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The Crown Estate in Scotland is a separate legal entity, so, as you know very well, Mr Ruskell, there would be a separate bill associated with that. The UK Government is looking to modernise the Crown Estate in England and Wales so that it can be in a position to act, I imagine, more like the Scottish Crown Estate. The UK Government has presumably looked at what we have done with ScotWind in that respect, and at what the Crown Estate in England and Wales needs.

My understanding is that the Deputy First Minister has been negotiating with the UK Government on the Crown Estate Bill, and the Crown Estate has asked us to ensure that there is parity. However, we need to look very carefully at what ends up being in the Crown Estate Bill for England and Wales in terms of borrowing powers, because that would have implications for the limit on our borrowing powers. The Deputy First Minister is working on that.

We always look to see whether the Crown Estate legislation in Scotland is fit for purpose, and we review the governance and the operating model to make sure that it is fit for purpose as things progress. We optimise that role in value creation.

At the moment, our view is that we should keep an eye on the legislation on the Crown Estate in England and Wales and see if there is anything in that bill that we would like to adopt when we look to our legislation, but at the moment, we do not know. I think that it is getting a reading tomorrow—is that right? It is definitely upcoming. The Deputy First Minister is leading on that.

In the summer, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero and I signed a joint vision statement, which is in the public domain, specifically about engagement with Scottish public bodies. Work has also been done by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero on working with Scottish bodies. It does not want to be in a situation where, going back to what Mr Matheson said, anything butts up against any of the priorities or processes of Crown Estate Scotland or SNIB, for example.

The Crown Estate Bill for England and Wales is currently going through the UK Parliament. We passed our own legislation for Scotland—the Scottish Crown Estate Act 2019—about five years ago, so our Crown Estate is a separate entity, but we would expect that GB Energy will be working with it. We are also keen to make progress on ensuring that there is parity between the Crown Estate in Scotland and the Crown Estate in England in their relationships with GB Energy.

The recognition that GB Energy will interact with Scottish public bodies, and that we will be kept aware of what those interactions are, was set out in the vision statement.

That has not been mentioned in my discussions. Again, I think that CCUS is separate; I have not had those discussions about CCUS. My discussions have been around the priorities that have been laid out, which are about energy generation.

I am glad that you have brought up that point, however, because it gives me the opportunity to say yet again, on record, that carbon capture, utilisation and storage in Scotland has huge potential but we need that track status. CCUS is another real area of economic growth. In addition, it has always been said in all the reports that have come from the UK Climate Change Committee that CCUS is a fundamental part of helping us to get to net zero.

I had a meeting on that with the Scottish Trades Union Congress and relevant union heads in St Andrew’s house—I think it might have been in July or August. They wanted to feed their thoughts into the draft energy strategy and just transition plan in person, and they also made those points to me. The issue will sit more within the just transition plan space.

Again, I am not going to pre-empt what will be in the plan when it is launched. Given what I have just said to Mark Ruskell, the matter has been looked at, particularly in relation to the energy strategy, given what has been happening in the UK space, not just with policy but with some of the issues that have been brought up and decisions that have been made around legal proceedings, if I can put it that way. All I can say to Ms Lennon is that we engage with the unions all the time on the matter, and I had that specific meeting with them to go through some of the issues that she mentioned.

I had a meeting yesterday with the secretary of state and representatives from Petroineos. The company is going into stage 2 of its consultations with the workforce. It is starting to have one-to-one meetings with members of the workforce, particularly those that it has not been able to redeploy.

I have asked for more detail from the company on the workforce that it is retaining for the import terminal, the shutdown of the refinery and the processes that are associated with that shutdown. I have also asked for information on people who have other employment, whether in other parts of the Grangemouth industrial complex or elsewhere. Petroineos said that it would try to provide that for me, because it is important that we know what is going on there.

I am also due to have a review of the study that has been done. I refer to project willow, which is looking at the various commercial opportunities for the Grangemouth site. It is far advanced. The secretary of state had his discussion with Ernst & Young on that before Christmas. Mine is due next week, so I will be able to have a lot more discussion about it. Once that study is published, it is our aim to work with the UK Government, Petroineos and any potential investors that we have in the UK and Scotland on some of the opportunities that there will be for that site.

Some of those opportunities are exciting. I look forward to hearing more about the detail of project willow. It says to me that there are, initially, four or five particular streams of opportunity for what that site could become that could be really exciting for Scotland, the rest of the UK and the workforce at Grangemouth.

Yes. There is no agreement. We have a different policy on nuclear to that of the Labour Government, but there is acknowledgement that we do not want new current technology nuclear developments in Scotland.

That is true.

We have concentrated on the areas that have devolved implications, particularly in clause 5, but not so much in clause 6, which is about the company more generally, rather than about acting in the Scottish space. We have had those discussions. Clause 5 is the one that we really had to get “consent” into, because that makes the most material difference in terms of things happening in the devolved space and some of the issues that Mr Matheson brought up.

Yes.

I will wait to see the wording of the amendment before I lodge an LCM, but we have an agreement that that has been taken on board.