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We keep it under review. At the moment, it is not a concern, because of the data that we are seeing, but we keep it under review.

I will take that away. You will see from my budget that resource is particularly challenging compared with capital, but I will certainly take that away.

From my vantage point, I see that there is a responsibility on me to work with colleagues and to encourage them to make decisions about their budgets that are in line with our approach to economic growth. Economic growth is one of the Government’s four aims, so I am on good soil when I am making that case, because it is an aim not only for my portfolio but for all of the Government.

All my colleagues have their own choices to make. However, you are absolutely right in what you said about skills. There is an additional £70 million for the college sector. That sits alongside the £90 million employability fund, which we fought tooth and nail to protect. We are working closely with Ben Macpherson on the skills side and with Shirley-Anne Somerville on issues around economic inactivity, which creates child poverty. On those two fronts, we are working closely together to ensure that investment is protected in the areas that I know lead to productivity gains and economic growth.

The other issue—which it is hard to miss, because it is so mammoth—is infrastructure. Good investment in infrastructure can lead to significant economic productivity gains and, more than that, it is about having a pipeline. The pipeline has been published, which gives the construction sector and investors more confidence about what is happening in Scotland. That is a massive area that could increase productivity. It includes hospitals and schools and so on; it also includes roads, which have a significant impact.

Those are two areas in which I do not control the vast majority of things that are most likely to lead to productivity improvements. Skills and infrastructure—or, rather, transport—are outside my portfolio, but I can use my very effective skills of persuasion to encourage people that those are good things to do.

This has been a really tough, really hard budget. As you will probably recall, in a role such as mine, you have to choose a few things to really fight for, and one of the areas that I really went for was protecting the capital budget for the enterprise agencies. Why did I do that? I did it because that is the disposable stuff—I am sorry; perhaps I should have said that that that is the stuff that they can invest in businesses.

We all want a highly efficient public sector, which, for me, means that every pound spent in the economy has to cost as little as possible. As a result, maximising the capital that the enterprise agencies have to invest in businesses and sectors was a priority. When it comes to the revenue side of things, our enterprise agencies were, like all the public sector right now, already looking at how the shape and the structure of their workforce can be made fit for the future.

I am very open about the fact that what efficiency means to me is that every penny that is spent in the economy should cost as little as possible to the public sector. That was the model.

There absolutely needs to be a blend. The years of having lots of grant funding to give out are gone—that is not what we have right now. What we have are some brilliant people who are highly skilled at what they do, and who can come in alongside and have an on-going relationship with account-managed businesses.

However, I also think that it is essential that, when required, the enterprise agencies and the bank have capital that they can invest, whether it be for derisking an investment that might be, say, high risk and which the private sector will not go near, for various reasons; for supporting a business in a bridging context; or—and this is even more essential—for those investments where there is scope for the enterprise agencies to get significant income.

One of the changes in this year’s budget has been the agreeing of a number of flexibilities for Scottish Enterprise to retain some more of its income. When it has made an excellent investment that generates returns, it will be able to reinvest that to a greater extent than it could previously.

It is not just about the tension between advice versus capital. The capital part is essential, and the purpose of the capital will be different for every business, but in some cases, it generates significant returns to the public sector, which is to be welcomed.

If Daniel Johnson were sitting where I sit right now, Murdo Fraser would have even more exciting questions to ask about budget settlements. The point is well made and goes back to exactly what I have said. The balance is essentially between the funding that is spent in the economy versus the cost of spending it. There is no doubt that the performance of our enterprise agencies reflects the brilliance of the people who work there. However, in the past few years, the enterprise agencies have also led the way in looking internally at how to be fit for the future.

I do not know whether anyone wants to say anything else on the figures, but I have almost accepted the premise of Murdo Fraser’s question without challenging him by noting that funding for our enterprise agencies has increased, albeit the increase for capital is greater.

Oh, it is outside. Sorry—forgive me.

But you—

The Scottish National Investment Bank is doing that, to an extent. It invests in equity, and has invested in some of those supply chain and power generation schemes—that is probably the primary route in that regard. It is able to retain the income that it generates from those equity stakes.

The point that you make was put to me frequently in 2021. At the time, Scotland’s capital budget was about £5 billion, and we had 25GW agreed through leasing, with a promise of £1 billion per gigawatt. Obviously, that would mean £25 billion of promised investment in the supply chain, which was five times more than the annual capital budget of the Scottish Government.

I am very sympathetic to the notion of taking equity stakes but I think that you need to make the arithmetic add up in terms of the capital budget that we have. The Scottish National Investment Bank can do things at that scale.

That would be a commercial decision for Alexander Dennis. I am not going to go into detail on where it is with orders, but we remain confident because it remains confident.

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