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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 If the power is superseded by something else in the future, that is as may be, but that does not mean that we going to give consent to something just because it might not be around for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.

That is a good question. I know that Scottish procurement is about £14 billion. That includes local authorities, the national health service, other public bodies, the Scottish Government and so on. I do not have a figure for UK Government procurement in Scotland. It depends how you look at that—whether it is UK bodies that are operating in Scotland and placing their purchase orders from an entity in Scotland or UK Government bodies as a whole across the UK that may be buying from Scotland suppliers. There are a number of different ways to look at that, but I do not have that information to hand.