Official Report 1060KB pdf
The next item of business is a statement by Gillian Martin on progressing a just transition at Grangemouth. The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of her statement, so there should be no interventions or interruptions.
14:31
I am delighted to update the Parliament on the tangible progress that is being made to secure Grangemouth’s long-term and sustainable future. The industrial cluster remains essential to both Scotland’s just transition to net zero and the future prosperity of our economy. The measures that I will set out today are illustrative of our commitment to realising the site’s potential. Grangemouth has a proud industrial history. For generations, it has powered Scotland’s economy and provided thousands of highly skilled and highly paid jobs. I am committed to continuing that legacy.
I want to be clear that the Scottish Government will not shy away from taking concrete action to address the challenges that the cluster faces and to support the people who rely on it. I want to ensure that Grangemouth helps to lead the way in our journey to net zero through new green energy opportunities and that we bring the valued and skilled workforce with us on that journey. We remain fully committed to using the limited regulatory and fiscal levers that are at our disposal to ensure that those who live and work at Grangemouth are not left behind in our transition to net zero and that they will, in time, benefit greatly from the opportunities that come to the industrial cluster.
Since the launch of project willow, there has been wide-ranging interest in Grangemouth. I can confirm that Scottish Enterprise has received more than 140 inquiries from businesses that are interested in establishing new projects in the industrial cluster. They include projects that align with the recommended technology pathways, as well as complementary projects that, if deployed, would deliver high-value jobs and industrial opportunities at Grangemouth.
The level of interest from domestic and international operators is testament to the dedication of the highly skilled workforce, which has undoubtedly secured the cluster’s reputation. It also illustrates Scottish Enterprise’s tireless efforts to actively seek out new opportunities, and it shows that Grangemouth is a good place to do business. By continuing to work with businesses to assess their potential and appropriateness and then putting in place the right level of public sector support, we can unlock Grangemouth’s potential by making the proposed projects market investable. That is why the First Minister has announced that £25 million will be made available during this and future financial years to support new projects and initiatives that secure Grangemouth’s long-term and sustainable future.
Today, I am pleased to announce the first significant funding awards for projects at Grangemouth—a hugely important milestone. This morning, I attended a groundbreaking ceremony for a project that is being progressed by MiAlgae, a home-grown, pioneering Scottish business. I welcome that the United Kingdom Government has listened to the direct calls made by me and by others across the chamber and has joined the Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise in allocating up to £3 million between now and 2027 to support the construction of the company’s new commercial-scale bioreactor at Grangemouth.
The project will be capable of producing commercial-scale volumes of omega-3, a vital ingredient for global food and health industries. The facility will upcycle whisky by-products to produce omega-3. That is a clear example of the circular economy in action and will have tangible benefits for businesses and customers across the economy.
Presiding Officer, £1.5 million of that support represents the first funding from the Scottish Government’s Grangemouth just transition fund. MiAlgae believes that, if the project expands as planned, it will create up to 130 new direct jobs at Grangemouth by the end of 2029 as the company scales its technology and delivers subsequent bioreactor modules.
Although MiAlgae’s technology is not directly aligned with the pathways that are identified in project willow, its potential to create jobs and stimulate new industries at pace is exactly what our just transition plan is about. It represents a major step forward in diversifying the cluster and thus securing the future of the industrial base at Grangemouth.
However, MiAlgae is just the beginning. I am proud to announce that, subject to final negotiations and confirmation of public funding conditions, the Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise will provide funding support to Celtic Renewables, a company at the cutting edge of biorefining technology, at Grangemouth. The Scottish Government is allocating £6.23 million from our Grangemouth just transition fund to support the next stage of the company’s acetone-butanol-ethanol—ABE—biorefinery project. Assuming that Celtic Renewables reaches commercialisation as planned, the project is expected to create up to 149 direct jobs at Grangemouth by the end of 2030. As with MiAlgae, those numbers are only set to increase as the business continues to scale up its technology and expand the market for its products.
Critical to securing a long-term and sustainable future for the Grangemouth industrial cluster is ensuring that the foundational components are optimised to attract investment. Therefore, I am pleased to confirm to the Parliament that we are also providing up to £595,000 to Scottish Enterprise to ensure that key enabling works to prepare the site for future investment are progressed at pace. Those activities will centre on addressing infrastructure, utilities, land and connectivity challenges across Grangemouth. Those challenges have been put to me by businesses, Fife Council and others through the Grangemouth future industry board. I trust that that is a clear sign that we are listening to the needs of businesses and, in collaboration with them, delivering on our commitment to take targeted action that secures the long-term and sustainable future of the industrial cluster.
Most important, we continue to prioritise the workforce and the local community, who are central to that work. On 29 October, in partnership with Unite the Union, the First Minister announced that new conditionality would be applied to all funds awarded as part of the Grangemouth just transition fund. That will take the form of a guaranteed interview scheme, for workers who have been made redundant at Grangemouth, for the new roles that will be created as a result of the funding that I am announcing today. I am grateful for the support that Unite the Union has provided in bringing that proposal to fruition. Its expertise and insight have helped us to drive forward our activity and ensure that workers are at the forefront of our efforts.
That represents a just transition in action, helping workers to secure new opportunities and ensuring that their vital experience, skills and knowledge are not lost to Grangemouth or Scotland. It shows that the Scottish National Party Government is putting people at the heart of change.
Furthermore, I confirm to the Parliament that the Scottish Government intends to continue funding a community participation manager to support Grangemouth’s just transition for the next two years. That role, which is funded as part of the greener Grangemouth programme, is a key delivery partner for the Grangemouth just transition plan, and its existence is one of the recommended actions in the plan. Critically, the role remains a key conduit to ensuring that the voices of the community are at the heart of everything that we do in pursuit of the cluster’s transition. My commitment to provide an additional £150,000 over the next two years will support CVS Falkirk & District to continue that critical work.
Grangemouth is changing and, as a result of the Government’s actions, the hope of a bright future is being built. From biorefining to innovative start-ups to global players, the site is a beacon of Scotland’s green industrial future. It is a story of partnership between Governments, industry, trade unions, the workforce and communities. It is a story of resilience and ambition. It is a story that shows that Scotland can lead the world in delivering a just transition that creates jobs, attracts investment and tackles climate change head on.
However, today’s announcements are by no means the limit of our ambition. More must be done and will be done. I give my commitment to members—not least my colleagues Michelle Thomson, Michael Matheson and Falkirk Council leader, Councillor Cecil Meiklejohn, who have been unwavering in their commitment to stand up for their constituents, local businesses and, crucially, the workforce and local community—that the Scottish Government will not rest until we have explored every opportunity and realised our ambition of a long-term and sustainable future for Grangemouth.
The cabinet secretary will now take questions on the issues raised in her statement. I intend to allow around 20 minutes for that, after which we will need to move to the next item of business. I invite members who wish to ask a question to press their request-to-speak button if they have not already done so.
I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of her statement. This is a step in the right direction for my constituents in Falkirk, Grangemouth and the wider community. I hope that everyone in the chamber will welcome jobs being created at the Grangemouth site. However, considering that many of those jobs will not be operational for another five years, it falls short of what the workers at Grangemouth refinery deserve.
The SNP’s anti-oil and gas rhetoric affects not just the thousands of oil and gas workers in the north-east, but our industrial heartlands at sites such as Grangemouth and Mossmorran. Although I welcome the jobs that have been created, as outlined in the statement, they are ultimately a drop in the ocean compared with what we need.
The Scottish and UK Governments promised retraining opportunities for those who were made redundant at Grangemouth. Will the cabinet secretary confirm that the retraining opportunities will give them the skills that they need for the new roles that have been created?
Although the new funding is welcome, the project willow report found that billions of pounds of private investment would be needed to secure the long-term future of Grangemouth. Will the cabinet secretary tell the Parliament how much investment the Scottish Government has managed to secure so far and what plans it has to attract more investment in the future?
There were quite a lot of questions in there. I will try to deal with them all.
We are funding a skills intervention, delivered by Forth Valley College, to retrain and upskill workers who are directly impacted by the refinery closure that was announced by Petroineos. The intervention brings protected skills support investment from the Scottish and United Kingdom Governments of up to £2 million. The skills intervention has been extended to include shared services workers at Ineos Olefins and Polymers Europe, who, unfortunately, are also facing redundancy as a direct result of the cessation of refining at Grangemouth.
I am pleased to report that engagement in the process has been very high, with workers using the reskilling to secure employment in in-demand industries, including the renewables sector. More than 300 workers have already accessed the support so far.
We had an account from the principal of the college this morning, at the Grangemouth future industry board, in which we heard that 185 individuals have completed retraining and 49 are actively undergoing retraining. As a result of the monitoring that the college has in place on the final destinations of those who come through its training programmes, the principal was able to say that more than 80 of the applicants who responded about their final destination have secured employment. That does not account for the employment of those from Petroineos who have not undergone the training and who have gone straight into jobs following the redundancy that they faced at Petroineos.
It is not fair to say that the jobs from the projects that we have announced today will not materialise for five years. MiAlgae will start recruiting now, and I was told that the first modules of the plant will be open in April next year. [Interruption.] Sorry, Presiding Officer, but I am hearing noises off. As I said, the plant will be open in April, which is when they will start to produce omega-3.
As I set out, those are just the first two of many announcements that we will make as a result of the work that has been done through project willow and the task force that has been run and headed up by Scottish Enterprise. More than 140 bids have come in for project willow work, but they have been whittled down to the ones that are most likely to get to financial close.
I, too, thank the minister for providing advance sight of her statement. The £3 million investment in MiAlgae is, of course, welcome. It comes with £1.5 million of investment from the UK Government, which forms part of the £14.5 million that the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in the budget, which will help to transform Grangemouth into a low-carbon tech hub. That is in addition to the £200 million that has been pledged by the National Wealth Fund.
So, the minister is right: ultimately, this is a story of partnership between Scotland’s two Governments, and between industry, trade unions, the workforce and the communities. However, it is also clear that there was no plan prior to Petroineos’s announcement or the UK Labour Government’s election. What lessons have been learned so that that partnership can be continued, to make good on the potential and to unlock the amounts that the two Governments have pledged?
The work in relation to Grangemouth highlights Scottish Enterprise’s interesting role in facilitating the addressing of infrastructure, utilities, land and connectivity challenges. Is that perhaps a model for how it can act in the future, particularly with the Celtic Renewables project?
I warmly welcome the spirit in which Daniel Johnson made his remarks. It has been a highly collaborative process. From the get-go, I and the UK energy minister, Michael Shanks, have worked very hard with Scottish Enterprise and the unions to facilitate the deployment of the project willow opportunities. I pay massive tribute to Scottish Enterprise. More than 140 project proposals came in. It could easily have taken years to go through those, but it has gone through that process quickly and has identified the two projects that it has been possible to announce today. Other projects will be announced, but we cannot talk about them yet. They include some exciting going concerns.
However, it is not true to say that work on a just transition in Grangemouth started only last year. Such work had been going on for years through the Grangemouth future industry board, which Scottish Government ministers chaired. I was very pleased, in a spirit of working collaboratively with the new UK Government, to invite Michael Shanks to co-chair the Grangemouth future industry board. That shows that it is a joint effort that is delivering results. Both Governments are delivering results, but we are working hand in hand with all the interested parties in the Grangemouth community, including employers, the college, community councils and the local council, as well as Skills Development Scotland.
It has been a fruitful process. Is it a blueprint for how we might want to continue in the future? Absolutely.
A large number of colleagues want to ask a question, so I would be grateful for brevity in the questions and the responses.
I thank the cabinet secretary and all our Scottish agencies for their determined efforts to create a just transition for Grangemouth. I note that the UK Government has now joined the Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise to support the allocation of up to £3 million for my MiAlgae’s bioreactor with £1.5 million over two years.
However, has the cabinet secretary managed to get any clarity on the promise that the UK Government made on 23 February this year, that it would provide £200 million? By my calculations, it is still £198.5 million short.
I thank Michelle Thomson for that question and for her dogged determination in holding both Governments to account on our duties to step in and secure the future for Grangemouth.
It is right to say that the UK Government pledged £200 million of National Wealth Fund moneys to projects associated with Grangemouth. On a number of occasions, I have made the case to UK ministers on the imperative of releasing that money as soon as possible.
The National Wealth Fund should be a far more flexible operation than it has been in the past. It is waiting for projects to get to the financial investment decision stage. Obviously, we were using the £25 million just transition fund to help projects to get to the FID stage.
The National Wealth Fund needs to be a lot more flexible. I had a chat with Michael Shanks, the UK energy minister, about that this morning, and he agrees with me. The National Wealth Fund is engaging with prospective developers, as are the Scottish Government and its partners. We need clarity that National Wealth Fund moneys will be deployed in the near future, and I hope to be able to say that more of that £200 million will be able to be deployed in the future.
Can the cabinet secretary tell me whether the closures of the Grangemouth refinery and the Exxon plant at Mossmorran have impacted on the viability of the Acorn project? Will she deliver the £80 million of funding that the SNP Government promised, to safeguard the future of carbon capture in Scotland?
It was very disappointing to hear that Storegga is walking away from the Acorn project, but Acorn remains a very attractive going concern. The point has been made to me many times by those who want to see carbon capture happening in Scotland that it needs to be given the same amount of money as is associated with the carbon capture projects that will be located in the north of England. That will accelerate the growth not just in carbon capture but in a lot of industries that are associated with it.
We all need to get behind calling on the UK Government to give the same parity to the Acorn project as is given to other projects. We stand by our commitment to the Acorn project.
I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for her statement and for the announcement of new investment in the Grangemouth area in the coming years.
The cabinet secretary will recognise that it is important that we try to retain many of the skills that have been lost through the closure of the petrochemical site in the Falkirk and Grangemouth area. We need to make sure that secure investment is made in the area in the short term as well as the medium to longer term, but there is a risk that too much of Scottish Enterprise’s work is focused on project willow, which is medium to longer term. Will the cabinet secretary ensure that Scottish Enterprise intensifies its work to secure early employment opportunities in the Grangemouth area in order to maximise the opportunity to retain skills in the area?
I absolutely agree with the sentiment of Michael Matheson’s question. We must look at short-term, medium-term and long-term opportunities for Grangemouth. When I went to the MiAlgae site, it had already started doing the groundwork for the building of its facility, and it is hoping to open that facility in April, so it is hitting the ground running.
Scottish Enterprise has also been looking at other short-term, medium-term and long-term projects. I am particularly excited about the opportunities that might exist in sustainable aviation fuel, as that could be a game changer. I am also interested to see what might come about as a result of the two projects that we are announcing today and what other opportunities might come through to Scottish Enterprise.
Scottish Enterprise has demonstrated that it is not just looking at what project willow has looked at in terms of viable sectors, but that it is willing to take on other projects that might be outwith the parameters of project willow, to secure the outcomes that Michael Matheson has just mentioned.
I remind members of my voluntary register of interests.
I welcome today’s announcement of new jobs in Grangemouth. I have a long-held view that the fate of too much of our economy is concentrated in the hands of too few boardrooms in too many far-away places and that we are too dependent on foreign direct investment. Look at what happened at the refinery itself—that should be a lesson to us all. I welcome the fact that both of these businesses are in local ownership and control. I think that that is a good start.
What undertakings has the Government secured about investment, about jobs and workforce planning, about the timetable for those jobs, about research and development, and about freedom of association—in other words, trade unionisation? Are these documented either in planning agreements or in a memorandum of understanding with these businesses?
We will need briefer questions and responses.
I will use the two companies that we announced funding for today as an example. Celtic Renewables is already on the Grangemouth future industry board, as is Unite the Union, and there were regular discussions about unionisation at those meetings. There is also the jobs prioritisation scheme, which came from Unite the Union itself. Unite came to the Scottish Government and put forward the idea that there should be conditionality associated with any funding that was given to any of the successful applicants for project willow funding and just transition funding, which would involve those who had lost their jobs at the Grangemouth refinery being prioritised and guaranteed an interview.
MiAlgae was at GFIB today as an observer, but it has been offered the opportunity to come on board as a member, and Unite the Union was speaking directly to MiAlgae about the issues that Mr Leonard has raised.
It is clear that investment can bring success; we saw that with the jobs announcement. The £14.5 million funding for Grangemouth that was announced in the UK budget was a welcome, if overdue, step forward. Will the cabinet secretary join me in calling on the UK Government to now go further and to at least match the Scottish Government’s commitment of £25 million for the just transition fund to support initiatives for Grangemouth?
It is a long overdue step in the right direction, as Bob Doris mentioned. Let me be clear: the UK Government can and must go further, just as it has in other parts of the United Kingdom. We have, for some time, been pressing the UK Government to match the Scottish Government’s commitment of £25 million via the Grangemouth just transition fund to support initiatives at Grangemouth—[Interruption.]
Despite noises off from the Labour benches, it is a positive thing. I am having a collaborative and constructive dialogue with UK Government ministers in the sector, and there is an understanding there—[Interruption.]
I say to Mr Johnson that it is not something to witter on and be bitter about; it is an example of both Governments working together—it is a good thing.
However, we have also said that the national wealth fund commitment needs to be enacted. Again, I have listening ears in that regard, but I think that members will share my frustration that the national wealth fund has been a little bit too restrictive in getting that funding deployed. We await the detail of what that will mean in practice for those who live and work at Grangemouth.
I have to say that, although the collaboration has been taken forward very well by both Governments, we need to see an end to the energy profits levy, because that is the source of the problem in respect of many of the jobs that are being lost in the energy industry and beyond.
The future of Grangemouth has always been linked to Mossmorran, and for decades they have shared a common workforce. A few weeks ago, the Deputy First Minister came to the chamber and talked about expanding the Grangemouth investment task force to include Mossmorran as a potential location for projects. Can the cabinet secretary give members an update on that?
In addition, given that it seems that a number of projects have now been selected, is it too late—I hope not—to incorporate Mossmorran into the thinking around the work of that task force and could consideration be given to successful projects that can include both sites?
The Deputy First Minister is with me just now and she is leading on the Mossmorran situation, after the very disappointing announcement by ExxonMobil. Although she is leading on that, I, too, have met ExxonMobil to discuss some of the guarantees that it is going to put in place around, for example, its skills offer for those who face redundancy.
The company has told me that it is also trying to redeploy workers from the Fife plant to its operations in other parts of the country, and it is also going to retain some workers to provide the steam associated with the neighbouring Fife natural gas liquids facility, which is operated by Shell.
On the general point that Mark Ruskell raised, as a result of the project willow work, which has been concentrating on Grangemouth, there are a great deal of projects that may not have been right for Grangemouth but may be well suited to Mossmorran, and the Deputy First Minister is engaging with Scottish Enterprise on what those might be.
I declare an interest, as my wife works for Celtic Renewables, so she will be very pleased this evening, although she has kept the news very secret over the past few days.
I want to explore the issue of guaranteed job interviews for those who have lost their jobs at Ineos. Are we tracking those who are going to lose, or have already lost, their jobs? Do we know where they are ending up? What is the prospect of them returning to the site in Grangemouth?
There are a number of things in that question, and I want to give members some of the detail. Those workers have access to skills opportunities at Forth Valley College. The college is trying to monitor them as they leave the training, and it was able to tell me that, of those who respond to its final destination surveys, more than 80 have come back and told the college where they have found employment, which is great.
In relation to the workforce that has been made redundant by Petroineos, one of the difficulties is that it holds the data on who those people are and it has not released that to the Scottish Government. Helpfully, however, we have links with the unions that are involved on the site and we are getting feedback from them.
Quite a lot of the workers have not accessed skills opportunities because they have found employment elsewhere. Regrettably, I do not have details on this—Petroineos might have them—but I hope that not as many workers as I fear have had to go abroad for employment. However, that is probably a risk that has been taken. That makes it all the more important that we secure future opportunities for the site to encourage them to come back home.
Despite election promises to save jobs at the refinery, the Labour UK Government failed to intervene to prevent its closure. Does the cabinet secretary share my concern that the Treasury’s full financial weight is not being put behind saving industrial sites in Scotland in the same way as it has been elsewhere in the UK?
I do. Notwithstanding that we have been collaborating very closely on the issues with Grangemouth, we need to look at the interventions that have been made in other parts of the UK. It is not just on the SNP benches that there has been some criticism of that. There has even been criticism of it from the Labour benches at Westminster, to be fair to the representatives who have made that point in the same way as Rona Mackay has done.
If the UK Government was serious about supporting Grangemouth and Mossmorran, it could put the full financial heft of the Treasury behind supporting the transition. It has been done in other industrial towns in England and Wales, and I support that. However, the UK Government must also address the root causes. There is never usually a silver bullet in such situations, but the energy industry and the supply chain have been saying for months and months that, if there is anything close to a silver bullet, it is repeal or reform of the energy profits levy, which is having a direct effect on job losses in Scotland.
We are over time for the statement and questions. I am conscious that we have additional time this afternoon, so I will get the other speakers in, but they will need to be brief, as will the cabinet secretary’s responses.
A report by Future Economy Scotland found that only one green job is created for every three that are lost in the oil and gas supply chain. The new jobs at Grangemouth are extremely welcome, but does the cabinet secretary recognise that there will be no true just transition, whether at Grangemouth, Mossmorran, Harbour Energy or elsewhere, without removal of the windfall tax by the UK Government and a reversal of the Scottish Government’s long-standing presumption against new oil and gas?
The member would expect me, in my role, to be speaking to representatives from across the energy sector wholesale, and they are squarely putting out the fact—this is not just the oil and gas industry, but also the supply chain and the renewables industry—that it is the EPL that is causing the most damage. [Interruption.]
Offshore Energies UK has offered an alternative fiscal regime to the UK Government, but it ignored that at the budget a couple of weeks ago. It needs to look at it again. The ball is still in its court. I have to say—[Interruption.]
I have to say that I cannot hear myself think, so I am just going to sit down, because Liam Kerr is heckling me from a sedentary position.
I was waiting for an answer.
Can we please ask questions with a degree of respect and also listen to the responses with a degree of respect? I will give some latitude for members to respond and react to what is being said, but it needs to be within reason.
I note that the UK Government said this morning that, when Labour came into office,
“there was no plan for Grangemouth.”
Can the cabinet secretary confirm whether that is accurate? Although the UK Government might not have had a plan, it does not reflect my understanding of the Scottish Government’s efforts.
That quote from the UK Government is probably about the former UK Government, which certainly did not have any interest whatsoever in helping Grangemouth out.
It is obviously disappointing to hear that kind of thing, because we have worked so collaboratively together. The UK Government’s statement about the Scottish Government is not accurate. It simply does not reflect the extent of the Scottish Government’s commitment to securing a just transition, which began years before the 2024 general election.
We have committed to securing a future for Grangemouth industrial cluster, with work on the just transition plan and, crucially, engagement with local communities. A Scottish Government minister has chaired the Grangemouth future industry board since 2023, and I invited the UK Government to co-chair it when it came into office.
It is good to see that, rather than absorbing hundreds of millions of pounds of losses, the UK Government and Scottish Government are working together to create new industrial activity at Grangemouth. The two announcements are to be commended, particularly the guaranteed interview scheme to reabsorb redundant workers, pioneered by Unite. That is really welcome.
How can we convert the 140 projects more rapidly? Two in the space of 12 months seems like a low rate of conversion into real projects on the ground. Will the minister commit to using the full power of the Government to punch through any blockages around the progress of those projects—whether those blockages are to do with staffing, planning, policy or finance—so that we can mobilise and create more industrial employment?
Will she consider how the Scottish Government might co-invest with investors in equity shares to create industrial activity so that we can crowd in wealth and have long-term state control?
I am not going to be able to give a succinct answer to all the questions that were parcelled up in there, but I will say to Paul Sweeney that there are no blockages to deploying the Scottish Government’s funding. We must ensure that the projects have been triaged by Scottish Enterprise before we can announce the ones that are to be developed and brought to fruition. That obviously takes time, and due diligence is very important. When we give public money to any ventures, we need to be absolutely assured that they are going concerns and that they are going to achieve what they have set out to achieve.
I come back to my central point. Today’s announcements are just the start of the announcements coming off the back of project willow and the results of the task force run by Scottish Enterprise. I have been so impressed by the speed at which Scottish Enterprise has worked, and I think that it deserves great commendation from everyone, regardless of party affiliation.
In order to deliver all those welcome new jobs, the local college, Forth Valley College, needs to be in a secure financial position, but it is facing the prospect of having to close a campus. I want to see a budget settlement that ensures that no colleges close and no campuses close. Does the cabinet secretary agree with me?
I was in Forth Valley College this morning, at the Grangemouth future industry board, and the principal was there, making the point that, in order to put as many people as possible through the skills uplift and training—as is required by the two announcements that we have made today, which will require specialised skills—there needs to be support from the Scottish Government. We have given support as a result of the skills intervention.
What about Alloa?
Graham Simpson will just have to wait for the budget to see what else there is.
That concludes the item of business. Before we move to the next item, there will be a brief pause to allow front-bench teams to change.