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The Federation of Small Businesses report that came out earlier this week highlighted the significant challenges. Some of the numbers in that are concerning. The vast majority of businesses—more than 90 per cent—are absolutely feeling significant pressure as a consequence of the situation. As we know, that is due to a range of factors. You have identified Brexit, and the Ukraine situation is obviously exacerbating the issues, including energy price rises, which have a knock-on effect across a range of commodities.

Some sectors are more robust than others. Some of the technology sectors and advanced manufacturing sectors are feeling the pressure, but not to the same extent as other sectors.

Some consumer-facing sectors such as retail, hospitality and leisure are finding the situation particularly difficult, and I engage with those sectors and others. It is true to say that a range of sectors have been impacted in different ways. Of course, for consumer-facing sectors, the issues relate not only to cost pressures, labour shortages and energy challenges but to potential downturns in demand as the cost pressures start to bite across the broader population, with people spending less money in those sectors. We work closely with such sectors to see what support we can provide.

We also work closely with the financial services sector. From its position, it has an overview of data across businesses and consumers, and we find that data very helping in informing our understanding of, and response to, the evolving situation.

Yes. It focuses on a range of sectors where we have identified that an opportunity exists. We are open to adding more programmes to the collection of programmes that are considered as part of that work, where it makes sense to do so, and I am open to agriculture programmes being part of that, although, as I say, many factors impact on the agriculture agenda, including climate change, financial support, land use, natural capital and biodiversity.

Oh! I had not even heard that. I was too focused on preparing for this meeting. Thank you for that information.

Absolutely. We will do that.

I ask Graeme Cook to pick up on the details of the data.

We worked through that process and had our four red lines, and we were happy that the UK Government eventually came to accept that those four red lines were valid and agreed with us that the green port projects should be taken forward on the basis of net zero commitments, fair work commitments, equal funding and two ports in Scotland.

We went through a very robust process earlier this year, and the teams working behind the scenes did a great job to evaluate the bids that came in. We had hoped to make that announcement in the summer, but it is a joint Government approach and, since then, there have been a number of changes of personnel, Government, focus and direction at Westminster. People say that we should work more closely with the UK Government, and we are doing so, but it is not quite clear who that is at any given point in time, which makes it kind of hard to work with. We had hoped to make announcements in August, but we are now in November. We still hope to make announcements very shortly, but we have been saying that for three months now. The ball is not in our court.

I will let Graeme Cook comment on that specific question in a moment, but you are right to say that international work is happening at European Union level and elsewhere on carbon mechanisms. There will always be a challenge as to how far you can go with that before you hit other restrictions that we have talked about, such as WTO procurement rules, but we are keen to move things forward, where we have the scope to do so.

Graeme, do you want to give some more detail on that?

Actually, I have had conversations with Scotland’s cement industry about what can be done.

Green cement is obviously a focus for the sector. It presents a huge investment and technical challenge, but we have had conversations with the sector on how we move forward with it.

We are conscious of the need to ensure that there is clarity on funding streams from Government and from agencies, that we align those and that we minimise any potential for confusion or clutter within that.

There is an action in the national strategy to look at business support and to understand where funds do similar jobs. That is to ensure that we have the right number of funds to deliver what we need and that we do not make the landscape any more cluttered than it needs to be.

However, it is important to recognise that different businesses are looking for different types of support for different challenges. We have focused on different challenges and opportunities in different sectors. To some extent, there will be a number of support mechanisms, but we are absolutely seized of the need to make that as simple as possible. We are doing that from a business perspective, so that businesses can navigate things more easily, and we are doing it from a public sector perspective, to make sure that things are as efficient as possible on delivery.

Dermot Rhatigan and others are working on a specific programme to streamline the funding streams, and I am happy to talk more about that if you would like me to go into more detail.