Chamber and committees

Sandy Begbie and Rich Wilson have been talking about public procurement. Your biog, Heather, says that your organisation works with the public sector in terms of its services, but do you consider, from start to finish, how the public sector is accessing the services of the three main service providers in Scotland so as to better support Scottish companies in AI?

On the displacement of jobs, the argument is made that the drawback of the displacement of jobs will be outweighed by the increase in productivity and opportunity. This morning, Rene Haas from the Cambridge-based Arm Holdings—which is a technology company, not a defence company—said that humanoid robots will be with us in five years. That is a little bit futuristic, but how do we ensure that we continue to have tax revenue if jobs are displaced? Do we rely on the productivity and the opportunity that will be created in terms of economic growth, or do we think about taxing robots?

Professor Helm, I ought to say first that I agree that we should increase our nuclear capacity, and I am in a minority in the Parliament on that. I also believe that we should have the ability to open Rosebank and Jackdaw. I have put my cards on the table.

You made an argument about reducing territorial consumption. In the very rural area that I represent, there is pushback on data centres in outstanding areas of beauty and on the implementation of pylon and grid infrastructure across the southern upland way.

There is a general movement against spoiling the beautiful rural landscape by installing battery storage in fields that would ordinarily be used for growing food. I think that it is going to be difficult to sell the public on the idea of reducing consumption of imported clothing, food and so on from China, given that they are already pushing against the introduction of that infrastructure.

I noticed that you did not use the word “transition”, which is a buzzword in politics—the phrase “just transition” is bandied around here a lot. How do you think that we can bring the public with us and ensure that they understand that we require there to be a—for want of a better word—transition in order to reduce our carbon emissions and our energy bills?

09:30

I have a quick supplementary on the issue of system costs. SP Energy Networks argues that undergrounding is a lot more expensive, but not undergrounding is detrimental to communities and to natural beauty. I think that the committee has a role in scrutinising not only Ofgem but NESO, SPEN and Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks in relation to that argument. Where should the committee be able to ask those questions? What angle should we take to ensure that we scrutinise those organisations when they give such stock answers?

I welcome you to your role as convener, Duncan.

I am a shareholder in a hospitality business. You have asked us to share a little bit about our background—

I am still slightly perturbed by the point in paragraph 18 of our papers. It says:

“While this response acknowledged the compressed timelines being worked to”,

the UK Government has not agreed to the request to enable ministers to consider whether the consent requirement applies. I therefore wonder how, since the Parliament dissolved after discussion of the matter, further discussions were able to take place. I would like to know what discussions took place and what the content of them was. I am not content to be told one minute by the business manager that there is no time to consider the LCM and that the UK Government did not consent to discussion with the Scottish Government on the specific devolved matters regarding the public interest in Scotland, and then to be told, on 22 June, that we are expected to roll over and accept that the UK Government has spoken to ministers. I do not think that the UK Government will have had time to do that. It has been dealing with elections and all sorts of things.

The papers before us set out why the Government did not support the bill, but the letter that has come to us sets out that it now supports it. How can we speak in a debate if we do not understand why the Government has changed its mind in the course of two days?

Hello, Kristopher.

I agree with the convener that we should be looking at the future of Grangemouth, as well as artificial intelligence. Data centres have the potential to be massive economic drivers, so they are a huge opportunity, but they carry risks as well. Scotland has the conditions to attract data centres, which would give the UK resilience, as we would not have to import our iCloud space. They can deliver benefits for communities, and the committee has the opportunity to look at how they are brought into being. At the moment, they are quite controversial.

I noted with interest that the previous committee thought that the current format of the business in Parliament conference is past its sell-by date and does not represent good value for money. We should include that in our work programme in the summer, because any changes that we recommend making will involve a lot of organising.

I, too, welcome you as the deputy convener, Daniel. The experience that you bring from the previous committee will be invaluable, although we will be looking at slightly different subjects. I am sure that you will be able to share with us how the devolved nature of the economy relates to our responsibilities in Scotland.

I have had the privilege of sitting on quite a number of committees, including the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee; the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee; the Public Petitions Committee; the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee; the Social Justice and Social Security Committee; the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee; the Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee; and the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee.

I have experience of running a hospitality business, which I helped my husband with, although it was a long time ago now. It was a very valuable part of my life and my learning experience. There is nothing more important than knowing how to run a business, look after people in the business and invest in skills. I know that the previous committee did a lot of work in that area.

Before that, I was an agronomist, which is a crop specialist. I worked in the field of agricultural science, having graduated from an agricultural university. The rural economy is very close to my heart. Obviously, I represent a constituency that is distinctly rural.

From being at the Royal Highland Show on Friday, I know that Scottish Land & Estates and NFU Scotland are emphasising the importance of the spend in the rural economy—for every £1 that is spent, you get £1.51 back. I hope that the committee will look at the rural economy. [Interruption.] I see that Kristopher Leask has joined us. Is that Kristopher?

I welcome your explanation, convener. I was disappointed that we did not have an opportunity as a group to specifically discuss the suspension of standing orders because that would have set a good precedent for the tone and future focus of the committee.

As a committee member, I would like us to commit to ensuring that we scrutinise LCMs in the manner that we should—their parliamentary scrutiny should be much more robust than just holding the debate, which will happen very shortly. Even with the tight timetable, I feel that, because it relates to the steel industry, it is in the public interest that we have a good debate about the LCM.

I agree with Daniel Johnson that, in future, we could consider the timetable, expedite it and make it work. Stakeholders would have been willing to come in and give evidence so that we could be informed. As it is, we are not informed going into a debate in the chamber—it is not a subject that I know much about—and this committee needs to be informed. Convener, I ask that you stick to your commitment so that we practise fuller scrutiny.

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