You reflect some of the tensions that there have been historically over the situation at Ardrossan. You identify the ownership and the fact that the harbour is not in public ownership. Members will be aware that there is variation in the ownership of ports and harbours: some of them are owned by CMAL and some are not; some are owned by local authorities; and there are harbour trusts and other models. When we are looking at the different partners coming together to look at investment, Peel Ports has a clear responsibility as the owner. North Ayrshire Council also wants to identify its role and responsibilities. The scale of that will be variable depending on what works are done at Ardrossan. For example, there has been some distressing news in recent times about the Irish berth, which has caused some issues. Part of the work is to look at the different scope of what would be required. You are right to identify that one of the challenges that all parties have been working on is that it is a multi-partner business plan that is currently being developed.

It was made clear—in fact, there was a correction from one of my predecessors—that it would be long term. Given that billions have been taken out of the Scottish Government’s capital budget, we cannot expect all our previous ambitions to be realised. Particularly in transport, so much of our budget has to go on keeping our existing system safe. That means that a lot has to go into rail. We have just finished negotiations on the control period 7 position for rail and there is a massive investment there.

Would I want to have more on bus? Yes. Do we have the capability to do it this year? We certainly have more than we had last year, which was a challenge. We are getting back the momentum on bus investment, but it is not at the level that we would have wanted. However, Scotland’s finances are not at the level that we would have wanted and are certainly not at the level that we had at the time of that commitment.

I also have ferries and fleet replacement. There is a whole load of different things that are in that capital budget.

There is a particular increase in more recent years and for this year coming. There will be increasing costs in relation to bringing in the six new vessels, the payment for that and the loan arrangement that was put in place for that. As you will recognise, over 10 years, there are big increases from inflation and our costs on the harbours and ports investment work, and so on. There are also significant pay issues. The biggest subsidy that we have put into services has been in relation to the road equivalent tariff, which came in substantially around that time—in 2015. If you look at the journey from Oban to Craignure, for example, with RET that fare for next year will be £4.70, whereas immediately before RET was introduced, that fare was £5.65.

We need to identify subsidising our fares structure as a way of realising income to an area. If we are in a position that ferries from Oban to Craignure are cheaper now than they were almost 10 years ago in 2015, that shows the level and degree of subsidy that we have put into the ferry services to make sure that our lifeline ferry services are providing the value that our islanders need.

You will know that one of the consequences of bringing in RET is that it also made tourism more attractive. That has brought challenges in some of our island communities, but it has certainly brought economic benefit to our islanders. They have been able to benefit economically from more tourists coming to visit our islands. RET is a substantial increase in subsidy. I am not sure whether you are suggesting that you want us to remove road equivalent tariff—I hope not. We know from our islands’ connectivity plan, and I suspect from the investigations of the committee, that RET has proved very popular with islanders.

That is because subsidy is not a one-off thing. Subsidy carries on each year.

No.

There is funding that will be made available for Ardrossan over the coming year should we get to the position that I can make a decision that makes sense for the Government, North Ayrshire Council and the provision at Ardrossan.

In terms of delivery, at any point it will be more than one year for that investment.

That is an interesting proposition. When I was on the economy committee, we looked at how we measure carbon miles, and that would obviously need to be done. Such issues are live and current. There would need to be reciprocal international agreements and so on, and we could see the EU collectively moving more quickly in that area than Germany. If you have defensive procurement, which some countries are alive to and considering as we speak, there are knock-on consequences. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, which tends to be in imports and exports.

I understand that you have the UK minister coming to give evidence to you, and that may be an appropriate question to ask them.

We obviously need reliability and resilience in the fleet. We know that, and that is what we are providing. We are also very keen to have a spare vessel for deployment when there are—