Seòmar agus comataidhean

The demand will continue. We know and understand that there will be continued demand for some oil and gas products, but those demands will also diminish over time. In the meantime, the decision taken by the joint venture to invest in the import-export terminal means that energy security is maintained, which is a good thing. You will want to explore that with the UK ministers who have responsibility for that.

I understand that it is important to know when a decision will be taken about the refinery, but we have the assurance that, whenever that decision is taken, the import terminal will continue to give us energy security. That is a vital component in all of this.

In line with what was said earlier, that is an operational matter for Petroineos, which continues to look at ensuring that it can restart the hydrocracker as quickly and safely as possible.

Yes. That is certainly what has been articulated to me and is what was said to the committee earlier.

I do not think that anybody should have been particularly surprised by the announcement in itself. Regarding the timing, we were told at the same point as the workforce, so there was certainly an element of surprise there.

We are talking about a century-old refinery that has had issues, where significant interventions have been made in the past and where the joint venture has provided a significant subsidy for a number of years. Therefore, the announcement was not a great surprise to us, and I do not think that it should have been to others.

The important considerations for the Scottish and UK Governments are energy security and the need to ensure that there is continued industrial capacity. We have been working on that with the joint venture and will continue to do so.

That work is on-going. With respect, the discussion that we have already had this morning indicated that we are still working with other parties to understand the likely impact of the decision to close the refinery and, importantly, the possible mitigation of the import terminal, and what other possible investments in hydrogen, carbon capture and a potential biorefinery might be made. That work is on-going, and we will continue to publish that as quickly as we can.

An additional consideration here is the fact that the final decision has not yet been taken, though I grant Mr Kerr the point that we will be in a difficult situation with the refinery after 2025. At the moment, my energy is directed at understanding what will be important for the joint venture in making the decision on when the refinery will close, and what, if anything, we can do to assist with the extension of the refinery.

We continue to work with partners on the Grangemouth future industry board and we continue to have discussions with the UK Government on those areas. We will continue to work on a just transition plan that will consider and articulate some of those areas. It will ensure that we are giving comfort to the communities and the people who are central to all of this that future job opportunities, future industrial capacity and a just transition can be achieved for the area.

We will be, yes. The responsibility goes wider than the Scottish Government; it also has a UK Government element to it. We need to work with all parties involved to ensure that we are coming up with the information that we need to take decisions that we need to take around, for instance, the just transition plan and the potential opportunities for future industrial use of the site. We will continue to do all that we can to pull that together as best we can.

I would expect the committee, and other committees across Parliament, to scrutinise it. Obviously, we will reflect on the concerns of the Just Transition Commission and take those on board as we continue to work up the just transition plan that we will publish early next year.

We participate in the strategic direction of the airport, but commercial decisions about day-to-day operations are for the airport to take.

Operations at the airport remain as close as possible to what they would be if it were run on a commercial basis. Managers make decisions with a view to seeing continued profit so that the airport is marketable as a commercial business. It is important to set that out.

We have more influence at Glasgow Prestwick, given what Colin Cook said, but we also set out our expectations about how other airports across Scotland operate and about their environmental standards. You questioned the chief executive and the board chair about wider decarbonisation and Prestwick airport’s impact on the environment, and we also have those expectations of other airports regardless of whether they are in the public or private sector. We will continue to have those discussions.

We have set out what we are doing to ensure that the airport operates as effectively and sustainably as possible. We will continue to work with the airport to ensure not only that the decisions that it takes minimise the environmental impact but that it continues to be a successful business.