have used financial transactions in that way. That would have been a huge wasted opportunity.

That is what I see our entrepreneurship and innovation work trying to do. It takes a very devolved approach in working with and supporting, for example, incubators and accelerators. I hope that I am understanding your question correctly. It is interesting, when you meet some such businesses—I call them businesses, but they really are pioneers and innovators—

I will explore the detail of that issue, but I expect a fair wage to be paid and I think, when it comes to workers across the Scottish economy, that a fair wage is the real living wage.

I always prefer clear and deliverable objectives to a document that simply outlines a view of the world. The green industrial strategy must be entirely understood in relation to the objective of reaching net zero, and we cannot reach net zero without an economy that gets to net zero and without businesses that are investing in what is required in order to get to net zero. I like to think of our net zero ambitions as creating opportunity, not just challenges. The approach is not just about stopping things; it is also about creating new things that can be done.

The work on net zero will be shared between me and Màiri McAllan, who retains the net zero brief. It will inevitably involve policy areas such as planning consents and how we can accelerate the work that is required. If businesses would be entangled in process for two years, we are unlikely to see the transition from oil and gas jobs to green industry jobs, because those businesses can go elsewhere or might just give up.

We will have specific aims, but our approach must be full of ambition to get to net zero.

First, that means meeting the industry in order to listen and understand—not embracing empty ideological positions that do not resonate with the industry.

Secondly, we need to understand how key the industry is to the Scottish economy. The First Minister said—I will repeat this—that our focus has to be not only on meeting the country’s security needs and reducing emissions in line with our climate change targets, but on delivering affordable energy supplies. We cannot do that by jeopardising 100,000 of the oil and gas workforce, as independent experts suggest, or by turning the taps off. We have never proposed that.

Listening means meeting the industry, understanding it and being clear about what our objectives are and are not.

Thirdly, as you have said, there can be no transition without the wealth of resources, funding, talent and skills that the north-east and the oil and gas industry have right now. To threaten that industry and turn the taps off overnight, or to apply policies that jeopardise the future of the industry, risks our transition.

Let us talk about short-term measures of success. Perhaps Aidan Grisewood will answer that.

It would be easier to answer that question if we were not in purdah. I will not keep revisiting that, but in the past few weeks there was a lot of momentum regarding what we would be able to publish in the coming weeks. That will now have to wait.

What will change is that there will be a real sense of action in the economy space. That is how businesses operate. When they make investments, for example, they need to get a deal over the line and need to feel that there is a receptive environment for the work that they will do. However, they also need to know that there are expectations about how they treat their workers and how consistent and coherent the regulatory framework is. I want to enable economic momentum by creating a stable regulatory environment that is coherent and consistent, as well as ensuring that we operate in a no-surprises world.

You and I know that our public finances are extremely challenging—I do not think that we can emphasise that too much at the moment. They are extremely difficult. At the end of the year, we will have to take budget decisions that enable economic prosperity and growth, as well as investing in the public services that, frankly, voters tell us are a priority, such as the national health service, education and the other forms of infrastructure that you have just referenced.

As the Scottish Government is dealing with an 8 per cent plus cut to capital, I am even more interested in how we attract private investment in our great opportunities around the green industries, so that we can create the jobs. Ultimately, that is what will drive economic growth and allow us to reinvest public revenue.

On informing Parliament of how the First Minister’s priorities will be delivered through policy, I would love to be in a position to spell that out before summer. There would be no greater joy or pleasure for me than to do that. It feels extremely frustrating, but I will not argue with the advice that we have been given that an election is an election and that we are in a purdah period.

It is certainly to our frustration that we cannot spell those things out in the parliamentary space, but I hope that we will be able to do so as soon as possible afterwards, because the work is there. The work of Government has not stopped, and that momentum will continue. In terms of spelling out what a refreshed programme looks like and being crystal clear on what the policies are, roll on the beginning of July.