Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Official Report 691KB pdf

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Forth Replacement Crossing

Item 3 is an update on the Forth replacement crossing. During topical questions yesterday, Mr Brown confirmed that the opening of the Forth replacement crossing is likely to be delayed. The cabinet secretary contacted me yesterday to ask whether the committee would be prepared to hear further details on the matter in light of that confirmation.

I welcome Keith Brown, the Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Jobs and Fair Work. I also welcome back David Climie—despite the fact that when we last met I said that I hoped that I would not see him again until we were looking at a wash up of the project—Sally Cox, chair of Forth Crossing Bridge Constructors and Michael Martin, the project director.

Cabinet secretary, would you like to give a brief opening statement?

I will be as brief as I can, convener. I thank you for the opportunity to come to the committee at short notice.

On 8 March, I provided the committee with a brief update, which was followed by a more detailed progress report from Transport Scotland. At that time we advised the committee that the contractor, FCBC, was targeting a May completion date. Notwithstanding the regular assurances about completion received from FCBC, I challenged FCBC to provide a guarantee on the opening-to-traffic date, which the committee asked about when I appeared before it on 8 March.

As a result of the challenge, and as described in detail by David Climie in his evidence to the committee, FCBC carried out a further programme review based on the progress made and the impact of weather. As part of that challenge, Transport Scotland and I stressed to FCBC the continued focus on maintaining health and safety as a top priority—I know that it is at the forefront of everything that it does. In order for the review to be as robust as possible, FCBC brought in planners and experts from around the world. The review took full account of the likely weather impacts going forward and the implications of complex interrelated operations being carried out simultaneously.

Transport Scotland and I received the results of the review from FCBC on Monday 27 March. Since then, Transport Scotland has considered FCBC’s plans carefully and has discussed the matter with the FCBC board, led by Sally Cox, who is here today. I received Transport Scotland’s assessment last night and I will now share it with the committee.

Only nine weeks remain before the end of May and the review concluded that, even with the best weather—and we can see that the weather today is not the best—a May opening-to-traffic date is not now safely achievable. At this stage in the project, a day lost to weather cannot be recovered and that has a direct impact on any follow-on activities.

Since the start of 2017, there have been fewer clear weather windows than expected, particularly because of the wind. That has delayed weather-dependent activities, causing them to bunch together at the end of the programme to a much greater degree than was anticipated last May.

The effect is very visible in the removal of the tower cranes. The cranes can be dismantled only in wind speeds of less than 25mph. While crane removal is under way, it is not possible to safely work within a 50m radius of the crane itself, so that site activity alone has the effect of sterilising the deck beneath and preventing any work to the adjacent stay cables. It also has an impact on all deck-level activity, such as waterproofing and surfacing.

As anyone who crosses the Forth can attest, although recent good weather has helped, it has not yet been possible to bring down the cranes. In fact, I believe that on Monday this week, which to all of us was a glorious day, the wind speed was again too high to carry out operations at that height.

FCBC also acknowledges that, given the uniqueness of the project, the onerous conditions that have been experienced in working at height over the Forth have created more challenges than it had anticipated. At this stage in the project, all remaining activities are vulnerable to weather conditions. That vulnerability differs depending on the activity. Whereas tower crane removal and work on cable stays is sensitive to wind, waterproofing of the deck is sensitive to rain, and surfacing is sensitive to rain and very low temperatures.

FCBC’s May 2016 programme acknowledged that complexity. However, at that time, in order to maximise deck availability, the activities were sequential and largely independent of each other. Due to slippage during recent months, the activities are now interdependent and often simultaneous. Consequently, they are reliant on complex planning and favourable weather conditions. When the weather conditions are unsuitable for one activity, that has a compounding effect on the subsequent activity and the concurrent activities, many of which are critical.

Taking all that into account, FCBC is now advising that the opening-to-traffic date is more likely to be between mid-July and the end of August. To put that in context, it is around a four to 10-week delay on a six-year construction programme. The precise opening date will depend on the amount of weather down time that occurs during the coming weeks, with the latest date being based on weather similar to that which we have seen in February and March continuing to occur.

That would mean up to 75 per cent down time on the critical path activities that are particularly sensitive to wind speeds of 25mph or more, such as tower crane and tower falsework removal, and finishing works on the towers and stay cables. Although that level of down time is not anticipated at this time of year, past experience has shown that it is possible, so it should be taken into account. With so much simultaneous activity already under way, there are no opportunities to mitigate the effects of weather delays at this point in the construction programme.

FCBC has assured me that it is fully supporting Michael Martin, the project director, in providing the resource that is required to complete the project at the earliest possible date. That is clearly demonstrated by the fact that the site has never been busier, as a result of an additional 200 people being employed to help complete the bridge. More than 1,500 people are now working on the site, with operations continuing on a 24-hour basis, seven days per week, whenever the weather permits. Plant equipment and workers are being kept on standby, at considerable cost to the contractor, so that no weather window is missed.

It is very important to stress that the costs that are associated with the overrun will be fully covered by the contractor and so will not result in any increase to the overall cost to the taxpayer, which stands at £1.35 billion, as before. The £250 million of savings that have been released since the construction started are secure.

The potential overrun on the contractual completion date of between four and 10 weeks is a huge disappointment to me and to everybody who is involved with the project, but it should be kept in perspective in terms of infrastructure projects of this size and complexity. The Queensferry crossing will be completed in six years from the date that construction started and within 10 years of being first committed to by the Scottish Government in December 2007, at a considerable saving to the taxpayer.

Although we have not met our original ambitious targets for opening, which was to open six months ahead of the contractual completion date of mid-June, it should be noted that the project remains an outstanding achievement for everyone involved, and it will provide the people of Scotland with a resilient structure that is fit for the 21st century. It is already a world record breaker. It is being built in weather that saw two heavy goods vehicles being blown over on its sister structure in the past two months alone. It is also significantly under budget.

The crossing has a design life of 120 years. I hope that committee members will be able to exercise a degree of perspective when they hear of a four to 10-week overrun into the summer period, on a six-year project that already had a year of contingency factored into its planning.

The bridge is a project that Scotland can be proud of. As we complete it, we will not compromise the extraordinary quality of the construction or the safety of the workforce. The important thing at this stage is that none of us push the contractor to compromise the safety of the workers who we trust to work in all weathers to deliver this high quality and iconic structure for us.

As I have said before, I want to ensure that members remain fully apprised of progress on the project and all other major transport projects, so I commit to providing a further update to the committee at the end of May. Of course, the committee can ask for updates at any time, but I will provide an update at the end of May on the progress that has been made during the next two months and an update on the opening-to-traffic date.

The bridge is substantially complete. It will stand for a century or more. It is frustrating that it will not be finished earlier, but my overriding priority is to have the bridge finished safely and to the highest standards of construction. It is already a stunning bridge. It has developed significantly since the committee last visited the site, which I think was last autumn. The committee might want to see the progress that has been made since then, and I am happy to ensure that that happens.

Thank you, cabinet secretary. I am sure that the committee will want to consider what it sees as appropriate intervals between reports from you on the bridge. We will discuss that later.

Can you confirm that it was on Monday 27 March that you first got an inkling that the bridge would not be open within the timescale that we were given on 8 March?

That is when I got the report from the contractor and met Sally Cox and others who are involved with the bridge.

So, the simple answer is yes—that is when you got the first indication.

Yes. That is when I got the written report.

A lot of people in Scotland will believe that we have had one of the mildest and best winters that we have had for a long time—perhaps an open winter would be a better description of it. Can you give some idea, from a planning point of view, of how this winter’s weather conditions have been different from those of the past 10 years? Was it easier or less easy to work this winter than in previous winters? I am talking not only about wind but also snow, rain and the other types of weather that we have had less of this year.

I want to emphasise the wind factor. That is what has caused the problem. This year, we have had far fewer intervals. We have to see a 48-hour clear period coming for taking the cranes down from their current height, and we have not had those weather windows. Yesterday, in answer to the topical question in the chamber, I mentioned that it took 65 days to remove the one crane that has been taken down as opposed to the 15 days that it was supposed to take. That was because we have not had those windows with 48-hours notice. The weather forecast did not anticipate the fog today and it did not anticipate some of the wind that we had yesterday, which I believe stopped work on the towers. The consistency of the wind that we have had over that period has affected the crane removal in particular. It might be best if others come in on this issue, too, convener.

David Climie, do you want to come in on that? Some people will be concerned that they still do not understand why, after such an open winter, there are further delays.

I understand that. You will remember that, when I came here last time, I amused the committee a little by reading out the weather forecast. That was not done with the intention of being amusing. I read out the forecast to convey the fact that we have to plan the works carefully and that we do so on a day-to-day basis, and that we have to rely on the weather forecasting information that we get in order to plan the works properly.

You are right that it has not been a particularly bad winter for snow and that it has not been a particularly wet winter. That has certainly helped with regard to the road works, which have progressed exceptionally well. It is also the case that we have not had a particularly large number of storms—I think that only three or four named storms have come through. However, the milder weather that we have had has meant that there has been a steady wind, which is a significant problem for certain activities. We have highlighted the tower-crane removal as one of those. It is the most visible one, which everyone can see. What cannot be seen is the other work that is going on around the towers, such as completing the installation of the stay cables and putting the tension rings and the guide deviators at the top. That work is carried out using rope access and man baskets. FCBC has significantly increased the resource that it has in that area to try to deal with the issue, because the fact that the wind blows faster than 25mph impacts on its ability to work in that area.

The issue concerns a combination of the activities that we have been trying to undertake, the time of year at which we have been trying to do them and the weather that we have had at the time when we have been trying to do those activities. It is not that we have had an awful winter or that we have had particularly severe weather; it is that we have had steady winds over a long period of time and that has not created the weather windows that we need in order to undertake those activities.n

11:00  

When we first looked at the project, our plans assumed 20 per cent downtime due to weather. When we reviewed it in May last year, we added time to our estimate based on the weather that we had experienced since starting the project. In January and February this year, we had 40 per cent greater weather downtime in January, and more than 175 per cent greater downtime than what we set out in our latest programme. It is those effects that are causing the issues.

I am sure that members will want to build on that.

In a week when Queensland had a cyclone of 163mph, perhaps if we are worrying about 25mph winds we are relatively lucky. I want to explore further the issue of taking the cranes down. Is there a difference between the weather requirement to take the jib down—I think that Mr Climie pointed out in previous evidence that the jib had to be aligned with the wind direction—and to take the tower down? Once the jib is down, are the constraints less severe?

The simple answer is no. The last time that I appeared before the committee, I gave quite a long description of the whole process. Once the jib is below the top of the tower, it cannot rotate any more, so it creates far greater loads on the mast.

Is the deconstruction taking place at the bottom of the tower, with the whole thing being taken down while the jib remains in place and is the last thing to be removed, more or less?

More or less. You take jib sections out at the top and the crane jacks itself down, but the jib stays in place until you are down fairly close to the deck.

Is it the case that, while that jib is there, which it is for most of the time that the crane is being taken down, there is a risk of strong wind gusts making the jib interfere with the tower and, in extremis, perhaps causing damage? I would imagine that that would damage the crane.

It is not a question of the risk of damage to the tower, because the jib is locked in position as it is coming down and cannot rotate. Because the jib is locked, the crane itself could well be damaged if the winds are severe, and you are correct to say that, in extreme conditions, the crane could collapse.

My other point, which I think can be dealt with fairly briefly, is on the accuracy of forecasts. We are told that we need the 48-hour window, so we must clearly have some confidence that that window will exist, if we start a particular process that depends on it. How often has the forecast in respect of wind deviated from the outcome? I speak as the former minister who, on a 0.4^o error in the forecast, found eight times as much snow falling as had been forecast in 2010. That incident is well documented and well understood.

The forecasts that we get are pretty accurate on the day that we get them. They change considerably in the five days looking ahead. At the beginning of this week, the forecast suggested that wind was coming in on Wednesday. As it is, there is no wind, but we have fog. We cannot work today, not because of wind but because we cannot see to do the work on the crane. The forecast can change quite significantly. FCBC makes a considerable effort to get as accurate a weather forecast as it can, but the very nature of the weather in winter is that it is, to a degree, unpredictable, particularly with regard to the tracking and location of weather systems. A slight change in the weather system track can make an enormous difference to the wind that you get.

When the committee visited the bridge at the end of October, it was obvious to me that there would be great difficulty in meeting the target at the end of May. I have to say that David Climie has very loyal members of staff because, every time that I asked them what they thought about that, they said, “Of course; that’s the programme.” However, they rolled their eyes as they said that, so I thought, “Well, there we are. Even they don’t believe it’s going to be ready by the end of May.” I do not think that it is surprising that the end-of-May target is not going to be reached.

The minister has said again in his presentation to us today that the project is significantly under budget. The two things that he has been saying over the past year are that it is on time and under budget. How can it be significantly under budget if there is a fixed budget contract?

We have had this discussion before. It may be an uncomfortable fact for Mr Rumbles, but the project is nearly £0.25 billion below the budget that was set. Even that tender, when it came in, was substantially below the tender range that we set out for the project, which was from about £1.7 billion to £2.3 billion.

The current expected cost is £1.35 billion, which is a substantial reduction. Mike Rumbles quite rightly asked about the effect of inflation and forecast inflation, and I accept the point—inflation is a very big part of it. That would not be true in other projects, because the Government would not take on the risk of inflation—that would be done by other means and would rest with the contractor. We took the risk this time and we have had a big benefit from that, but very tight project management has added to those savings. We are about £200 million below budget.

Do not misunderstand me, cabinet secretary; I think that the Government has done the right thing. You have a fixed term and a fixed budget, which means that an overrun does not fall on the taxpayer—it falls on the companies that have the contract. I am actually congratulating you, but the pudding does not need to be over-egged all the time. We should just stick with the facts.

We will move on to the next question now.

In answer to the convener’s question, you said that written information about the delay came through on 27 March. Was there any verbal indication of a delay before that?

The convener mentioned the fact that, at my previous meeting with the committee, I used the word “hope” a couple of times. Obviously, Transport Scotland talks regularly with the contractor as it works on the project and, as with other projects, the process is fairly straightforward. We asked the contractor to tell us what the programme is for the completion date, which the contractor produced on Monday, and at that point it was analysed by some specialist people employed by Transport Scotland for that purpose.

Only after that programme has been analysed and interrogated, which in this case was done in a very short space of time, do we agree to it. We do not just agree if a contractor comes forward to say that a project will be 10 months late. We do not just accept that and neither do we publish it at that time; we interrogate the programme and come to an agreed position with the contractor. That is the process that we have followed and it is the right way to do it. The contractor gives us in writing a programme of works that takes the project through to the completion date. That programme is properly analysed and we respond to that.

So there was an earlier verbal indication that there might be a delay.

No. Discussions were going on all the time between Transport Scotland and the contractor. David Climie from Transport Scotland is on site all the time and he sees the issues—he will have seen the issue with the cranes. Of course, the question was whether the project could be finished by May, but the only way to answer that was to have the contractor’s programme properly analysed and brought back to us, which is what happened on Monday.

Okay. On another issue, in your opening statement, you spoke of mid-July to the end of August as a possible completion date. Can you be more specific about whether it will overrun the end of August?

When I came to the Parliament last year, I was asked to guarantee the date of May this year and I did not do that, because I could not—weather is the master in this equation. There is a very high degree of certainty in the dates that have been provided to us of mid-July to August, but it is not absolute. We have just heard about the weather in March and April of last year and in January and February of this year. If the weather that we have been experiencing continues, of course it will have an impact on the programme, but the range of dates from mid-July to the end of August are the likely ones for when completion will fall. I have not given a specific date because of the variability of the weather. Rather than giving a specific date, we are taking the contractor’s confidence about when the bridge will be completed, which has been interrogated by Transport Scotland.

Can I push you a bit on that, cabinet secretary? I am assuming that you have no wish to once again come before the committee or, indeed, the Parliament to say that there will be a further delay. A wise man would say that delivery of the project and opening of the bridge to transport by the end of August was a 100 per cent possibility. I cannot believe that that is not the case. What possibility is there of completion in mid-July? Is that a 10 per cent possibility, or a 2 per cent possibility? Without criticising anyone for delays, people will know what the probability is that completion will fall at various points in the timescale.

I also think that people will understand about the variability of the weather. I take the point from earlier on about people having experienced a generally mild winter. However, the towers have a completely different weather system—I do not know whether the committee went up the towers but I think that you will know that from being on the deck. For example, people check the wind speed on the website, but that is measured from the deck of the Forth road bridge, not from a tower. It is a completely different environment that high up, and that is where we are working to get the cranes down. That is the reason that I am not being definitive, although I would like to be definitive.

Perhaps David Climie can answer in relation to the relative confidence in the dates. I have said right through this process that weather is the master in this project. That remains the case, even though those dates are being provided.

I would not add any more to that by adding percentage allowances to it. We have identified a range, we have reviewed that range, we believe that it is a realistic range, and I would not want to put any more than that onto it.

Are you saying that there is not a 100 per cent guarantee that the project will be complete even by the end of August?

I have never given and cannot give a 100 per cent guarantee.

That is fine—it is just so people understand. Managing expectations is as important as the rest of it.

At the end of the day, I realise that wind speed and weather variations affect things. I have two questions. One of them—which I might have answered myself—is why can we not take the crane down with Super Puma helicopters? Is it not true that they can take enough weight to take a crane away? Yes or no?

Yes is the answer. I have worked on a previous bridge project where the cranes were taken down by helicopters.

Could we not use a helicopter to take down these cranes?

It would create several difficulties. First, helicopters can operate only in certain weather conditions. Secondly, helicopters create an enormous downdraft; they actually create the winds that we are trying to avoid, so that is a significant difficulty.

It is something that we looked at while we were looking at many different options as alternatives to the one that is currently being undertaken. It was looked at, and it is not considered viable.

I thought that that would be the case, but also that I might as well ask about it.

Cabinet secretary, this is a third iconic bridge on the Forth. Basically, everyone wants it open. Would it not be better just to say, “The bridge will be open when it’s open”?

It is a fact that the bridge will be open when it is open.

We had a fatality on the bridge last year—Mr John Cousins, on 28 April. Earlier, I said that the bunching effect of the cranes not being taken down puts lots of pressure on activities on the deck of the bridge, as lots of simultaneous activities are going on there. There are 1,500 people working all over the project now, and we have to have safety very much in mind.

The date range that we have given, of between mid-July and August, is what we believe to be likely. Whatever the actual date is, it will be subject to weather and safety. As I have said to the committee before, Michael Martin interviews every person who is starting work on the bridge, and the first question he asks them is, “What is the most important thing?” They all say, “Finishing the bridge” or whatever, and he says, “No, it’s safety”. Considerations around safety, as much as the weather, will drive how we complete the bridge.

The next person to ask a question is John Finnie. I ask members to ask just one question, please, because of timing.

Cabinet secretary, I think that you have said a couple of times that weather is the master. I am with Mr Lyle on this—you should take your time, and the bridge will be open when it is open, because safety is paramount.

I will ask about the wider implications of the delay, because this project is part of a bigger network of significant road works on either side of the bridge and, indeed, further afield—in the past, I have asked about public transport in that regard. Are there any implications for the existing structure and for the road network outwith the bridge?

That subject is more into my remit and Humza Yousaf’s remit. The difficulty that we had last year with the existing Forth road bridge has been resolved, and it has had a full health check since then. Apart from two drivers who went across the bridge when they should not have done, that bridge is operating extremely well. There is no threat to it, and it will continue to operate during the time that we are waiting for the new bridge to be completed.

The delay is obviously frustrating because the Forth road bridge is to be a public transport corridor, and we want to see it being used for that. There will be advantages in terms of bus timings and so on, and we want to see those advantages as quickly as possible. However, there are no implications for the existing bridge.

There is the question of the tie-in of the new road networks coming through, which are substantially complete. Anybody who has travelled that route will have seen how complete they are—especially on the south side. A tie-in has to be done at the appropriate time. However, as far as I am aware, there are no implications for the existing bridge, which will continue to service all the traffic that is currently there.

11:15  

I reiterate some of the comments that have been made. That both the quality of the work and the safety of the workers are of paramount importance is a thought that we all share. Given that there is still a huge amount of uncertainty around the July date—we could have high winds continuing throughout spring and summer—would it not be more sensible or realistic, from a planning point of view and given that the opening will be a massive event, simply to release a worst-case date to the public rather than continual false deadlines? That is a genuine question. Would it not be better to give a worst-case target opening date rather than the hope-for-the-best dates that we seem to be working to?

I rely very much on the advice that is provided by the contractors, as interrogated by Transport Scotland, and the dates that I have given are what they believe to be the likely ranges. I suppose that the worst-case date that they are giving us just now is the end of August. Of course, it is possible that we could have extremely different weather that could push that date back, but that is not the advice that we have been given. Jamie Greene is right in saying that I do not want to keep coming back to the committee with another date, but that is what I am being told by the contractors.

Jamie Greene’s other point was about the quality of what is being done. I think that it is a great project. Committee members will have seen that with their own eyes when they visited the site. The danger arises when somebody tries to short-cut something or do it to a lower standard, which can happen if they are pushed and put under pressure. We have been keen not to do that, not just to ensure safety but to make sure that the bridge is completed in the correct way. I am told that we can ensure both of those things within a window between mid-July and the end of August.

I have a short question. I am struggling to understand some of the timescales. As I understand it, 21 days ago—three weeks ago—on 8 March, things seemed to be okay. We are now looking at a four to 10-week delay; therefore, on 8 March there was already a problem. Why did the committee not hear about that?

David Climie might want to come back on the points that he raised at the previous committee meeting. We faced the prospect of taking down one of the cranes, which we thought would take 15 days. The crucial part was getting it down to deck level, which is where the contractors need wind speeds to be lower, and that could be done in 15 days. At that stage, plans were put in place to take down the other two tower cranes concurrently rather than one at a time. At the time, it was felt that that would be possible if the contractors had the 48-hour windows that were mentioned previously. That is where the contractors were 30 days ago. Perhaps David Climie can say something further.

Mr Mason asked a similar question when I was here on 8 March. At that time, I focused specifically on the tower cranes coming down and the waterproofing as the two key activities. The north tower crane took 65 days to come down. It needs 12 to 15 working days to bring it down.

What dates were the first and last of those 65 days?

The first day was 21 January and the last was 27 March. The 65 days were counted from the first piece being ready to be removed until the last piece being removed down at the water level. The number of calendar days that the removal took was four times the number of working days that were required. That having happened, even though the contractors were running in parallel the removals of the other two tower cranes—the centre and south cranes—that previously were to be run one after the other, they had to plan for the possibility of the same duration occurring again. It might not have done, but they had to take into account that that had happened; it was not theoretical. It had happened, so we had to take into account that it could happen again.

When the first crane was taken down, were the other cranes no longer required? Could they not all have been taken down at the same time? I would have thought that that would be a reasonable question.

No, because the contractors were still carrying out work at the time. As well as the above-deck work, there is the tower falsework underneath the deck. On the north tower, the falsework had already been removed in January and February. The first stages of removing the falsework used the tower crane, so the north tower crane was always going to be the first one to be ready to be removed although, originally, it was thought that it would be the south tower crane, followed by the centre tower crane. It has been possible to make reasonable progress on the trestles, so the two remaining tower crane removals can be run in parallel.

Thank you. Our final question comes from Gail Ross.

We are all agreed that safety and quality are the main focus. I thank the panel for coming to update us.

In answer to the cabinet secretary’s question: no, we did not get to go up the tower, but it was not for the lack of trying. If there should be another invitation for us to do so when the wind speeds are lower, we would quite like to do that.

Cabinet secretary, in your opening statement you mentioned the hiring of an extra 200 workers. Have they now been taken on until the end of the project, and is there scope to take on any more, should they be needed?

It is only fair to let the contractors answer that question, as they are responsible for the project and the decision is theirs. I commend the contractors for the effort that they have put into the project at substantial cost to themselves. Perhaps they can answer that question.

On Gail Ross’s point about the tower, I am sure that FCBC and Transport Scotland can make that happen for those who are able and willing. I am very surprised to hear that our colleague Murdo Fraser actually did go up the tower, given the way that he blanched when I invited him to do so in the first place. It is a stunning experience to look down on the other two bridges. We will make sure that that happens for those committee members who want to do it.

Perhaps FCBC will answer the point about employees.

I review resources every day, and the planning for the project is now very dynamic, bearing in mind the conditions that we have been facing. Planning is the daily task for my operational team. The executive team and I review the planning of the project three times a week. We use the best data that we have on the weather, taking account of it and doing what the weather allows us to do. That might not be what we had planned several days earlier, but we have to take a dynamic approach to it.

I will apply whatever resources I can—be they human resources or plant and equipment—to maximise the opportunities that we have, but I always treat safety as the number 1 priority. We need to build the bridge safely and build it right the first time. The project will be finished as soon as it can be finished. I cannot bring on to the site people who do not have the skills to do the tasks that are required to be done, which is also a judgment that I have to make.

I thank all our witnesses for coming to the meeting. As I said in my opening remarks, I previously made the mistake of saying that I hoped that I would not be seeing you again. This time, I suspect that I might. Cabinet secretary, could the committee get back to you after the meeting to say when we would like to programme an update on the bridge, so that we can be kept apprised of how things develop?

Of course.

I suspend the meeting briefly to reconfigure the panel.

11:22 Meeting suspended.  

11:25 On resuming—