Chamber and committees

I would be very interested to speak to businesses, many of which are struggling in certain sectors and for whom every penny and every pound counts. For those businesses to be lectured on efficiency by the Scottish Government will be interesting.

I will move on because I am conscious of time. What role does the minister see for the Scottish National Investment Bank in supporting some of the infrastructure work that needs to be done?

Good morning to the cabinet secretary and her colleagues.

On the subject of Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd and the boats at Ferguson’s, you said that Ferguson’s was asked to constrain costs and to get the boats built as quickly as possible. Clearly, it has failed to do that. We have talked about value for money; clearly, the boats have not been value for money. There is an approach going forward, and it will be interesting to see the responses to that. You talked about the impacts of inflation. Inflation in Turkey has been at over 80 per cent and is currently over 61 per cent, yet it looks like the yard in Turkey will deliver boats on time and on budget before the boats that are being built at Ferguson’s.

Neil Gray said that there is not a blank cheque for those boats. However, the simple fact is that there is likely to be a blank cheque because there is so much political capital invested in the boats, in CMAL and in Ferguson’s yard that it will never be a case of enough is enough. You will keep finding the money to make sure that the boats are delivered.

Ferguson’s should have been finished well before now, before the issues with inflation arose.

I recognise that providing for an ageing population is an important part of it. One projection from the Scottish Fiscal Commission is depopulation, particularly in rural areas and in the Highlands and Islands. In projections to 2043-44, all Highlands and Islands council areas will see their populations fall. That is a mid-term approach, but there are already concerns. There has been a lack of investment in infrastructure such as the A9 and ferries, and people feel very distant from services. If you want a population to stay in rural areas, you need maternity services. We have had a number of debates recently in the Parliament about the need to provide such things. How can you, over the next few years, reverse the feeling among people—certainly those in our remote areas such as the Highlands and Islands—that services are further away from them than they were previously?

May I quickly ask a question on that point? When you talk about net inward migration, who are those people? Are they over the age of 65? How are they made up?

Focus on the question I asked about your area of responsibility.

Okay. Can I look to the longer term? National Records of Scotland projected that Scotland’s population will fall by 400,000 over the next 50 years. A fiscal sustainability report by the SFC showed that the proportion of Scots aged over 65 is expected to increase from 22 per cent in 2026-27 to 31 per cent by 2072-73. Obviously, that will impact on demand for public services. It will also impact on participation rates, productivity and labour supply. What expectations do you have? Do you accept those projections from the Scottish Fiscal Commission? What expectations do you have of how that will impact spending and tax?

I certainly agree about housing, but, across the region that I represent, the picture of what is available is still very mixed. I agree that it is about building high-quality housing, which will reduce some of the costs for people.

My last question is about the Scottish Fiscal Commission’s projections on funding. It is looking at funding increasing from £54 billion in 2027-28 to £177 billion, with the block grant increasing considerably as part of that. Do you recognise that? How can you make sure that, where new taxes are being delivered, they work to complement that increase in the block grant?

I am conscious of time, so I will just ask: is it the case that you are not ruling out further payments to Ferguson’s due to further increases in costs?

As a chain, you can probably recover over a longer period when there are bad nights in one venue. Do you worry for small independent pubs, bars and restaurants?