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Thank you for that. Obviously, you can see my questions from afar, because you have pre-empted my next one, which was about the business investment group. That is very positive feedback. Thank you both.

The Public Audit Committee’s job is to scrutinise the spending of public money. Is there any sense or feeling in any of the work that you did that people are concerned that, due to the high-risk nature of the bank’s activities, it is playing fast and loose with huge sums of public money? By their nature, some of those businesses will fail. I presume that a percentage for that is factored into the business model. Given that public finances are extremely tight and that cuts are being made in many areas of public service, including vital lifeline services, people will be looking at a quasi-private bank with 80-odd people in it, spending billions of pounds of public money. Do you think that that is a concern?

Thank you for your opening statement, Auditor General. This is probably the first time since I joined the committee that you have given an opening statement that did not criticise the organisation concerned in any way, shape or form. I know that you always criticise respectfully and with an intensely academic view of the world, but is there a particular reason why the report did not pick up any governance, performance or operational issues at all?

The other big selling point of the bank is its so-called ability to unlock private investment. My understanding is that the bank would not regularly invest at the start-up stage of a business but, rather, at the so-called growth stage, although there is some ambiguity about what that means. In your report, you talk about £1.4 billion of funding

“attracted from other investors as a result of investment by the Bank”.

That is a bold statement to make. How do you quantify the idea of unlocking private capital? It is a bit like saying that you switch on a light bulb and mosquitoes come to it. Did you instigate that by switching the light on? It is easy to put that figure down as a metric of success because it is such a big number, but it must be very hard to pin down in real terms.

Is £3.2 million the base cost of keeping the yard’s lights on and keeping the workforce in it?

Moving on to another strategic investment that is under your control, has the Scottish Government undertaken any current analysis of developments with regard to Liberty Steel?

Mr Irwin, you will be aware of yesterday’s media reports about attempts to adjourn a winding-up petition that was lodged by one of Speciality Steel UK Ltd’s creditors and could result in it being forcibly moved into compulsory liquidation. Given that the Scottish Government has had and still has interactions with the company, is that a risk?

That is helpful. Just to be clear, at the moment, there is no identified immediate risk of the Scottish Government being a creditor to that business, if it is liquidated. Is that correct?

Any interventions.

Good morning. I have a supplementary question on the first line of questioning. Mr Irwin, in response to one of the earlier questions, you stated—and correct me if I am wrong—that you have full confidence in the board of FMPG, including its current chair. Will you qualify that and explain how you have come to that conclusion, given the yard’s inability to compete in the open market for new business and its cost overruns, which, I am sure, other members will want to address? Do you believe that the current board at the yard is creating a sustainable future for it? If so, will you qualify that and explain how you have come to that conclusion?

Forgive me if I am wrong, but I am getting a sense that there is a reticence on your part to admit that, if things were not going in the right direction, you would be unwilling to criticise the board, because that would be a reflection on your input and a measure of your failure, as the strategic commercial asset division. As you are so heavily invested in the strategy and the business model, if that fails, you have failed. Therefore, you would not be willing to go on record and criticise the board. At what point would you sack the board, or when would you recommend that ministers should sack the board, if you were unhappy that the business was not run to its full ability?

I want to get this straight, because £35 million is a lot of money—it is nearly the original planned cost of the whole vessel, and it is on top of what has already been spent. We are talking about some really big numbers. I am trying to get my head around what is driving that huge overrun. There must be an elephant in the room. Something must be driving such a massive cost overrun. Is it something that was installed that does not work? Is it something that has not been installed but which is now defunct? Is it the cost of the people? I have no idea whether the overrun involves capital expenditure or resource spending. At the end of the day, it is public money, so we surely have a right to understand what the yard is asking for.