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That is a substantial reduction. What guarantees are there for staff, who have given a huge commitment at this difficult time, that there will be no compulsory redundancies and that you will ensure that people are found alternative employment across the public sector so that we can hold on to the skills that your team obviously have?

Nobody could have prepared for the impact of the pandemic, but do you think that, because yours is a paper-based regime, you might have been caught out, and a lot of the work that you are now doing to digitise everything was not in place when the pandemic hit? Has that not caused huge challenges?

Politicians are very good at not answering the question, but you guys have managed to do something different by answering my question before I have asked it. What additional support for the sector should the Scottish Government be looking at next? I will give you a chance to briefly highlight any issues that you have not covered, so that we do not duplicate what has already been said.

I have a second question for each witness. You have made the point a number of times that some areas, especially city centres, have been hit hardest during the pandemic, and that some non-traditional tourism destinations in rural areas with fragile economies have had a boost due to staycations. Your emphasis seems to be on getting people back to places where they used to go. However, if we are serious about building an inclusive economy, surely there is an argument for trying to keep visitors in non-traditional tourism areas. Some of those areas have a very good offer but have simply not had visitors in those numbers in the past, for purely historical reasons rather than because of what they offered. Is there an untapped opportunity to grow the sector, rather than simply going back to what we used to do?

Thank you for that well-made point. I am sure that the committee will pick that up.

I will give Stephen Montgomery and Leon Thompson a chance to give us any brief final asks. How can we help the hospitality sector to live with Covid, to coin a phrase? It is likely to be with us in some form for some time to come.

I had a very good family meal at Stephen Montgomery’s hotel in Lockerbie on boxing day. I was struck by your point that you had not gone ahead with your usual Christmas day opening because you were uncertain as to where the Government was going with restrictions, and you did not want to have to cancel everything at the last minute.

Is there anything that the Government needs to do regarding a future Covid framework that would give the hospitality sector a bit more certainty in respect of any response that we might have to take to the pandemic? Perhaps Stephen Montgomery can start, and then Leon Thompson can address the same point.

Perhaps Leon Thompson can comment on the future framework.

That is me, convener. I look forward to a repeat sometime soon of the very good campaign to sell Scotland that VisitScotland had a couple of years ago.

Finally, as Marc Crothall and others have pointed out, although a number of areas have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic, with visitor numbers and hospitality in city centres highlighted, non-traditional tourism destinations in some rural areas have seen a boost from staycations. One might argue that these are fragile economies, with all their economic indicators probably lagging behind cities, and, with all the stress seemingly on getting people back to where they used to go, surely it can be argued that there are non-traditional tourism areas with huge potential that, for purely historical reasons, have not had the same visitor numbers as other areas have perhaps had. Rob Dickson will know exactly what areas I am talking about. Perhaps the strategy should be about ensuring that people stay in or come back to those non-traditional areas, given their real potential for growing the overall tourism market in Scotland.

I will start with Rob Dickson, as he is on my screen, but I am sure that Vicki Miller will want to talk about how we market those areas.

Let me build on that point. In the previous evidence session, Marc Crothall from the STA made the point that it would help businesses—and probably VisitScotland—if there was flexibility around when grants and, indeed, budgets had to be spent. There is an expectation that spending has to be done by 31 March. Do you have any comments on that? Would such flexibility help VisitScotland? Would it help those businesses that you have been providing grant funding to as we head towards the end of that financial year?

I am not sure who wants to grab that one with both hands. I will leave it to the two of you to decide.

As a final point, you say that this is covered in the criteria, but one of the biggest criticisms of the ScotWind leasing process was that having a local supply chain was not one of the criteria. Companies had to have development plans, which we will see at some point, but the big criticism from trade unions and many others was that having a local supply chain was not part of the scoring process in awarding these leases.

Do you accept, though, that there has been an increase in large contracts, with a small number of big construction firms winning all those contracts? Is there an active piece of work on that? I am not clear about it from what you say, apart from there being on-going work. Is there now an active piece of work about, say, adapting the lotting system, with a real focus on ensuring that smaller local suppliers are not driven out, and taking into account the environmental impact when it comes to the criteria?

I always joke that the fastest-growing business in Dumfries is the guy who sells the bacon rolls on the outskirts of the town, because he serves all the white vans that travel from Glasgow to Dumfries every day to work. There is clearly an environmental cost in the big central belt businesses carrying out contracts elsewhere. Surely environmental impact and the focus on local businesses should make up a bigger proportion of the criteria for awarding contracts, and you should be breaking up the lotting system a lot more in order to focus on smaller contracts.