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I suppose that, because of the difficulties that you raise, you would have concerns about hotel accommodation being used extensively and about the periods that people are in hotels for becoming longer because of the lack of dispersal accommodation or the time that it takes to process all of that. Are there things that you think that we, collectively, could do better to get people out of hotels more quickly? What would be your silver bullet if you had one?

In Scotland, what is the average length of time for which people stay in hotels? We have already heard about the availability of dispersal accommodation and hotels being more and more institutionalised, which is problematic, but what is the average length of stay in hotels?

I have a couple more questions for John Taylor, after which I will come to Caroline O’Connor. On wider engagement with local residents, if there are local residents who want to come in to speak to and welcome the asylum seekers who are accommodated in hotels, how do the welfare officers and security personnel that you have on site manage that?

You talked about the locations that you look for—you said that you look for town centres and connections with other facilities. What engagement do you have with the local community, either prior to hotel selection or once a hotel has been identified? What engagement do you have with neighbouring residents and with the third sector? They will obviously be keen to provide some support that Mears and Migrant Help do not provide; we have heard about other third sector organisations coming in. How do you do that prior to asylum seekers being moved into the hotel?

Good morning to the panel, and thank you for joining us and for the information that you have provided so far.

I want to drill down into the use of hotels and get a little more detail. John Taylor, I will come to you first. How does Mears go about selecting hotels, which are being used in more and more places in Scotland? How do you go about looking at and selecting hotels for use? What do you take into account?

My second set of questions is on local and regional economic development. In your opening remarks, you spoke about economic empowerment for local communities creating better communities. Engaged and resilient local communities with decision-making powers and a real say in their local and regional economies are key to the realisation of a genuine wellbeing economy. Will you identify your priorities for the regional economic partnerships and explain how you see those being developed over the coming months and years?

Thanks for that. One of the challenges with that is how, when we have city region deals, community wealth building and all those aspects that we try to fit together, we can retain economic development coherence and, within that, policy coherence. It is perfectly possible to see a situation in which we have alignment around a regional economic partnership that actually jeopardises some of the community wealth building agenda or priorities that elements within that community or region might have. How are you assessing that overall coherence across all the different economic development opportunities and agendas?

Thanks for that. I appreciate what you said about our having achieved significant changes in recent years. However, we know from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that the pace of change that we will need to achieve in the coming 15 to 20 years is actually even greater than the pace of change that we have seen to date, given the climate emergency that we face.

I want to ask about the investment that, as you have said, you are certain that we can continue to attract. Is it your intention—or the UK Government’s intention—to ensure that that investment comes with conditions attached with regard to how it is delivered in Scotland? We have heard from people in and around Grangemouth that previous energy transitions have not been as just as they might have been and that, as a consequence, there have been widening inequalities. Indeed, we are seeing that elsewhere in Scotland. How do you intend to ensure that the investments that we get drive a just transition and do not create or enable the development of two-speed or multiple-speed economies such as those that we have seen in the north-east of Scotland?

How will you ensure that people and communities do not get left behind? Some people and communities have been left behind in previous energy transitions.

We have had some discussion about the different timescales and the pace of change required. It is clear that, globally, transition is taking place at a fast pace, with competition for skills, labour, finance and investment. The United States and the European Union have announced significant investment in renewable energy, and you have outlined that that is a key sector for Scotland and the wider UK economy. How can we ensure that projects, companies and workers in Scotland benefit from the investment that will be available? How can we ensure that we are best able to compete and have access to equivalent financial incentives, particularly for renewables?