Chamber and committees

I would be supportive of that proposal. It would be appropriate. We tend to have memorials to disastrous tragedies that lead to a significant loss of life in a single incident, which is entirely appropriate, but we do not do the same with loss of life over longer periods in situations such as the one that we are speaking about, and we should.

My views on that have possibly been strengthened by the Covid experience. I know from talking to bereaved families, because of my close involvement in that experience, how important it is to have recognition and somewhere that people can go to reflect, remember and come to terms with their grief. The importance of that cannot be overstated. Therefore, the proposal would and does have my general support.

On the process, I again draw from the experience of Covid to some extent. It would be wrong and inappropriate for Government to decide what that should be. The starting point in any such process should be engagement with people who have lost loved ones or who live on the route of the A9—those with, to use the term, lived experience of the loss that we seek to commemorate—and the process should work from there.

Memorials take many different forms. As you said, we all have particular images in our minds when we talk about memorials, but there are lots of Covid memorials that are open spaces, gardens and places where people simply go to reflect. Therefore, it would be important to properly understand what would be meaningful for people who have lost loved ones on the A9.

No—I think that we have covered everything that I expected us to cover. There were a couple of moments when I rather rashly offered to provide more written information. It would be good if the committee could remind me of those, as I no longer have an army of civil servants sitting behind me to remind me later.

This is probably a classic politician’s answer—I am trying not to give those—but, if it is possible, it is both. It is absolutely fair for people in the Highlands to say that the A9 should have been prioritised above the other demands on the capital budget. If I was living in the Highlands, there is no doubt that I would have that view, so I am not in any way suggesting that that is somehow an unfair view for Highlanders to hold.

The other side of it relates to the way that you posed that question to me. I understand why you did it—you are speaking on behalf of your constituents, so I am not criticising that in any way—but you were in the Government for many years, so you know that to point to a big budget when speaking about a particular project that is small, relative to the size of the budget, and say, “Well, why couldn’t that have been done?” does not fully encapsulate the budgeting process.

For most, if not all, of the time that I was in the Government, the demands on the capital budget exceeded the quantum of it. Fergus Ewing knows that as well as I do, because of his time in the Government. Within that, there is a legitimate question about the relative priority that is given to different projects, but in the process of budgeting we try to balance all of those things to progress everything that we want to do, and that will inevitably lead to supporters of different projects feeling, at times, that their project is not getting the priority that it needs.

However, it is not a fair characterisation of how such things work to simply point to the size of the budget and the cost of the A9 and somehow say that there was no problem with funding through our capital programme.

As an aside, I note that, against the wishes of the Government that you and I were both part of, the Parliament choosing the trams had implications for other aspects of the capital programme at that time.

All of the projects that you have spoken about were necessary and important. As a relatively new driver, I have only recently driven across some of those projects—I drove on the A9 for the first time just a couple of weeks ago. The projects were all important, but I do not think that that is the point that you are making.

It is not the case that we inappropriately prioritised the Queensferry crossing, the M74 improvements or the Borders railway. However, I suppose that my short answer to your question would be yes—although we ran into the difficulties that I have been speaking about, I certainly hope and expect that the Government now prioritises completing the A9.

The programme that has been set out, with timescales, will still face challenges along the way—I would be astonished if it did not. To me, it looks like a programme that will succeed, and it is essential that it is given the priority to ensure that it does.

No, not as far as I am aware. I think that you were in government during most of that time, Fergus, so you would be aware of any decisions taken there. You will remember as well as I do some of the difficult discussions that we had around the Cabinet table about budgets; as is the nature of budgetary processes, we had to balance the competing priorities. At different times, different projects will have greater immediate priority than others, but it is always about trying to balance and achieve the objectives that we have set.

That is an excellent observation. I know that we are talking about the A9, but that point is one of the things that is quite difficult conceptually for people to get their heads round, including people in Government at the time, but also very real across a whole range of issues. In the national health service, for example, the period in which elective treatment was shut down had a significant multiplier effect in terms of what it takes to recover that position.

On everything else, including the A9 project, it takes more time to catch up with such things than the period of the pause, for a variety of reasons. It is not that people are sitting round and not trying to get back on top of things; it is just the way that such things work. On a whole range of things and in many walks of life, the recovery period from the Covid experience will be much longer than the two years-plus of Covid.

Again, I am happy to set that out in more detail. My written submission covered the period when I was the Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities, not First Minister. I am not asking for more requests for information but, if it would be helpful to set a bit more of that down in writing, I will do that for the committee.

In summary, as First Minister, you have an overview. The day-to-day responsibility for making sure that things are being done as they should be on any project, as is the case on the A9 project, is with the relevant cabinet secretary. As First Minister, although I was not copied into everything, I was copied into significant briefings or submissions on things, and I would ask questions and get more involved in periods when I thought that there was a need for it. That is how these things generally work.

The A9 would have featured from time to time in Cabinet discussions—Fergus Ewing quoted from a Cabinet minute a wee while ago—and, at particular moments, the cabinet secretary would have brought things to Cabinet. I do not have all the papers in front of me, so I cannot say exactly when that would have happened with the A9, but I would be happy to provide more information on that if it is appropriate.

I will answer the question quite carefully and seriously, because people will have heard me during my time as First Minister readily apologise for things that I think merit an apology. I also think it is important not to reduce the value of an apology by saying these things simply to get out of a tight spot. I am sorry that we will not have dualled the A9 by 2025. I regret that, and I think that people in the Highlands have every right to feel the way that they do about it, not just because the target was set and not met, but because the nature of the project and the reasons for making the commitment to dualling the A9 were so serious and involved safety. The loss of life on the A9 is a matter of deep regret for everybody. I think that those feelings are justified.

I want to be clear, though, that I do not accept that we failed to meet that target because we just did not bother and we were not trying to meet it. The 2025 target was set for the right reasons and we were committed to it. I was Deputy First Minister at the time that the target was set by Government, so I am not trying to escape responsibility. Then, I had no direct involvement in the A9. However, when I look at it now, I would ask myself whether we were as candid as we should have been with ourselves, as well as with the public, about just how challenging it would always have been to meet the target, even with the fairest of winds.

My second point, which I have made already, is that a number of things happened subsequently that were not foreseen or even, in some cases, foreseeable, which meant that it was even more difficult to meet the target. I will be careful in what I say here: I am not sitting here saying that I am sorry that we messed up because we just did not bother trying to do this. I am sorry that a whole range of circumstances, many of which were beyond our control, meant that we were not able to deliver on that target.

I absolutely understand the feelings of people in the Highlands about that. I am no longer in government, but that is why I think it is now so important that the project is completed according to the revised timescales that have been set.

I think it can be squared pretty easily, actually, drawing on what I have just said. I do not know how many of the papers you would have seen personally at the time, but at that point, we were not in a position where we had decided whether we would definitely use private finance, because we did not have a clear private finance route, or opt for publicly funded straight capital provision.

The situation at that point was that, had we gone down a private finance route, the 2025 target would not have been capable of being met, but we had not closed the door to the design build capital funded option. If memory serves me correctly, it was only at the end of 2022 or thereabouts that it became clear that there was no route to a 2025 target being met. With any kind of target, as you get closer to it, there is a diminishing prospect of it being met, but, until that point, there was, at least in theory, a route to meeting the 2025 target. That closed off around the end of 2022 or 2023. Clearly, there were other factors at play around then as well.

Let me try to answer that as best I can, perhaps in a general sense. On any particular points, I am more than happy to look at the paperwork after this meeting and come back with specific answers in writing, if that would be helpful to the committee.

I will say two things in general. First, it is not the case that the issues with the A9 were down to the Greens’ involvement in the Government. People can read the Bute house agreement for themselves to see that the commitment to the A9 was not affected by that agreement. As First Minister during that time, I can say that that was not the case.

With the caveat that I will look again to see whether I can throw some light on other issues, my second point is that we are talking about a period when our revenue and capital budgets were under significant and growing pressure. Members of the Parliament have heard statements that various finance secretaries have made during recent times about the need for savings and the need to reprioritise. We all know the reasons for that. The overarching reason is the funding challenges that we have been confronted with in relation to the on-going work to try to find ways to make progress on sections of the road through either direct capital or a private finance model. In my view, the funding challenges are the overarching reason. However, as I said, I am happy to go away to see whether there are further comments that might be helpful.