Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Wednesday, January 10, 2024

Official Report 999KB pdf

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Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Jobs (East Kilbride)

The final item of business is a members’ business debate—[Interruption.] I ask members who are leaving the chamber to please do so quickly and quietly, because we are in session. Thank you.

The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S6M-11664, in the name of Collette Stevenson, on protecting Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office jobs in East Kilbride. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.

Motion debated,

That the Parliament notes the decision by the UK Government to relocate the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) out of East Kilbride; understands from reports that FCDO officials had been in discussions with the local authority about opening a new site in the town, and that this decision was unexpected; believes that Abercrombie House, in East Kilbride, has been home to a dedicated workforce in the field of international development and foreign affairs for over 40 years and that around 1,000 staff are currently based there; understands that the UK Government estimates that the office’s presence generates approximately £30 million for the local economy; notes the view that the decision to relocate jobs out of East Kilbride will have a negative impact on East Kilbride’s economic recovery; further notes the reported campaign by local staff and trade unions against previous UK Government plans to remove HMRC from East Kilbride, as well as other towns in Scotland; recognises that the UK Government’s Declaration on Government Reform commits to “... relocating jobs and areas of activity across government to places including … East Kilbride”; believes, therefore, that the FCDO announcement goes against the UK Government’s own policies; notes the view that this move is a betrayal of the people of East Kilbride, including FCDO staff living and working in the town, and further notes the calls for the UK Government to scrap its plans immediately and maintain the FCDO’s substantial presence in East Kilbride.

17:08  

I am grateful to have the opportunity to lead this debate on the need to protect civil service jobs in East Kilbride. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has had a presence at Abercrombie house for more than four decades. About 1,000 people currently work there—the number has increased in recent years, and I welcome that. However, a few weeks ago, the Tory Government announced that the FCDO would be leaving Abercrombie house. That is a hammer blow to East Kilbride, and it could, according to the United Kingdom Government’s own figures, cost the town’s economy £30 million.

I am, therefore, grateful to Scottish National Party, Green and Labour colleagues for supporting my motion. However, it is sad that no member of the Conservative Party has done so, including the Conservative members who live in and represent East Kilbride. I have raised the matter in the chamber previously, and the Tories tried to diminish it. I am standing up for East Kilbride in the face of Tory plans to remove 1,000 jobs from my constituency.

I will set out the context. First, the UK Government’s “Declaration on Government Reform” commits to

“relocating jobs and areas of activity across government to places including … East Kilbride”,

so the Tories are even breaking their own policy commitments.

After the announcement of the closure of the FCDO base at Abercrombie house, many people—including Tory politicians—said that it was no big deal, as HM Revenue and Customs would be moving in. However, HMRC has been based in East Kilbride for decades. Those are not new jobs for the town, and HMRC staff have faced their own challenges with the Tories.

In 2014, the UK Government announced that HMRC would be leaving East Kilbride and other towns across Scotland to move into regional centres. That led—quite rightly—to a huge backlash; indeed, Conservative MSP Graham Simpson called the move “misguided”. The Public and Commercial Services trade union launched its “Stay in EK” campaign, backed by the East Kilbride News and by local politicians on a cross-party basis. Following that hard-fought campaign, we managed to keep HMRC jobs in the town.

It beggars belief, therefore, that the UK Government will instead cut 1,000 jobs from East Kilbride by removing the FCDO. After its U-turn, HMRC recognised that keeping a presence in East Kilbride made the “best sense”. I hope that today’s debate, as well as all the concerns from staff, which I will come to next, will help the FCDO to see sense, too.

A big issue with the UK Government’s announcement was the lack of respect that was shown to the workforce. I understand that there was no prior consultation with staff about the potential move, and reports suggest that trade unions were given just one hour’s notice of the announcement. Local staff are upset about the decision. One employee told the press that

“you could not get any lower morale than there is at Abercrombie House just now”

and that people were at “rock bottom”.

I have spoken with FCDO staff, who are worried about their future. I have heard stories of people who left jobs in Glasgow to work closer to home and of some who even moved to the FCDO from HMRC, given the threat of those jobs moving out of town. The UK Government should have given the experiences of its staff some thought before seemingly rushing into the decision.

Civil servants were not the only ones who were caught off guard by the announcement. My understanding is that the FCDO had been in discussions with South Lanarkshire Council about a new site in the town, so the decision to abandon East Kilbride altogether left the council “astounded”. The whole thing seems to be ill thought through.

The HMRC saga showed that politicians of different parties can, and must, work together to stand up for the areas that they represent. I have had productive conversations with the Labour leader of South Lanarkshire Council, Joe Fagan, and the Labour MSPs Monica Lennon and Mark Griffin supported my motion. Conservative politicians, on the other hand, seem to have lost their voice. After the department—which is headed by the unelected Lord David Cameron—made its decision, I wrote to Graham Simpson and to another unelected Tory, Lisa Cameron MP, to ask whether they stood by their previous remarks that FCDO jobs must stay in East Kilbride. I also wrote to Alister Jack, the Secretary of State for Scotland, to seek assurances. I have received nothing back from any of them.

I hope that, over the Christmas break, Tory politicians have been able to reflect. They must recognise the concerns not just from me and the council but from the local staff who carry out the Government’s work.

To sum up, the UK Tory Government’s plan to close down the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in East Kilbride is a betrayal of the town. It has already caused unnecessary stress for many employees, and it could lead to millions of pounds of damage to the East Kilbride economy. With this debate, I hope to bring more attention to that reckless decision and give a voice to the staff, who feel as though they have been overlooked in the process.

The UK Government must engage meaningfully with the workforce, with trade unions and with all interested local representatives. It must ensure that an impact assessment is carried out in relation to the workforce and the potential harm to East Kilbride’s economy. In my view, the UK Government must scrap the plans immediately and avoid a further broken promise to the people of East Kilbride.

17:15  

I pay tribute to my colleague Collette Stevenson for lodging this important motion for debate. As she has set out, the detrimental impacts of the proposals on her constituency would clearly be significant, and we all support her efforts, and the wider efforts by trade unions and others, to get the UK Government to reconsider its decision.

However, in speaking today, I want to emphasise something more: the wider beneficial impact that the workers in East Kilbride—the diligent, capable, focused and highly motivated civil servants who work in that office—have made, not only in furthering Scotland’s reputation as a good global citizen, and in diplomacy and building a more internationalist world and outlook, but in respect of the lives that have been saved and the people who have been helped, and the significant contribution that has been made in support of international organisations that are highly thought of such as the United Nations and the World Food Programme.

That is because the office in question, when it was previously occupied largely by Department for International Development staff members, and in its current status as the FCDO, has, in the past quarter of a century, played a huge role in making a global difference. Examples include leading the world in tackling the Ebola crisis and, in recent years, especially in the past decade, providing aid to the people of Syria and responding to other humanitarian crises elsewhere.

The UK Government’s decision in 2020 to close the Department for International Development was a mistake, and I fear that another mistake is being made now. As colleagues will know, I served as a Scottish Government minister between 2018 and 2023. Between 2018 and 2020, I had the great privilege of being responsible for Europe, migration and international development. In that role, I met a high number of staff, not just in the Scottish Government but in other organisations, who had begun their careers in East Kilbride. Indeed, when I worked in other roles in other departments, there were civil servants who had begun their careers in East Kilbride.

That shows the impact of the office—not only the impact of the direct work that comes out of Abercrombie house on an international scale, but the impact on the quality of civil servants and on those at the beginning of their careers, and the impact that all those who have worked at the office for some time make when they go on to work elsewhere in the civil service.

East Kilbride is a strategically important workplace, and it has within it a network and a culture. All of that will be detrimentally affected by dissipating and relocating the workforce. That office is important for East Kilbride and for Scotland more widely, for our civil service and because of the impact that it has made internationally.

It is important that we and other politicians consider those wider effects, as well as the negative impact on the people of East Kilbride if the decision is not reversed and the mistake that the UK Government is making happens.

17:20  

I start by congratulating Collette Stevenson for securing the debate. She has mentioned me a few times and I will come on to that.

Earlier today, I was speaking to pupils on a school visit to the Parliament and I told them how I first got involved in politics when I was at school—a long time ago. When I was at school in 1980, a report known as the Brandt report came out, written by a group headed by Willy Brandt. It was all about international development, and we learned about the north-south divide. The message of the report was how important it is for developed nations to help less-developed nations and how that benefits us all. I read that report—all of it. I supported that message, and my views have not changed since.

I have been a supporter of international development for over 40 years, so I have felt a sense of pride that the UK’s international development programme was being delivered from the town that I have represented as a councillor and MSP since 2007. If I have a frustration, it is that what was DFID, and is now the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, reaches out to the world but does not reach out to its Scottish home very well. To my mind, it has a great story that it has not really sold.

In 2015—I think it was 2015 and not 2014—the HMRC threatened to leave East Kilbride and go to Glasgow, so that was a similar situation. As we have heard, a campaign was launched, which was called “Stay in EK”. I got involved in that, as all parties did. We worked with the trade unions; I have not heard from the trade unions on the current issue. I do not know whether it was a result of the campaign or something else, but that decision about HMRC was reversed in January 2022. Anyone who represents the town must have been delighted by that, as I was.

The announcement by the FCDO at the end of last year that it intends to move out of Abercrombie house and go to Glasgow came as a shock. It certainly came as a shock to me; I cannot stand here and say that I was delighted about that—of course I am not delighted. I would rather that it stayed in East Kilbride. The decision is a result of the lease ending on the current HMRC building at Queensway house. That lease is ending, HMRC—

Will the member take an intervention?

Yes, I will, provided that I get more time.

Yes, that is okay.

I have been waiting all day to hear that story at the start of Graham Simpson’s speech because he and I did the same school chat this morning and he promised that there would be a story.

The union that he refers to, PCS Scotland, commented in December that its members were given just an hour’s notice of the decision before it was announced on 7 December. As we have had the Christmas period and people, including trade union officials, have had time off work, we might hear more this week. Does he recognise that giving an hour’s notice for a plan that is not a real plan—because there is no named location in Glasgow for the move—is really ropey? Rather than have a go at trade unions for not saying more, we should be taking it back to the UK Tory Government in order for it to give a proper, coherent explanation.

I will be able to give Mr Simpson a good minute for that intervention.

I was merely making the point that I have not heard from PCS. We heard from PCS during the campaign to get HMRC to stay in East Kilbride, so there might be good reasons why it has not been in touch this time. I would encourage it to get in touch with everyone. That is what it should be doing.

Will the member take an intervention?

Yes, I will.

It will have to be much briefer than the previous intervention.

I will try, Presiding Officer.

I compliment my colleague Collette Stevenson on her passion for her constituency and for the jobs in her constituency. That passion was shared by her predecessor, Linda Fabiani. In 2014, when I was a regional MSP, I was involved with PCS and met it about the proposed closures. Does Mr Simpson recognise that, at that time, the jobs at HMRC and at what was then DFID, were held up as a benefit of the union and, indeed, as the jewel in the crown of the argument for staying in the union? It would be a tragedy if those jobs were added to the long list of promises that were made at the time of the referendum that have been broken.

That is an unfortunate intervention from Clare Adamson, because it shows that she has precious little knowledge of what is going on. No job losses are being suggested. In fact, there will be more jobs. The plan is not to get rid of jobs but merely to move them to Glasgow. Clare Adamson seems to be unaware of that.

Will the member take an intervention?

No, I am not going to take any more interventions—unless I get loads more time.

I appreciate that you have been generous, Mr Simpson, but you have now had six minutes. I will give you an extra minute and a half. We need to respect the allocated time.

You are being extremely generous, Presiding Officer.

Unfortunately, the only contact from within the constituency that I have had is the letter from Collette Stevenson that was previously referred to, which was, frankly, a stunt. I do not respond to stunts—[Interruption.] I am hearing lots of muttering from Kevin Stewart—[Interruption.]

Members, please do not shout across the chamber.

If, at any point, Collette Stevenson wants to know what I think about anything, all that she need do is pop along to my office—our offices share the same corridor. I do not respond to stunts, which is why I have not responded to her letter. She could have just come to speak to me, as she has done on many other occasions.

Fortunately, I have spoken to the town’s Conservative MP, Lisa Cameron, who has not indulged in such antics. We have both been in discussion—[Interruption.] Members should do me the courtesy of listening.

Yes. Members, could we please allow the member who has the floor to conclude his remarks?

Thank you very much.

We have both been in discussion with the FCDO. I have spoken personally to the minister, Andrew Mitchell. We will work—and I am quite happy to work with Collette Stevenson if she wants to do it properly—to do all that we can to see whether anything can be done for staff locally.

If staff are to move, the key thing is that they must be treated properly. I have been involved in an office move. There are issues such as parking, extra costs for transport, childcare and whether people can work from home.

Mr Simpson, could you please bring your remarks to a close?

I will bring my remarks to a close.

At the end of the day, more people will be employed. However, we must work with the staff. I encourage staff to get in touch with me; if they want to do so, I would be delighted to hear from them. I think that there is further to go on the issue.

17:28  

Presiding Officer, I wish you, and colleagues in the chamber, a happy new year.

I, too, am grateful to Collette Stevenson for securing the debate. It feels like a debate, and I am grateful to Graham Simpson for taking some interventions. I will not repeat some of the things that have been said. In his thoughtful remarks, Ben Macpherson, who paid tribute to the workforce that has been in place over many decades, made us realise that not only are there local impacts and factors but there is also a global dimension to the issue. We should remember the important internationalist values that are in play.

I remind colleagues that I am a member of the PCS parliamentary group and I refer members to the voluntary heading in my entry in the register of members’ interests. Many of us recognise that there are important stakeholders involved, including the trade unions. I suggest to Mr Simpson that he does not have to wait to be approached; he can pick up the phone to workers as well.

I am here tonight because I am a Central Scotland MSP, so I represent East Kilbride, and I live next door in Blantyre. This is a big deal for us locally, and it is a real pity that we do not have unity among all the local elected members. I suspect that Graham Simpson probably feels the same way and would rather that we were in a different situation. However, we find ourselves in an election year and perhaps people feel that they cannot say what they really think.

People are concerned about the UK Tory Government’s announcement that it is closing the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office offices at Abercrombie house and moving those highly regarded civil service jobs out of East Kilbride. That is the key point that I will focus on tonight, because it is a hard pill to swallow.

The UK Tory Government promised more FCDO jobs in East Kilbride but, instead, it is moving them out of the town. It is doing that at a time when the council and others are working really hard to think about the future of East Kilbride, its regeneration and ways to give people hope and confidence.

As we have heard, Abercrombie house was first established in 1981, which happens to be the year in which I was born. The expansion of the Overseas Development Administration provided a massive boost to the area, giving East Kilbride residents access to stable and secure employment, at a time when communities across the central belt were suffering due to de-industrialisation and Thatcherism. Before his days playing for the Scotland football team, Ally McCoist worked at Abercrombie house part time while playing for St Johnstone Football Club, as one of the first 350 employees at the start of the 1980s. He said that when the building opened,

“It was a massive boost for East Kilbride”.

Abercrombie house is a central feature of East Kilbride’s economic and social life. Councillor Joe Fagan, who has been mentioned already, is the leader of South Lanarkshire Council. He said:

“I am frankly astounded by the announcement on the FCDO—both the decision itself and the way it has been made. These staff have been working, and in many cases living, in East Kilbride for decades and are important contributors to our local community and economy. The FCDO announcement has been made out of the blue, suggesting not just a failure of communication but also a lack of coherence in their decision-making process. The reasons given for the decision are also weak, to say the least.”

I know that some people who work there and live in Glasgow perhaps feel that the move might not be too big a deal, but others who live beyond East Kilbride—for example, in Strathaven or Stonehouse—including people with caring responsibilities, are worried about the commute. There are so many unknowns. The fact that staff were given one hour’s notice before the decision went public, just before Christmas, does not sit easily with me. A few of those points have already been made.

There is time to unite, to put East Kilbride first, to put those jobs first and to go back with questions for the Secretary of State for Scotland and other UK ministers, who have a plan that does not really add up. There is still time for Mr Simpson and Lisa Cameron to get behind the community and the workers. If we can speak with one voice, we will be much stronger.

I thank all colleagues for their support, and I thank Collette Stevenson for bringing the debate to the chamber.

17:33  

I thank Collette Stevenson for securing this debate on the relocation of the FCDO office out of East Kilbride. The decision, which was made abruptly by the UK Government, will have far-reaching consequences for FCDO workers, their families and, as we have already heard, the wider community in East Kilbride.

Abercrombie house employs upwards of 1,000 staff members and is estimated to generate £30 million for the local economy. I do not think that we can overstate its contribution to the social and economic fabric of the town. The decision, which was made with no prior consultation, is deeply concerning, and the dedicated workers at Abercrombie house have been instrumental to the constituency. The relocation will not only impact the hard-working staff but create a massive shortfall for local services and stores in the business community, triggering a chain reaction that will adversely affect East Kilbride as a whole.

East Kilbride was once touted as an example of where there had been UK Government investment outside large cities. The decision starkly contradicts the commitments that were made by the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities as recently as 2021.

The reasoning that has been provided for the move is weak and ill founded. Mr Simpson said that there would be no job losses in the FCDO. However, that misses the key point, which is that jobs are being lost in East Kilbride. The decision is not about a mere bureaucratic shift for those who work at Abercrombie house. People’s livelihoods are neither expendable nor easily transferable. The relocation of the office will force workers to deal with the choice between working further from home, changing their job or, in the most extreme circumstances, potentially having to give up their job. Not all workers have access to a car, and workers moving to and from where they live by car or train represents another cost to them during a cost of living crisis. There can potentially be extra childcare costs and longer travel, and therefore longer working days.

Those who work flexibly due to caring responsibilities, disability or other personal circumstances now have a real dilemma. Shifting the jobs outside East Kilbride unfairly burdens workers, and it is disrespectful to assume that those dedicated workers can seamlessly transition to an office in Glasgow. A worker who wishes to remain anonymous has been quoted as saying:

“It’s going to take 40 minutes each way into town and back which adds to your working day—there will be childcare costs involved in that, there will be train and bus fares. Although FCDO say they will cover them for three years that’s not good enough, nobody wants to move.”

Levelling up has been touted as a pivotal element of the UK Government’s pledge to reduce regional disparities and promote local economies. The closure of the FCDO office in East Kilbride directly contradicts those commitments. It sends an alarming message about the UK Government’s dedication to regional development, and it calls into question the promises that it has made to Scotland until very recently. The same UK Government that claimed to be investing more than £2.4 billion in Scotland to empower local communities, drive innovation and enhance economic opportunities is now undermining its own commitment to addressing geographic inequalities. Moving valuable jobs away from communities, particularly at the expense of the people of East Kilbride, contradicts the very principles that the UK Government says that it supports. It raises questions about the sincerity of its efforts to promote opportunities in all regions.

As recently as 2021, the UK Government made a commitment to send an additional 500 workers to the facility. Now we have another decision instead. We should join together to strongly advocate the preservation of the jobs and expertise of, and the valuable contributions made by, the workers at Abercrombie house.

I reiterate my disappointment about and frustration with the UK Government’s abrupt decision to relocate the FCDO office out of East Kilbride. The repercussions are keenly felt in the community, and they cast doubts on the UK Government’s commitments to levelling up. I urge the UK Government to reconsider and reverse that ill-advised decision, and I emphasise the need for a renewed commitment to the workers of Abercrombie house and East Kilbride.

17:38  

I pay tribute to all members who have made powerful contributions in the debate and, in particular, to the member for East Kilbride, Collette Stevenson. No one can fail to be impressed by her passionate advocacy for her constituents in East Kilbride and the strength of feeling that she has expressed about the issue that she has brought to the chamber. The strength of feeling that exists is also clear from many other members who have spoken in the debate.

I was raised in Clarkston, which is a neighbouring community to East Kilbride. I remember as a youngster finding it quite unusual but also refreshing that, just up the road, there were hundreds of jobs for people working in international development on behalf of the UK Government. That was prior to devolution, of course. I am aware of the presence of those jobs and the impact that they have had on East Kilbride over many decades. I remember that well from when I was growing up. Others have looked at the history of the jobs in the UK Government’s department. On Monday 23 November 1981, the then Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, officially opened Abercrombie house in East Kilbride. It began life with about 350 staff, and it was built as part of an expansion of the Overseas Development Administration, which was part of the Foreign Office, to create jobs in East Kilbride. It went on to be the joint headquarters of the Department for International Development before the merger of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and DFID.

More recently, in November 2021, the FCDO warmly celebrated the 40th anniversary of Abercrombie house. The UK Government used that opportunity to reaffirm and cement the relationship with its staff and with East Kilbride. The Foreign Secretary at the time, Liz Truss, is quoted as saying:

“Our 1,000 staff in Scotland can proudly celebrate 40 years of Abercrombie House having been at the forefront of making the UK a world-leading diplomatic and development superpower.”

Ms Truss went on to reinforce that, saying that she was

“looking forward to building on Abercrombie House’s impressive history”

and giving a bold commitment

“to redeploy a further 500 jobs to our joint HQ by 2025, as part of the UK Government’s levelling up agenda”.

That is why I and fellow ministers fully understand and support the dedicated civil service staff at Abercrombie house today, and we accept and appreciate why they are so perplexed by the announcement. Only two years on from those quotes, the UK Government has reneged on that commitment to the staff and the town and has reversed the decision to build on their impressive history by moving all their jobs—the entire department—out of Abercrombie house, according to the plans, and out of East Kilbride.

As many members have echoed, towns are much more than simply buildings and spaces. They represent our communities. For many civil servants, Abercrombie house is the beating heart of the community of East Kilbride.

On learning about the 40th anniversary celebrations, I noted, as Monica Lennon did, that one of the very first employees at Abercrombie house was a famous son of East Kilbride: the former Scotland footballer and commentator Ally McCoist. On the 40th anniversary, he paid tribute by saying:

“It’s amazing to think that 26 of the people I worked with when Abercrombie House first opened are still there”.

He also said that

“It was a massive boost for East Kilbride”

at the time and that he still remembered his first day and how

“proud”

his parents were that he had

“got the ODA job”.

He was not wrong. Abercrombie house is an embedded and important part of the fabric of the town of East Kilbride. As many members have said, it presents high-quality employment opportunities for local people and has had a significant positive impact on local businesses and the economy, with the FCDO having made the point that it generates an estimated £30 million per annum for the local economy in East Kilbride and the wider region.

Again, that is not just about numbers, roles or simply locations; it is about people. We are all thinking about those who have dedicated their working lives to the delivery mainly of overseas development assistance to those around the world in greatest need, directly from East Kilbride, for the past four decades. Ben Macpherson eloquently paid tribute, as Monica Lennon and Gillian Mackay did, to the work that is carried out there in helping people around the world through the contribution of the staff who work there and the wider work that they carry out. The town can rightly be proud of its role in having an impact on the lives of some of the world’s poorest and most marginalised people.

As a Government, we place a great deal of importance on Scotland’s being a good global citizen. Central to our commitment to raising Scotland’s international profile and providing that assistance is our international development fund, which supports and empowers our partners in Malawi, Rwanda, Zambia and Pakistan to the tune of £15 million per annum.

The staff at Abercrombie house certainly carry out vital work, and I fully sympathise with those who are affected by the unexpected news. The UK Government’s decision to relocate the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to a new location in Glasgow was not one that the Scottish Government was aware of. It is important that Governments work with our colleagues and with trade unions to reach fair and reasonable decisions that respect the legitimate interests of workers. Of course, at times, that might mean that difficult decisions must be made, but the principle of no surprises is an important one. Given the level of surprise and the subsequent discontent at the news, I join members, as the Scottish Government joins others more widely, in urging the UK Government to follow the Scottish Government’s more progressive approach and engage fully in meaningful conversation with the staff affected and the local community.

In the meantime, the Scottish Government continues to support East Kilbride. We have committed £500 million over 20 years to the Glasgow city region deal—the first such deal in Scotland and the largest Scottish Government investment commitment across the wider deals programme. Some £166 million of that investment has been allocated to economic infrastructure activity in South Lanarkshire.

I extend my thanks, as others have done, to the committed workforce at the FCDO in East Kilbride, and I encourage the UK Government to work closely with them and with the local community to ensure that any decisions take full account of the views of the workforce and the local community, and the impact on the local economy. Forty-two years of service by the people of East Kilbride must be respected.

Thank you, minister.

Meeting closed at 17:45.