Chamber and committees

This year’s budget has shown that, even with a difficult budget settlement, we have absolutely prioritised the Scottish National Investment Bank because we know the work that it has been doing in the economy.

There were £174 million of financial transactions in this year’s budget, as well as £2.8 million of resource. The cut to financial transactions has been more than 60 per cent. Ultimately, those must be repaid, because they are not a form of straightforward grant funding from the UK Government. The two areas that benefited most from financial transactions were housing and the Scottish National Investment Bank. We have done our level best to protect those areas, but both of them have had challenging settlements.

The Scottish National Investment Bank is on a journey. It always aimed to become self-resourcing and is still on that journey. The bank is going through Financial Conduct Authority processes, which gives an opportunity to attract other private investment. Lastly, if and when that is needed, the bank will also receive additional investment from the Scottish Government for particular shared objectives, such as the ScotWind process.

I will continue to engage with VisitScotland on its strategy, but I think that it has a very important role to play beyond just marketing.

Over the years, I have been very involved with campaigns on information that needs to be shared with visitors—often, before they arrive. For example, on account of a number of road fatalities, I have been very involved in a “Keep left” campaign, trying to remind drivers who might not be familiar with doing so to drive on the left. My first point is that VisitScotland has a hugely important role to play in that regard.

Secondly, how does VisitScotland ensure that areas in tourism hotspots—where there is quite serious congestion in a few different locations—are not overwhelmed? There are hundreds, if not thousands, of acres that visitors could go to instead.

Thirdly, before visitors come, there is a need to be prepared, with accommodation, transport and so on.

VisitScotland should work with content, whether that is user-generated or its own, but it needs to go beyond just marketing.

I ask Fran Pacitti to come in on the specifics of any sale process, if that is okay.

We continue to review these things, but it would still be the Government’s preference to return the airport to private ownership. We do operate airports through HIAL, and I know that they are essential to my region. There is a reason why the Government does that, and I think that it does it really well. I do not think that Prestwick fits into that HIAL model; its model is completely different, and therefore, our preference would still be to return it to private ownership.

I do not know whether Fran Pacitti wishes to add anything about the Government’s reasons for doing so.

We come back to the fact that the Scottish Government has no certainty over any part of our budget. That has created some of the challenges. I do not know of any part of the public sector that would not like to have a multiyear budget settlement. The Scottish Government would love that—it would bite off the UK Government’s hand to have a multiyear budget settlement. I do not know when the last time—

Obviously I want to be careful in answering this question, as I am very constrained in relation to the details that I can share. We want to ensure that the process is fair and appropriate and that all parties have confidence in it.

I will ask Fran Pacitti to come in again, as some of this pre-dates my tenure. I am aware of the details on paper, but Fran can perhaps talk about how things were handled, because the matter was handled in a way that sought to protect the process.

They are remarkable and they come from lots of different backgrounds. Some are academics, some are not. They will talk, in a good way, about the patchwork of support that they have received—for example, in relation to facilities or a venue where they can be located, and getting access to research and data. There is a patchwork of support. Funding is also key: the £5 million that I announced last week is explicitly for things such as those that you talked about.

If the committee has not been to the National Robotarium, you should go. It is looking at a business that could, overnight, massively cut the amount of landfill waste using artificial intelligence robotics in a sector that has a very high turnover of workers, for obvious reasons. If it was operating in every local authority, we would see landfill fall off a cliff—although not literally.

I have three answers. First, it is about working together across public organisations. Do you know what made the difference in some of the most recent investments? Organisations were able to engage with all the relevant individuals and officials in one room—they knew where to go and they did not have to scramble around to figure out who to speak to.

Secondly, organisations knew exactly what was expected of them. What we needed from them was clear and shared with them up front. It is not about deregulation; it is about being really clear on what people want.

Thirdly, when major and significant consenting is required, we need to look at accelerated processes—the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy will set that out—so that it is not necessary for every consenting process to be lengthy.

It is then about making those three points consistent across the country.

The First Minister has been crystal clear that what the economy needs is not more strategies but action, and that is what we are about. One of the frustrations of purdah is that we were due to publish a programme for government, which would have contained some real substantive policies, and it would have outlined the implementation of policy that businesses and the economy are looking for. Clearly, I cannot pre-empt that, nor can we undermine the purdah rules.

For me, if the new deal for business is to mean anything, it is that it presently exists; it is not a distant objective. We have a new relationship now, and we will evidence that by what we do.

That goes back to what I said to the convener about NSET. I do not want officials’ time or my time to be consumed with writing things; I want that time to be consumed with delivery. The new deal for business, from my reading and my understanding at the time, albeit at a distance, was warmly welcomed by business. Indeed, businesses contributed extensively to it, and they were very enthused by the outcome from it—and that means that we do not need to rewrite anything. We have an understanding from them about what they need to see.

I have already referenced the regulatory review group. That is key because, often, businesses want to see us working as a Government as a whole and not in silos, with stuff happening outside and beyond the economy space that has a big impact on them.

That is my analysis of the new deal for business. That is where I want to go and what I want to achieve by getting on with doing stuff. I have been heartened by the response from various business organisations in the past few weeks to what they have heard from the First Minister and me.

It is worth reflecting on some of the positives, too, because Scotland’s productivity gap has closed at a faster rate over the past few years than that of the rest of the UK, and that is because of the investment that we have seen—