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On a similar theme, the committee has discussed the outsourcing of our carbon footprint. In Scotland, we more or less keep alignment with the European Union on things such as pesticides and other environmental regulations. By joining the free trade agreement with India, are we allowing the import of goods such as foods that have been grown with harmful pesticides and products that are manufactured with harmful environmental impacts? Are we outsourcing our carbon footprint and environmental damage?

I would appreciate it if you could write to us to let us know what protections there are.

Finally, are there any issues in the trade agreement that would be problems if the UK or an independent Scotland were to rejoin the EU?

Thank you, convener. I had said that I have two questions, but I actually have three. First, in your opening remarks, minister, you said that suppliers in India will have equal access to the Scottish market. We have just been discussing the Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Bill and prioritising local procurement—in some cases, it will be hyperlocal—to support communities. How do we balance that? How do we reconcile the interests of free trade and those of community wealth building? Has that been part of your consideration?

There is a lack of clarity about who is on what list. It will not be practical to get everyone around the table to develop the action plans, so the group needs to be small enough to be functional. It is not at all clear to me by which criteria members of either list are being chosen—whether it is by purchasing power, land ownership or other unspecified ways in which they might have local influence.

Although I think it is right that Scottish Enterprise is on the list, I would flag a concern that I had when we had representatives of the three enterprise agencies before the committee to talk about the bill. Both South of Scotland Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise appeared to understand community wealth building and their role in it, but the chief executive officer of Scottish Enterprise did not have a clear grasp of it, thinking, when asked, that bringing in foreign investment and high-paying jobs was community wealth building. It is not—that is not what community wealth building is. Those might be worthy goals, but they are absolutely not what community wealth building is. Some clear guidance on that to Scottish Enterprise will be required if it is to participate fully in developing the action plans and if it is to understand the consequences of its decisions.

Given the limited funding that is available to support community wealth building as an endeavour, it is vital to have the owners of assets around the table, so that they can be part of the discussion about how public assets can be used for the public good. That means that, instead of putting money in, you bring the people who have the wealth to the table. I am therefore proposing amendments 96 to 98. Forestry and Land Scotland is the largest landowner in Scotland; the Crown Estate owns the foreshore, which is critical for marine biodiversity and offshore energy, potentially including community energy schemes; and Network Rail owns a considerable amount of vacant and derelict land, particularly in west and central Scotland. Bringing those bodies around the table would allow their extensive assets to be used for community wealth building.

Michelle Thomson raised with you the importance of scaling up businesses. I think that we agree on that. Can you please give us more details on how the budget will support the scaling up of businesses?

In the past, you and I have slightly disagreed on support for start-ups. It is not that I do not support start-ups, but “start quickly, fail fast” is not a model that I am particularly supportive of. I prefer the idea of creating businesses with the intention that they will last a long time and support communities for a long time. In that regard, I think that taking already successful small Scottish businesses and helping them to scale up is the key.

I would certainly like to see more emphasis and guidance from you to the enterprise agencies on co-operatives, because they do not have to be small and worthy—they can be enormous and generate huge profits, too. The difference is that those profits stay in Scotland and Scottish communities, so I would love to see a bit more ambition on that front, now that we have the community wealth building bill.

I want to ask a final question about business before I move on to skills. From the breakdown of the budget that we have seen, it looks as if, for the enterprise agencies, capital investment has gone up and resource spending is down. Is that a choice that you have made, or is it something that has been forced on you? How do you imagine that affecting the work of those agencies?

My final question is about skills. I know that you covered this slightly with Michelle Thomsons, but, in terms of optimising our spend in the skills space with the Withers review and the restructuring of that space, how have you made decisions about where that money is optimally spent, and which elements of the skills landscape are you choosing to invest in?

Thank you, convener. Amendment 25 seeks to ensure that community wealth building action plans are rooted in community priorities. Community wealth building action plans should be aligned with community action plans, local place plans and local development plans. That seems a basic step to ensure coherence. If the minister is unable to support the amendment, I would like to hear from him whether he will commit to ensuring that the approach is present in guidance.

On the other amendments in the group, Paul Sweeney and I have similar intentions but different approaches, so I will not support amendments 85 and 118. I am happy to support Richard Leonard’s proposal to change “may” to “must” in amendment 60.

As Sarah Boyack has said, amendment 69 is about facilitating and supporting the generation, circulation and retention of wealth in local and regional economies

“through the development of community-owned renewable energy, and skills and supply chains associated with renewable energy.”

I support amendments 105 and 106 in this group but not the others, particularly those that refer to the Scottish National Investment Bank, for reasons that I have set out previously.

That is an interesting approach. We have taken evidence a few times from the enterprise agencies, and it seemed that there was no clear data on whether it was better for them to give out money or to teach businesses to go and find funding for themselves. It was a sort of “give a man a fish or teach a man to fish” situation. By cutting resource spend while increasing capital spend, we seem to be planning to give out more fish instead of supporting businesses to go and get their own funding. Was that intentional?