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It will be hard for the workers to hear that, because Larbert does not have a paint shop, the site is being closed down and they are losing their jobs. That is a bit much.

It is not fair to expect you guys to just suddenly come up with a business case. Everybody needs to help and to pitch in. It reminds me of the case in my constituency where Diageo walked out of Kilmarnock and took 700 jobs with it. We were in the process of trying to get a business case, but it was too late in Scotland. If you have an opportunity to put a business case forward, what kind of help do you need to put it together?

Now should be a great time to put together a business case, given that we are on the net zero journey and we have the capability and the skills here. We should surely be able to put together a decent business case that points at retention of production in Scotland, because everything is in our favour. We will need buses from now on—you said that yourself at the outset—so it should not be too difficult to put forward a really strong case for retention here. However, you still need access to whatever business case the company has made for the closure and its business case for Scarborough. You need to be able to compare the two business cases in order to strengthen your own, and I am sure that you will do that.

I wish you all the very best with that. I am sure that, as committee members and MSPs, we will gladly do anything that we can.

Derek Thomson, the one thing that I am hanging on to is that you have said that the final closure has not been signed off yet. That gives everybody some kind of chance. From what I have heard from colleagues around the table this morning, it doesnae appear that anybody has made a business case for Scarborough that you could look at, scrutinise, compare and so on and so forth. However, is there time for you, with the help of the UK Government and the Scottish Government, to put a business case together for retaining what we can in Scotland?

Robert Deavy, you spoke about proposed chassis production in Falkirk and things like that, so you are putting pieces together that might ultimately be part of a business case to retain production in Scotland. Do you feel that you have the opportunity to prepare that business case? Have the two Governments given you an indication that they are listening?

Good morning. I will continue the convener’s line of questioning on how community groups can have a formal role in this. First, I acknowledge the fantastic work that is already going on in North Ayrshire, East Ayrshire and other places, which a number of the committee members have seen. Some really good stuff is going on. However, it is not the bill that will make the community wealth building approach succeed; that will be driven by the dynamic between community groups and officials in an authority—we have seen evidence of that already. Will the bill amplify that dynamic across Scotland? It is not happening across Scotland yet—we know that—but we hope that that is what the bill will achieve.

Do you recognise that what makes things tick is the good work that goes on locally with the organisations that the convener talked about, driven by really good, committed officials?

The local people who we spoke to were at pains to emphasise that they value having a participative role at the outset, rather than having officials coming along and telling them, “This is what we’re going to do to you.” People very much want to have the sense that they are in a partnership, and to feel as though they are driving the process. I think that people were saying that that is the key to success.

That leads me to the convener’s question about formalising that role in the bill. It is one of the shortest bills that I have read. It has only 12 pages, and it is really nice, but although it talks about giving “due regard”, there is no formal connection to require engagement with the public in shaping the plans to begin with. I wonder whether a balancing act is needed to ensure that the public have a role in defining what the plans look like.

Is there a place for local place planning, which we discussed yesterday at the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee in reviewing the national planning framework process and the development of local development plans? As you know, local communities will come up with and devise local place plans. Is there a connection between that process and the process in the bill?

Thank you for that, but I do not quite see how that helps the situation. A number of constituents have come forward and said that, because of what has happened, they cannot sell their house. Only a year ago, their house was not deemed to be liable to flood risk, but it now is. They are living in really expensive homes that they cannot sell because of the change. How does the Government plan to get them out of that situation?

I will have to leave that one and follow up on it with the minister, convener.

On a more positive note, the planning hub idea was broadly well received at previous committee sessions and had quite a lot of support. I will give you an opportunity to remind the committee of the principle that is behind the planning hub. What ideas do you have for its staffing, budget, resources and so on, and what will its specific role be in supporting planning development?

The number of local consultees could be quite large. I am thinking about community groups. They can help to shape such plans, but involving them would require quite wide-ranging and extensive consultation. I would certainly welcome it, but is that part of the vision?