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That is interesting. I said that my question would be split into two parts. There has been preventative work to promote best practice and prevent unintended things from happening in order to raise the quality of land management plans, but I am conscious that we have spoken about the benefits and drawbacks in relation to only a very narrow list of those who can allege a breach.

Have you considered whether there should be an explicit power whereby the land and communities commissioner would have a mix of light-touch and deep-delve, proactive approaches to making sure that there is adherence to land management plans, for lack of a better description? They could randomly pull out five or 10 examples, without any breach having been identified, and go and have a look to see what is going on. Other regulatory bodies take a similar approach. The commissioner could take a risk-based approach to compliance with land management plans. If they become aware of concerns, whether they report them or not, they should perhaps have a duty to investigate them.

I suppose that, in asking that question, I am taking the next step in considering how the power might be exercised, but the heart of it is whether there should be a power for the commissioner to do some proactive investigatory work without the reporting of a breach.

You are perhaps suggesting that there would be an implicit ability for the commission to do that, but not an explicit power. We might want to consider having an explicit power in the bill.

I turn to Malcolm Combe. Should the provision say not only that a plan must exist and be complied with but that it should be of appropriate quality? I appreciate that that is a hard thing to measure. It would be easy, surely, to develop and to secure compliance with a threadbare plan, but that would not provide a qualitative approach to ensuring that the spirit of the legislation was complied with.

Is that section clear enough? How should it be changed?

I have listened to all of this with great interest. Potential partners of Ferguson Marine will be listening to your evidence, as will competitors. Therefore, these evidence sessions, which the convener has been so diligent in scheduling, are important to the future wellbeing and prosperity of Ferguson Marine.

I will pick up on something that was said in answer to an earlier question right at the start. There was a senior manager in charge of completion of the entire vessel, but the vessel had not been broken down into sections. That meant that there seemed to be a lack of accountability on the shop floor—for want of a better description—to ensure that individual sections of the ship were nailed, and that, if a section was not, you could identify who was responsible for the slippage. Is that quite unusual in the shipbuilding industry? It seems to be crazy that one person would be directly responsible for the completion of an entire vessel. I am pleased to hear that the management and accountability structure has been changed. Mr Petticrew, was it a surprise to you when you found that was not already in place?

The point that I am making is about whether it was self-evident that there should always have been a senior manager who was responsible for each particular section of the ship.

If the current system had been in place years ago, do you think that we would be in the same situation now, or would performance have been better?

Yes. I will leave it at that.

I will follow up on some of the matters that Mark Ruskell was pursuing, including the narrow list of individual bodies that could make a complaint in relation to a breach under a land management plan. A possible expanded role for the land and communities commissioner, which is to be quite limited at present, was mentioned.

I will split my question into two parts. I want to think about a proactive role that the land and communities commissioner could have in an area of prevention. Would work to encourage best practice in the development of land management plans be something that the commissioner would be well placed to support, perhaps by identifying and sharing best practice where it becomes evident, and by identifying thematic areas of weaknesses in plans? As the bill stands, I am not sure that the land and communities commissioner would be empowered to do that. Would that be a positive thing?

It is worth putting on the record that I think that all committee members want to see a commissioner who works in partnership with landowners across the country and whose first approach will be not to identify breaches and look at sanctions but to build up the relationship. However, it may be beneficial for them to have that explicit power.

My final question is about whether the obligation on landowners is simply to produce a land management plan, irrespective of its quality or whether it is complied with in a meaningful way. We have heard reference to that already. For clarity, proposed new section 44B(3)(c) of the 2016 act requires the land management plan to set out how

“the owner is complying or intends to comply with ... the obligations set out in the regulations”,

and proposed new section 44E allows specific persons to allege that there has been a

“breach of an obligation imposed by regulations under section 44A”.

The fact that I am asking this question might lead to the conclusion. Is the drafting adequately clear to ensure that there are obligations to produce and to comply with a land management plan? If not, what suggestions do you have about how we can improve that section of the bill?

The reason for asking that is that we want all of you to turn Ferguson Marine around. We want you to win more orders and we want you to diversify. I am trying to get you to put on the record where Ferguson Marine is now, so that we can give confidence to people—not to the parliamentary committee that is scrutinising the matter, but to future investors and future partners, because we want you to win those contracts. Could the troubles that you have been through make you better prepared, and fitter and leaner in order to win contracts? How can you assure us that you are now getting it right?