Chamber and committees

I do not know whether any of my officials want to respond to that. It remains our intention to return the business to the private sector. We will update Parliament at the appropriate time if a proposal is received that represents good value for the taxpayer and continues to deliver benefits to Scotland and the local economy in Ayrshire. I am conscious, in these quite sensitive periods, of the need not to say anything that jeopardises either the commercial element or overspeaks in a political context.

Great.

We are still examining all options to bring forward new projects and employment opportunities at Grangemouth, entirely because of the economic impact that Michelle Thomson has just outlined. That is where the joint working between the Governments to consider viable options for the future of the site, including the feasibility of transforming it into a low-carbon fuels hub, comes in.

Along with support from Petroineos, the Scottish Government and the UK Government are very much willing to support options that will achieve the aim of trying to maintain, or almost increase, the economic activity that goes on at Grangemouth. We want Grangemouth to retain its position as Scotland’s foremost industrial site well into the next decade and beyond, and the UK Government is committed to exploring routes to supporting the next stages of all those options via the national wealth fund.

I appreciate that that is not a substantive answer on what happens next, but I absolutely share Michelle Thomson’s view that we cannot take our eye off the economic impact around labour and the support for our energy mix.

I keep a close eye on the accounts for Prestwick airport. The most recent ones were published on 16 November 2023 and show a continued positive picture, with the airport posting a profit in 2022-23. I do not know whether we have a specific date, but the next year’s accounts are due for publication some time in late autumn.

Glasgow Prestwick has developed as a specialist airport and has carved out a niche in a competitive aviation market. I do not think that it should necessarily be competing with Glasgow; it should continue carving out that niche. We would not intervene in commercial decisions that are taken by the airport, but I would want the management to consider all potential business opportunities in order to maximise use of the airport’s assets.

It would be more appropriate to put that question to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, but I am very conscious of the impact on the businesses and organisations that I represent at the Cabinet table. His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has done work on the impact on behaviour, particularly on net migration to Scotland. I also believe that statistics on population were published yesterday, and it is important that we take them into account, too.

My answer is yes, the Scottish Government keeps behavioural impact under review. Indeed, it must do so, because the Scottish Fiscal Commission models the behavioural impact of every tax rate. It often bypasses people—though not this committee, I am sure—that the Scottish Fiscal Commission, when it puts together its figures for what it assumes the Scottish Government will raise through a particular income tax change, models the behavioural impact. As you will see, the SFC’s tables model what the Scottish Government is set to gain if all things remain equal, and what it will actually receive, taking behavioural impact into account.

You have gone through the statistics, convener, so I will not repeat them, but the pathways review happened in the first place because of those concerning statistics. The other statistic that I would use is that 2p of every £1 of investment goes to female founders. That, in itself, is quite stark and also means that the statistics that you have outlined come as no surprise given the state of investment in businesses with female founders.

I remain extremely committed to implementing the recommendations of the pathways report. The pathways fund opened on 19 July this year, making up to £1.1 million of funding available to widen access for entrepreneurs. The fund was very successful: by the time that it closed on 30 August, it had received 130 applications and officials are now working to confirm grant awards.

A lot comes back to the issue of data. We have taken on board the need to improve data collection, which is a work in progress. We are working with delivery agencies and academic partners to improve our understanding, monitoring and reporting of data relating to participation in entrepreneurship. I am sure that the committee will be interested if and when we can give an update on what we have done as a result of that work.

He is a civil servant.

I am delighted to return to an area on which we had an exchange in the past and to repeat why I do not believe that it is appropriate to associate a single line of budget to the NSET programme. I very much respect the fact that Colin Smyth has a different view on that, and I very much respect the comments that Audit Scotland has made, but I am afraid that I am just not going to change my mind on the suggestion that we have one budget line associated with NSET, because that would completely undermine my view of NSET, which is that it should be for all Government to deliver.

I have just given an example about the work that is being done on innovation in the health service, and it is self-evident that that would not be included in a single budget line on NSET. The minute that we resort to the siloed approach on budgets, we will have completely eliminated the core purpose of NSET, which is to try to deliver economic prosperity across the Government.

In June, we published our second annual progress report, which lists all the actions that have been delivered and sets out what stage we are at in the NSET programme. However, I assume that you are talking about the Audit Scotland report.

We have had a debate about the best way to monitor spend. We have taken the recommendations on board and have delivered quite a number of them. We might just have a difference of opinion on how to do some of them, such as the finance recommendation, as effectively as possible. If you want to put any others to me directly, I can respond to them.