Chamber and committees

That is absolutely the case, Deputy First Minister. The reason why I am asking this is that I had some of the same challenges around NSET, with that focus on growth. As you say, it is not all about GDP. When we talk in the media about growth, it is about GDP, but you are saying that, in this instance, it is more about prosperity, unemployment and other measures.

Would it be better and clearer to say that we are looking at economic prosperity or economic success, rather than that very narrow measure of economic growth? I know that people use growth as a synonym for success, but it is not a synonym, and it is unclear what metrics we will be using. There is an implication that GDP is the only metric, which you have just said is not your intention.

What I am hearing is that you intend to run a carbon budgeting process alongside the annual budgeting process to ensure that all Government policy for which you are responsible, at least, fits within our carbon budget.

Much of which the Scottish Government rejected.

My next question takes a slightly different approach. Recently, the committee looked at the Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Bill at stage 1. That bill has two purposes—one is to reduce inequality and the other is to support economic growth. When the Minister for Public Finance, Ivan McKee, was in, I asked him what he meant by “economic growth” in the bill. We heard from all our witnesses that gross domestic product is not a good measure of economic success, certainly not in the community wealth building sense. I asked him whether, in using the term “economic growth” in the bill, he meant an increase in GDP. He said that that was not necessarily what he intended. That is my question to you. If economic growth is not an increase in GDP, what is it?

My final question on that theme is this: how does the NSET enable a wellbeing economy, rather than simply the pursuit of GDP to, as you say, the potential detriment of the local economy?

I have three questions for the Deputy First Minister today. The first one is on the bigger picture of how the NSET enables the Government’s stated intentions on climate and nature. I ask because there is a general concern on the committee that Government policy is not always coherent. The Government sets out a constellation of intentions, then the budget, then the NSET. However, it does not point out or indicate how the NSET will meet those intentions.

My specific interest is in climate and nature targets. The Scottish Government is imminently moving to carbon budgets. As the Parliament holds the Government to account on financial budgets, we will also start holding the Government to account on carbon budgets. That means that, for the same questions that we ask about how much something costs for any initiative, we will also ask how much carbon it emitted or how much it sequestered, because that budget will now have to be part of your accounting for every decision.

With the NSET going forward, how are you going to do the financial budget and the carbon budget alongside each other?

I have three questions. The first is about community wealth building. When the committee has been taking evidence on the Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Bill, various witnesses have talked about how the enterprise agencies should and can be involved in community wealth building. What role should Scottish Enterprise have in community wealth building? Last year, in a similar session, I asked about how much focus Scottish Enterprise was directing at supporting co-operative social enterprises and other more democratic business models, as that is one of the key elements of community wealth building.

My next question is about the sectors that are supported. Josie Saunders, who is the chief executive of Ceteris, which runs the Business Gateway contract for Clackmannanshire Council, emailed me in frustration about many of the businesses that Ceteris supports having outgrown Business Gateway. She said that, although Scottish Enterprise staff have been helpful, small successful Scottish companies that she feels have so much potential—she listed a prebiotic drinks company, a food manufacturing company, a destination management company and gin and whisky distilleries—have not been able to secure Scottish Enterprise support, even though she feels that those are exactly the kind of growing companies that we ought to support in Scotland. Can you help me to understand why such businesses might not get support and how you choose which businesses to support?

I have one question to put to each of the agencies, to be followed by a more general question to put to both of them.

Following on from what the convener mentioned in relation to HIE’s targets, I am interested in the targets that have been presented in the report. I have looked only at the top-level table; I have not dug into the details. I want to give you an opportunity to talk through some of that. In nearly all cases, the targets have been exceeded—sometimes wildly so. I am curious about what is going on there. Is it that targets were not set ambitiously enough? Is it that the situation has changed? On the one hand, wildly exceeding your targets makes it look like you are being very effective, but, on the other, it makes it feel like the targets, when they were set, were not in alignment with the situation.

I apologise for my phone ringing.