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It would come from the Scottish budget somewhere, but we are dealing with hypotheticals based on a business plan coming forward and assessing whether that passes the subsidy control test and whether we think that that is prudent expenditure. We have to make sure that we get over those hurdles; at this stage, those are hypotheticals.

Yes—that is correct.

Absolutely.

Mr Macpherson has hit on a critical area of decision making that will come down the tracks this year. I am very pleased that the strike price that the UK Government has set answers the industry’s concerns. AR5 was a missed opportunity, particularly for offshore wind. We, along with the industry, impressed on the UK Government the need to ensure that it got the strike price right. I think that we have agreement that the UK Government has taken that issue very seriously and has responded accordingly, which I am very pleased about. I put on record once again that the UK Government has taken that approach.

The next challenge, as Mr Macpherson has set out, is the overall quantum that will be available in AR6. If we are to make up for what happened in AR5, it will be important for the quantum to be sufficient to allow progress to be made, particularly for ScotWind but also for some of the other technologies that we saw in AR5 as a result of offshore wind not being there. Those include marine energy projects, such as the wave and tidal energy projects that we will see coming through for the first time.

There is another element. There will be a difficult balancing act, because we must ensure that we are balancing the different interests fairly. We must ensure that we get a good price, while also encouraging the economic opportunity that comes from developing the supply chain, which means that non-price factors are part of the consideration of AR6. I hope to see continued engagement by UK ministers both with me and Gillian Martin, the energy minister, and at official level. We have a massive opportunity. From the perspective of the investor panel, ScotWind is the top opportunity for inward economic investment and investment of capital, but there are also other areas of marine energy. We must grasp the opportunities that are there, to ensure demonstrable benefits for our people.

I bet.

First, I re-emphasise the point that Mr Macpherson made about the importance of private capital in realising our renewables ambitions. Quite frankly, it will not be possible for us to achieve ScotWind or to develop a supply chain without private capital, which is why we are taking the recommendations of the investor panel so seriously. It is why we are coming forward with the green industrial strategy, because that will give potential investors clarity and focus on what our ambitions are. We have put up a big saltire internationally to say, “Come and invest here in Scotland—Scotland is open for business”. We need that private-public collaboration if we are to achieve what we want to achieve. We want to make sure that we are coming forward with investable propositions and that Scotland is a destination to do business in. That is why we are looking to bring about clarity as best we can with the documents that we will come forward with this year.

I cannot comment on a live application. It would be completely inappropriate for me to do so, as Mr Macpherson has alluded to, except to say that that process is on-going.

Some funding for the pipeline of projects has come through the strategic investment model and some of that will feed in to the work of the green industrial strategy. From an energy generation perspective, there is the opportunity for the transmission infrastructure network to expand significantly. That is not just an economic opportunity but an energy necessity if we are to realise our climate ambitions through the opportunity of our renewable energy capability and the electrification of the country.

The resource for statutory bodies such as NatureScot and Marine Scotland is constantly under review and depends on their requirements. Discussions will be on-going with relevant ministers and cabinet secretaries about whether allocations are appropriate. We look ahead to pipelines of work to ensure that bodies have the capacity to respond in a timeous fashion.

That is correct.

Sorry, convener—Susie wants to add a comment.

All public bodies are under significant pressure from a financial and human resource perspective. I do not think that any aspect of the public sector will be immune from that pressure, given the budget challenges arising not just this year but from a decade and a half of austerity. That has had a cumulative impact that will be felt by public bodies not just in Scotland but across the UK.

We are looking to do what we can, within the very challenging financial settlement that we have been given, to prioritise as best we can, in order to have maximum impact, but we will not be able to mitigate everything or meet every challenge that comes as a result of a decade and a half of austerity.