Chamber and committees

If a detailed report is necessary—I hope that we get a detailed report—do you expect to see that in the spring?

Right—and one was approved by somebody else.

Those are obvious questions to ask, but we are still not clear. I guess that if board members appear before us, the committee can ask them what the poor performance consisted of. However, you are saying that you do not know.

So it was not Mr Tydeman.

So those two payments were approved by different people.

Yes, but at some point, the Government is going to have to make a decision on what it does about the future of the yard.

I have a couple of other questions. At paragraph 7 of your report, you mention “Under Recoveries funding”. Can you tell us what that is? According to your report, it amounts to £1 million per month.

I completely agree with that. Mr McMillan and I have been in meetings in which we, and others, have argued that the yard needs investment to modernise in order to be able to compete for orders, and ultimately to return to the private sector, which was the Government’s ambition for the yard. It needs to modernise—I am in no doubt that that is required.

However, if the yard does not win any of the small vessel replacement programme work, how much extra work does it need to be able to continue?

I will express it in another way. Let us say that the yard gets to September and it has finished the Glen Rosa, which is off and sailing, and carrying passengers, and there is no further work. How long can the yard continue, in your view, without extra work?

I cannot remember when David Tydeman was fired. To save me looking it up, was that before or after the report was concluded?

Okay. Do you think that there is any connection between those discoveries and Mr Tydeman being asked to leave the organisation?