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Yes.

The first thing to say is that the gateway to delivering on the hydrogen economy is onshore and offshore wind providing cheap renewable electricity. Our priority has to be to make sure that we create the opportunities to produce that renewable electricity. That is one of the areas where Scotland is more advanced than many other European countries.

Many countries in Europe—and beyond—are setting very ambitious targets for the production of green hydrogen but, actually, many of their renewable energy projects are not in the consent process, have not been consented to, or do not have leased sites. They are quite a bit behind us, which is why, in some ways, we have an advantage. There are European countries that are in a good place but, for example, the ScotWind leasing round has already been completed, and we are one of the few countries that have got to that point. Norway, which also wants to go into green hydrogen production in a big way, has still to do that leasing round, so it is probably about two years behind us in that process.

That renewable energy element is really important. One of the elements of the budget is that we are creating much more resource in my directorate to support the consenting process for onshore and, in particular, offshore wind, so that we can deal with consent effectively and efficiently, while also dealing with the environmental aspects that go alongside that.

On the hydrogen element in particular, we are taking forward a number of pieces of work. It will be really important that we become not just a production basin but a manufacturing centre for the components, such as electrolysers, that go into the production of green hydrogen. That reaches outwith my portfolio, although I have a direct interest in that, which is very much within the economy side. My colleague Ivan McKee and I work very closely together on how we can maximise the opportunity not only to attract inward investment but to support businesses in Scotland that could pivot into hydrogen production. Last year—I think that it was last October—we published our hydrogen prospectus, which was a proposition that set out the opportunities for businesses in Scotland and beyond to look at manufacturing capacity that is being developed in Scotland. We have had quite a bit of development on that through Scottish Development International and Scottish Enterprise at an international level, which has attracted quite a bit of interest. SE account managers have also taken forward work with businesses that have engineering expertise but are not necessarily in the hydrogen space, to make sure that they understand that they could pivot into that sector. Last October, we held an event in Edinburgh that brought together interested stakeholders and companies from both the energy and manufacturing sides to discuss their prospects and to look at how we can scale up that opportunity. A considerable amount of work is now going on. You probably know SE’s six key priorities better than I do, but I think that hydrogen is one of them. From the point of view of SE and SDI, as well as trade policy, a significant amount of resource has been put into hydrogen, as it is a major strategic priority for us.

In my portfolio and in the trade portfolio, we are taking forward a specific piece of work to make sure that we dovetail all of that work collectively. We have a further meeting on that this month. We are combining the key elements of production and capacity on the energy side in Scotland, the businesses that want to go into it and trade, investment and business growth opportunities, so that it all starts to knit together in a way that is much more consistent in maximising the opportunity.

I am sorry if that was a long answer.

I am not sure what that £60.9 million is; I would have to look at the answer that the finance secretary provided. I would need to go away and check that. Off the top of my head, I do not have that information. Kerry Twyman might be able to say more about that.

It will.

Passenger numbers have increased, but they have not returned to pre-pandemic levels. I emphasise that the change to peak fares is a pilot project: the £15 million will be used to run a pilot on particular routes for six months in order to test out whether removing peak fares will have an impact on people’s travelling behaviour on the railway network. It will not remove peak fares across the network.

There is a combination of funding. There is an additional allocation for part of the forestry programme to help to secure delivery of that growth. It is a combination of the organisation’s existing budget and the additional allocation that we have made. Simon Fuller can say a wee bit more from a forestry point of view on how exactly we are going to do that.

I do not have that information in front of me. I would have to check and come back to the committee on that.

I think that you are confusing a number of different things. The public performance measure does not measure passenger satisfaction; it measures the punctuality of the train service. Through Transport Focus Scotland, ScotRail runs a passenger satisfaction survey every year—I would need to come back to you with the exact detail on that.

I recognise that a lot of passenger satisfaction will be linked to the punctuality of the train service, but there is a real danger in comparing the PPM performance for, say, January this year with the PPM performance for January 2022, because a whole range of different factors could have an impact on that. It is not about resourcing. Adverse weather could have had an impact, or there could have been industrial action taking place at the time—those are events that are largely outwith the control of the rail network. Therefore, making such a comparison is not meaningful.

If you look at the PPM performance over the course of a year, there will be months that are more challenging. Traditionally, the winter months are more challenging due to the impact of weather events on rail infrastructure, such as freezing points or slippage on the rail network, which cause problems for Network Rail and have an impact on trains. The vast majority of the impact on ScotRail’s PPM performance is due to infrastructure challenges rather than to a lack of rolling stock or crew, so—

There is a continued failure of Network Rail to provide the necessary level of resilience that would allow operators to achieve a higher PPM performance. Let me give you an example—

There has been a shift, which reflects the challenging capital budget allocation that we face. Not only was there a reduction in the capital allocation to the Scottish Government from the UK Government, but we have to meet significant inflationary pressures within the capital allocations. Some aspects of construction inflation are operating at 17-plus per cent. Not only is that a more challenging level of capital, but its buying power is weakened as a result of the significant inflationary pressures. We have had to balance some of that.

The reduction in the budget for motorways and the trunk road network is about reprofiling some of the life-cycle maintenance work that is carried out. There is some reprofiling of some of the structural repairs programme that was being taken forward, and some aspects of capital land and works have also had to be reduced.

A couple of areas have continued to be a priority. For example, the access road to Argyll and Bute from the A83 at the Rest and Be Thankful continues to be a priority, so allocations have continued to allow the work to be taken forward. There has been an increase in funding for the road safety programme to continue to build on the progress that we are making on road safety measures.

By and large, that is a reflection of the challenges with regard to capital allocations. It is not the case that these things will not happen, but they will take place over a longer period. We are having to stretch out some of the life-cycle maintenance work.