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That is a great question and it gives me the opportunity to talk through some of the background work that we have done.

In our engagement with the UK Government on investment zones during the past few weeks, we had a good look at our regional economic policy direction. Some great work has happened on that: the work by David Bell has been fed into the process as well as the work that we are doing on regional economic partnerships—and I have met with those partnerships, as a group, several times, to ensure that they are plugged into the national strategy work. The regional economic strategies that they are pulling together tie in with the work that we have already done on regional prospectuses to focus on regional strengths in specific sectors, and on how we can align that with our investment activity on a Scotland-wide level and the ways in which Scottish Development International can take it on to the global stage. A lot of that is coming together in a coherent and helpful way. Most importantly, it is led and driven by the regional economic partnerships, which have identified their strengths and work with us and the agencies to take that forward.

We saw enterprise zones in that light, and we had to decide how they would fit into the existing work not as something separate but as another tool that would help to drive forward the regional economic development agenda, which involves working closely with local partners. I am not giving much away here, because it is clearly not happening anyway, but our approach to the zones was to continue to work with REPs to allow them to identify which sectors, clusters and geographies in their regions were most able to benefit from them and how they could benefit from the many excellent clusters that we already have across many parts of the country. That continues to be our approach.

In answer to the part of the question about our existing enterprise areas and what we do with them, we have extended them, but we need to make some decisions on to what extent we should build on those, develop them or refocus them. Again, we will do that work along with regional partners.

Each of the eight REP areas have increasing sharpness of clarity about their regions. In the north-east we work with Opportunity North East—ONE—and others, including the REP, on that, and the work that they have done means they have clarity about their energy sector and also the food and drink, tourism and life sciences offerings, so they know that there are three or four areas in which they have real strengths. We can look at each part of Scotland and say: “This area is good at these three or four things and that area is good at another three or four things.” That work is really taking shape, and I will ask Carron Flockhart to comment on it.

The skills pipeline being aligned to that is important, but I think colleges get that. They understand the businesses and sectors that they work with in their regional economies and know what is important in any given sector. You are right that the jobs will range from very advanced, PhD-level jobs—such as those that involve working with businesses that are focused on the BioHub in Aberdeen—to entry-level jobs in hospitality, which are also very important, and training will be required to be able to fulfil those roles effectively in an increasingly digitised economy.

All of that has a role to play, and it is fair to say that the work that we are doing on the skills agenda is increasingly making sure that there is alignment at Scotland level and at regional level.

Yes. This has come before us for a decision on legislative consent and, as it stands, we cannot agree to it. If the power is superseded by something else in the future, that is as may be, but that does not mean that we going to give consent to something just because it might not be around for very long.

The cross-border co-operation on procurement is worth exploring. In effect at the moment, on either side of the border, organisations will put in place framework agreements with suppliers to enable them to make use of more advantageous procurement conditions. Organisations on either side of the border will leverage those agreements with the supply base to best effect. That situation already happens. Agreements are created by Scottish bodies with the supply base that organisations south of the border will leverage, and likewise in the opposite direction. Part of the concern that we have is that one effect of the bill as introduced would be to close off that co-operation because of the way in which the bill is drafted. It is a concern that it makes that process harder than it is at the moment. Do you want to comment on that, Alasdair?

At the moment, the meetings are at official level. The discussions are on-going, and officials can give you some dates if you require that. There has not been engagement at ministerial level. Of course, the UK Government has just changed all its ministers and we are establishing contact with them as we speak. I do not have any specifics on that.

We are concerned about procurement, because, as I have said, the power gives UK Government ministers scope to make changes to decisions taken by the Scottish Government and in Scottish Parliament legislation on procurement.

Officials can comment on the discussion, but my understanding is that Audit Scotland will take this on as part of its role because the SFT is an NDPB. On additional resource, that will be part of the overall discussion with it on what resource it needs to do its overall job. As I said, it is quite likely that it will choose to use a commercial audit firm in that regard, which will be far less resource intensive for it. However, I do not know what discussions we have had in that regard.

A memorandum of understanding to provide alignment between the Scottish National Investment Bank and the UK Infrastructure Bank would be helpful to ensure that that alignment is in place. There have been official-to-official discussions on the matter. I understand that those are progressing in a positive direction and that there is an understanding or a recognition on the UK side that that would be a helpful move. We remain hopeful that that will reach a positive conclusion. As I said, however, we are still in discussion on the detail.

It is sometimes hard to tell the difference. The UK Government has many people working in it and a lot of things will come forward that perhaps could be written for different reasons without fully appreciating the implications. That is sometimes the situation and sometimes it is not. I hope that officials will work their way through that and be able to address it. If not, as I said, minister-to-minister engagement would allow us the opportunity to be more direct about the issues that we have with this and how they could be resolved. At that point it will perhaps be clearer as to what the intentions are.

My understanding is that that is the situation now. In devolved areas, we can legislate for that and require procurement to follow certain processes, but for reserved or cross-border bodies that are outside the scope of devolved procurement legislation now, that will continue. We have that difference at the moment and nothing will change in that regard anyway.