 The next item of business is the consideration of business motion 11675. In the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau, is setting out revisions to the business programme for this week. Any member who wishes to speak against the motion should press a request-to-speak button now, and I call on Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion 11675. Firmly moved. No member has asked to speak against the motion, therefore I now put the question to the chamber. The question is that motion number 11675, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is there for agreed to. The next item today is topical questions. Question 1, Alison Johnstone. Thank you. To ask the Scottish Government how the development of wave power technology will be affected by the company Plamis entering administration. Minister, Fergus Ewing. The news that Plamis wave power has gone into administration is deeply disappointing. I've spoken with the administrators of Plamis and with some of the main players in the wave sector to express my continued support for the development of Scotland's wave industry. This will be an anxious time indeed for the employees of Plamis, most especially at this time of year. We stand ready to support affected employees through partnership action for continuing employment. Indeed, I raised this with Blair Nimot just this morning. Wave energy's development has been hampered by the investment uncertainty facing the energy sector more generally during the UK Government's reforms to the electricity market. Plamis' administration is a setback for the sector. It brings into sharp focus the difficult environment in which the sector operates, but we should not lose sight of the monumental achievements that the industry has made. Full-scale machines have been tested at sea. The sector has amassed a huge body of technical data, knowledge and experience, and the wave and tidal sectors have invested more than £217 million in Scotland to date. The Scottish Government's belief in the potential future success of wave energy is undiminished. Therefore, it announced a new model of support for the development of wave power technology, Wave Energy Scotland. It will promote collaboration between industry and academia to solve the common challenges facing the sector. It will, first, seek to retain the intellectual property and know-how from device development in Scotland for future benefit, second, assist Scotland's indigenous technologies towards commercial readiness in the most efficient and effective manner, and, in a way that allows the public sector to exit in due course, and finally avoid duplication in funding to encourage collaboration between companies and research institutes. We have produced a fact sheet with further details on the objectives of Wave Energy Scotland and I have placed a copy in SPICE. I thank the minister for his response. He will be aware that Plamis is responsible for a £70 million net contribution to the Scottish economy. It employs 56 people in Orkney, Lothian and more in associated industries and services. He will be aware that they are technically better placed than ever. They have a timeline for commercial wave farms. Can the minister put any Scottish Government funding decision on hold and can he intervene as strongly as possible to allow further consideration of all options for Plamis? I welcome Alison Johnstone and her party's support for the wave and tidal sector in Scotland. That support is appreciated and it has been consistent. Plamis is in administration. The Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise have looked extremely closely at the whole situation. We believe that the best outcome is to establish Wave Energy Scotland and we have already received from the sector welcomes to this initiative from Lindsay Leisk, the Senior Policy Manager of Scottish Renewables, and from Professor Stephen Salter, the founding father of Wave Energy technology, and from several other players with whom I have had initial discussions. We and she, I believe, are wholly committed to the future of Wave Energy in Scotland, and we believe that the best way to ensure collaboration, to bring the best minds together, to harvest the IP, to ensure that we work to seek common convergence for both offshore and near shore solutions, is Wave Energy Scotland, and we are committed to making that succeed. Alison Johnstone, thank you. I think that the minister will understand that Plamis is now a very vulnerable target for buy-out, and a low offer could see us lose our industrial lead, perhaps to a company overseas for a technology that we may be buying back within the near future. Plamis has brought this technology out of the lab and into the ocean, and while we very much support the creation of Wave Energy Scotland, I would like to understand how many such jobs it will provide. I would be grateful for the minister's comments on what kind of support the Scottish Government will offer now to help Plamis and its employees. I am aware, as Alison Johnstone correctly states, that the employees of Plamis, around 55 or 56 employees, are some of the most advanced in terms of the engineering solutions for the Wave Energy sector. Wave Energy Scotland will, we anticipate, be able to provide opportunities for employment for some of those experts in the sector, but its function will be primarily to bring together the best minds in the sector, to bring together and preserve for Scotland the IP, and to look at developing the best solutions in what is an extremely challenging sector. Welcome to some. I am also a great supporter of Wave Energy, and I have always been very proud to have Plamis, based in my constituency. Will the Scottish Government do everything possible to stabilise the situation at Plamis to save the key staff who are there and who are global leaders in wave power expertise? I welcome the creation of Wave Energy Scotland. Can he, either through Wave Energy Scotland or in other ways, act now to make sure that those jobs are kept here in Leithan and that the wave technology continues to be developed because it is admired the work that Plamis has done and is admired throughout the world? I agree with the sentiments that Malcolm Chisholm expects. It will not be possible for Wave Energy Scotland to employ the numbers on the scale of the headcount of Plamis. That will not be possible, but we hope to seek to retain the best brains in Scotland. I would point out that the difficulties facing the wave energy sector have been experienced in Ireland, Australia and elsewhere throughout the world. However, at the same time, we understand that there is substantial support from the European Union in its Blue Energy Plan, published earlier this year, and inclusion of ocean energy in its SET plan. Therefore, there is the prospect of support from the EU for marine energy in the future. We will use every avenue to ensure that we maximise that potential support. In the light of the unfortunate Plamis administration, can the minister tell me if the UK Government has made it clear on its policy of support for wave power projects in Scottish waters as such a developing technology with such huge importance for climate change mitigation needs secure seed money and steady government support? I sought to work with the UK Government over the past three years or so, Presiding Officer, and Greg Barker in particular was, I think, personally committed to this particular technology and, indeed, we together opened the Pentland, Firth and Orkney waters marine energy park. I can also tell Mr Gibson that I met in Paris in October with Amber Rudd, his successor, and at that meeting I did ask if Amber Rudd or her senior officials would be prepared to meet with Plamis. I am sad to say that, so far as I am aware, this meeting did not take place despite her assurances at the time. We do understand that the UK Government is supportive of marine energy in principle, but it is not willing to make any specific commitment until after the UK elections next year. I join with others in welcoming the announcement on wave energy Scotland. It has been testified that Plamis is a global leader born, bred and anchored in Scotland from the first to generate electricity from the waves that have boasted a series of world firsts and indeed world onlys. It is an impeccable health and safety record and the economic benefit that Alison Johnstone alluded to. The minister is correct that the value of the company remains in the expertise and the experience of those employed. Does he accept that, given the uncertainty and risks of administration, we have perhaps days, possibly weeks but certainly not months to reach a solution in relation to Plamis? Would he agree that Plamis provides an excellent foundation for wave energy Scotland? We have been very supportive of Plamis and we have contributed through Scottish Enterprise fairly substantial funds, although a very small part of the funds, most of which were contributed by the private sector. However, I should in fact dispute the suggestion that Mr MacArthur has made, I believe in the press, that had a short-term loan been made available to Plamis and that that would have secured its future. That is simply not the case. For the record, I should mention that, but I agree with his sentiments that Plamis led the way in the sector and that it led the way because of the human expertise of the people who work for them. That human expertise is something that we will do our very best to retain in and for Scotland. That ends topical questions. The next item of business is a debate on motions number 11672.