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My principal lines of questioning throughout our inquiry have been around how the city region deals fit within the wider policy and governance structures. When I think about what city regions are designed to do, which is about regional growth and regional economic development, that seems a bit like what South of Scotland Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise are meant to do. Is there a sense of overlap? Is there a sense that your agencies ought to be much more at the centre of how such deals are designed in the first place to build longer-term continuity in investment and innovation?

For clarity, I was not suggesting that local authorities be merged. It was more about the regional economic partnerships.

Scottish Enterprise has a slightly different remit, given that you are less regionally focused than your counterpart enterprise agencies. Given that Scottish Enterprise has a key focus around attracting inward investment and seeking to boost growth, do you have a view on what has worked best across the deals that you are involved in, when it comes to delivering against your wider aims?

We see quite a broad range of approaches. Some city region deals have focused on infrastructure projects. Others have set up institutes such as the National Robotarium, which will be self-sustaining now that it is up and running. Others have discrete initiatives that essentially are designed to last the lifespan of the project. Do you have a corporate view as to what provides the best bang for the buck in terms of generating inward investment and growth in the city regions?

We can maybe do that in private.

Obviously, the city growth deals were developed by the previous UK Government. Does the incoming Administration bring a different perspective to those deals? How does it view them? Can you identify any differences in approach with regard to how the new Administration looks at city region deals and where they might go in the future?

That is interesting. Mr Lockley, I am interested in your thoughts.

Apologies for that interruption from someone’s phone. Clearly, one of my colleagues needed a wake-up call. Sorry, that was very cheeky.

I have a similar question to the one that I asked Zoe Laird. Do you feel that the city region deals play nicely with the rest of your lines of activity or could things be done to improve synergies and maximise the benefit that we get from such funding alongside the current activity that Scottish Enterprise undertakes?

I am interested in what you said about the focus on regional growth. I very much take the view that growth is built at that level upwards. You have an interesting vantage point, as you are able to compare across the nations and regions where the various deals have been deployed. In England, the deals were constructed very much with an eye to supporting the creation of combined authorities and metro mayors. In Scotland, we have a very different context.

When we look at the data, some interesting points emerge. For example, since 2007, growth in gross domestic product per capita in Scotland has been about half the growth rate in Manchester. In Scotland, GDP per capita has grown by about 0.5 per cent a year, whereas, in Manchester, it has grown by 1.3 per cent. Likewise, if we look at inward investment, we see that in 2022-23, according to the Office for National Statistics, 5,800 jobs were created in Manchester, whereas only 3,400 were created in Scotland.

Do you agree that we are starting to see quite different economic outcomes emerge across the different regions and nations of the UK? What analysis has been done to look at the contribution that the city region deals have made to that situation and at whether the different structures to which those deals apply has played a role in those differences?

I have a slightly different set of questions for Scottish Enterprise, which I will come to in a moment.

You raise an interesting point there, Zoe. We have regional economic partnerships, the growth deals, the enterprise agencies and local authorities. We probably have other regional structures that are stranded because of previous tiers of government. Is there a sense that we need to look at the opportunities to consolidate some of those structures? Would that be an advantage? South of the border, we have combined authorities. Is there a sense that we could streamline or merge some of the structures that are playing in the same spaces?

I do not know what the parliamentary protocol is here in relation to declaring interests. Maybe we should just promise to have a conversation that goes beyond the wonders of south Edinburgh.

You have already alluded to the very difficult decisions that the UK Government had to take when it took office. I note that two deals were paused while they were reassessed but were subsequently confirmed in the October budget. Could you expand on what you found on taking office as regards the financial preparations for those deals? What steps did you and the wider Government take to assess the deals that were in train and to establish whether they represented good value for money and would deliver on the objective of delivering economic growth?

We can probably legislate without using emergency procedures in a three to four-month period. In emergency situations—