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We have all been looking at Grangemouth in a renewed level of detail. It occurs to me that some quite broad-brush assumptions are made, not all of which are correct. We think, “The oil comes out of the North Sea, it all goes to Grangemouth and we get our petrol—job done.” I read that, although the Forties pipeline terminates at Grangemouth, only 40 per cent of your feedstock comes from the North Sea. Our briefing notes also indicate that you are the main supplier of aviation fuel to Scottish airports and that you supply some 70 per cent of Scotland’s petrol stations.

Will you provide a bit of detail as to what proportion of your feedstock is coming from the North Sea? Critically, as refining stops, will that introduce additional costs to customers who are downstream? In other words, will aviation fuel cost more or less than previously? Will there be any consequences for consumers at the fuel pumps in Scotland as refining at Grangemouth ceases?

No. I like to make sure that my questions are energy dense.

Thank you for that very warm welcome. I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests, where I declare that I am a director of a company with retail interests in Edinburgh.

This is possibly a similarly energy-dense question. One thing that I am always struck by when we talk about refining and oil is that the products are not all energy. I understand that, globally, around 30 per cent of every barrel of oil is used for non-energy products such as pharmaceuticals, dyes, plastics and so on. I understand that, for North Sea oil, that percentage is higher, although I stand to be corrected. Given that position, we will have an on-going need for hydrocarbons, which is presumably where biorefining comes in. That is what project willow seeks to address.

We are at the nascent, early stages, but what is the potential size of the requirement for that global biorefining capacity? What share of that market could and should Scotland and the wider UK be seeking to target?

Let me ask what is, I hope, a simpler question, albeit that it is still about a complicated issue. I recognise your point in relation to the nascent opportunities. It is the state’s role to de-risk and to look at the macro-level risks, particularly around energy security, but there are also much lower-level policy decisions that enable those things. Refining is not just about the pure investment or the product input and output. There is also the supporting infrastructure of roads, electricity networks and so on. We are talking about developing complex supply chains in and out of a biorefinery.

What policy areas need to be looked at to, at the very least, make that possible? In particular, what should we be looking at and thinking about in the Scottish Parliament, in devolved areas, so that we at least make biorefining opportunities possible, if not seek to drive towards them?

Yes—and what policy decisions could we make now, either proactively or unwittingly, that might make biorefining easier or harder, whether they are about refuse collection, road infrastructure or other supporting policies?

I have one final cheeky question. If we had those organisations round the table today, would they say that you have had a positive impact on the consumer advice landscape?

Finally, I have what is almost a comment—it is certainly a very closed question. The prospect of growing sugar beet or trees to provide feedstock for biorefining has been raised, but we would need to take a very close look at that if it was how we were proposing to use the land. If we were to use it for that purpose, we would not be using it for other purposes—say, for food. Indeed, if we were using it to grow trees as feedstock, it would mean that we would not be using it for wood product, and I would argue that, with wood products, the carbon would be locked away without any refining being needed.

I guess that the implication of that is that the Government needs to make a very clear and hard-nosed assessment about land use and whether that sort of thing constitutes appropriate use of the land. Would that summary be correct?

The 2020 act that created Consumer Scotland gave it three broad primary functions: providing advice and information to policy makers on consumer issues; carrying out research and investigations into consumer issues; and providing or securing the provision of advice and information to consumers.

You have a budget of £3.9 million to spend, but only £444,000 is spent on direct consumer advice. My question has two parts. First, why did you choose to go down the route of outsourcing consumer advice rather than doing it directly? Secondly, given that it is one of your primary functions—indeed, many of your answers have emphasised your view that you are a consumer advocate—I wonder how you view the fact that only 11.4 per cent of your budget is dedicated to direct consumer advice. Is that the right balance, and are you placing the right emphasis on direct consumer contact?

Thank you very much.