 Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the sixth meeting of the Net Zero Energy and Transport Committee. Apologies for the brief delay to the commencement of proceedings this morning. Before we begin, can I remind everyone that social distancing measures are in place across the Holyrood campus? At agenda item 1 today, we have consideration of whether to take agenda item 3 in private. Are we agreed? Yes, we are agreed. Thank you very much. As part of the committee's main business today, we have two evidence sessions. During the first session, we will hear from the Scottish National Investment Bank. The session is an opportunity for the committee to discuss the bank's approach to Net Zero and its investment priorities across a range of areas. I welcome this morning Willie Watt, chair of the bank, and Ailey MacTaggart, chief executive. Thank you very much both for taking time out of your busy schedules to be with us this morning. It's great to see you both. As agreed, we will aim to finish this session at 10 o'clock sharp. Mr Watt, I believe that you would like to begin by making a short opening statement. Yes, thank you convener. I'll do that if that's okay with you. As members of the committee will know, the Scottish National Investment Bank is a publicly owned mission-led development bank. We were launched at the end of November last year and built our team pretty much from scratch to the point where we believe that we are delivering on our missions. The bank is a mission-led investor and we have been set three missions by the Scottish Government to support the transition to Net Zero, to build communities and promote equalities. That also covers the fair transition and to harness innovation in a way that enables our people to flourish. That innovation will in itself hopefully solve some of the problems of creating a net zero world. The bank is set up to offer long-term commercial finance and projects and businesses that can potentially transform impacts on Scotland's society and economy. It allows us to crowd in more external capital. It allows us to create a bank that can then reinvest the proceeds of past investments. It's a better use of public money to invest capital rather than just to give grants. It ensures that good projects that would not otherwise happen will get funded. We don't see attention between commercial returns and our missions. We believe that we should and must do both. We offer both debt and equity and we can invest from as low as £1 million to as high as £50 million in green projects, green businesses and the greening of business, which is slightly different. The Scottish Government has said that it will capitalise the bank for £2 billion over 10 years. We have been active since our launch and we have announced seven investments, totaling £120 million. In the first quarter of this financial year, we have made investment commitments of £62 million, of which £50 million has been drawn. We are on track to invest the commitment of £200 million that was in the Scottish budget for this year. Our investments are helping to deliver a range of innovative and exciting projects across tidal energy innovation, lower than net zero insulation for homes, forestry and electric vehicle charging. We also have a pipeline of investments that we are working on, some of which will certainly contribute to our net zero mission. Maybe, convener, at that point I could pause and hand back to you. Thanks very much for those opening remarks, Mr Wadd. We will now move on to questions. My first question is on the remit of the bank that you mentioned in your opening statement, because, according to the missions, when the bank was set up, the primary mission was to deliver a step change in economic growth and accelerate the move to net zero. Given the mission statement, what criteria does the bank apply in making individual investments or prioritising across sectors? How are investment opportunities identified? Does the bank have an origination of function or are opportunities referred to the bank from other enterprise agencies and other public agencies? The third element of the question is looking at the investments that are made to date by the bank. Some of them are in what you might call passive funds, which are managed by other third parties, rather than direct investments in operating companies. I wonder if you could talk us through the rationale behind the investments in those more passive vehicles. I'll maybe take the last part of that question about the funds. Would you like to talk about the creation of the team to initiate investments and what that looks like? I'll finish the last part. It was always envisaged that the bank could invest in funds. As I said earlier, we have been building an investment team from scratch over the past few months. There are a number of areas in which it is better for us to invest around another team that has critical skills. For example, in forestry, investing alongside and helping to crowd in private capital will allow our investment in that fund to go further than trying to do that ourselves. The fund needed our capital to get off the ground, so it wasn't as if we were just investing in something that was already in place. It wasn't in place until our investment was made. The same was true with the places for people affordable housing fund. That could not get off the ground without our capital, but with our capital enabled it to crowd in significant external money from the likes of the Strathclyde pension fund. In both those cases, we felt that the work of the fund was directly aligned with our missions. The places for people fund is around affordable housing. People that do not qualify for social housing but are not wealthy enough to afford a deposit for owner occupation. Often, those people are working in the health service, in hospitality or in the teaching professions. It is really important that those people are able to live near the places that they work. With the forestry fund, what was really different there was that it was a new planting fund based on high principles that would allow the planting of new forestry in places where it had not been before, which extends the green footprint of tree planting. On that point, I will hand over to Ailey to talk about the organisation and how we work with the enterprise agencies. In our language, we talk about direct and indirect origination. The fund's investment is, as you called it, passive. Will you just talk through that? We call it indirect. With direct investment, it is us investing directly in businesses and projects. We have built a good investment origination team now. We now have 20 people on that at the beginning of the year. I only had two. We have been building that origination capacity. Since the launch of the bank, a lot of the media coverage around the bank has meant that a lot of opportunities have come directly to us. Some have come through the agencies, but a lot of them have come directly into the bank. As we have been building the origination team, a lot of them have come in through networks that the origination team has, and I have, and others have in the market. That is naturally how banking investment origination works. We are keen to address whether an investment opportunity comes in through an agency or directly to the bank or through a networking event or origination activity. All of those are considered equally whether they are a good investment opportunity for the bank or not. Obviously, in making our investments, we are always looking to deliver a commercial return and mission impacts to deliver our missions in the longer term. Thank you very much for those answers. Are there any excluded sectors in terms of what the bank would invest in? Secondly, when you are looking at investment priorities, strategically, do you meet the Scottish Government's Economic Advisory Council to discuss overall strategy? I think that the first part of that will be on ethical exclusions. One major exclusion that we have is not to invest in the extraction of oil and gas, as we believe cuts across our next-year omission. There are some other exclusions that are fairly common to most financial institutions, such as not investing in munitions or not investing in anything that would use animal testing, for example, in inappropriate ways with mathematics versus obviously with life sciences, sometimes it is necessary. A number of other ethical exclusions are about gambling, tobacco and munitions, which are generally avoided by the investment industry these days. Obviously, given the nature of the bank, we want to have the highest ethical investment standards that we can and our ethical investment policy sets those and we consider those as we consider investments through the investment committee process. Sorry, convener. I did not mean to cut across you. I was just picking up on the other part of your question. We do talk to the policy teams across Government in the different parts of the Scottish Government that are relevant to our missions. We try to give feedback where we think there could be policy changes that would benefit those sectors. We try to meet regularly with the cabinet secretary and senior civil servants. However, we feel that we have complete freedom to define how we should tackle our missions. The missions are clearly set by the Scottish Government, as you know, but in terms of how we as a bank interpret the best way to go about meeting those missions, that is entirely a matter for the bank's board. We have put together a board that has very good credentials with regard to our missions, particularly the low-carbon mission. My final question for the time being is something that you mentioned in your opening statement, the bank's capitalisation and budget. I was trying to reconcile the amounts published in the Scottish Government's budget under the line item for the bank, which, over the past couple of years, is in the region of about £570 million, with the amount that has been invested and available to the bank, which is in the region of £120 million. I am just trying to reconcile the difference in those line items. The amount that has been made available through the Scottish Government budget has published over the past couple of years and the amount that has been spent by the bank or made available to the bank. I understand that, in previous years, some of those amounts previously allocated to the bank were, for obvious reasons, understandable reasons, were reallocated. However, I would like to hear what you see as being the reason why, if you look at the Scottish Government's budget and the bank's budget, you see two different amounts? I am not sure, convener. I can fully answer that question. What I do know is that, in the period before the launch of the bank, there were allocations that were made to the bank in the first instance, which were then redirected elsewhere in part to do with the Covid emergency. However, what I can say is that the bank's budget should align with the spending commitments in the current year because that has been fully integrated into the way that we do things. Neither earlier or myself were involved prior to the end—well, in my case, it was towards the end of 2019 that I first became involved. Some of that may relate to a period earlier than the one that you are talking about. We can, of course, take the question away and come back to you with a more thoughtful response, but it may relate to Covid and to earlier periods. Ailey, is there anything that you would like to add or subtract from what I just said? Yes, I can add a little bit, just since I started in April 2020. The primary focus of both our activities was launching the bank and building the governance framework within which we would make investments. Obviously, it was very important to get those building blocks in place. We did manage to do two investments at the one that I announced at the time of launch, and one before the end of what we call the stop period, the short financial year, from the end of November to the beginning of the end of March this year. That combined with launch was a fairly significant achievement. We obviously were very focused on launch activities versus actual investment activities, because we had to build the bank before we started to do investment in that period as well. Going forward, we now have the team in place and the governance structures in place that we need to make strong investment decisions, and we expect to deploy our committed capital this year in line with budget. Thank you. A couple of members want supplementals in this area. Let me bring in Liam Kerr to be followed by Monica Lennon. I am very grateful, convener. Is there something based on what you said in there, Eileen MacTaggart, about a policy decision not to invest in oil and gas? It seems to me that there is a huge amount of research and innovation going in in the oil and gas sector to transition oil and gas and to reduce emissions, which would seem to be right on point with what the bank is all about. Rather, it occurs to me that if you take a policy of just refusing to consider anything oil and gas related, might there be unintended consequences of that? It is a good question. The policy exclusion is oil and gas extraction, rather than anything else in oil and gas transition and the use of technologies and tapping into what was the oil and gas centres and the next zero centre in Aberdeen. There are expertise and offshore to transition and use that in the offshore wind industry, for example, is absolutely something that we would be interested in investing in. We are very keen to support the transition of Aberdeen in the northeast into the renewable energy sector away from oil and gas, as that comes to fruition. The exclusion is very limited to the oil and gas extraction versus looking at using some of those technologies and transitioning some of those skills and workers into the new industry. Forestry has been mentioned and clearly has a huge part to play in net zero. I am interested in the Gresham House forest growth and sustainable fund. There has been a wee bit of media coverage at the weekend and it clearly has a substantial investment for the bank of £50 million. The fund is the UK's largest commercial forestry manager in charge of 140,000 hectares, not just of forestry in the UK but also Europe and New Zealand, worth, I believe, £1.8 billion. How was the fund identified? How did that come to the bank's attention? I can tell that will I? Is that okay? The fund approached us. It had been looking to raise capital. However, the nature of this forestry fund investment is slightly different to traditional forestry fund investment. The fund is very much focused on planting. Traditional forestry funds are more focused on harvesting existing forests. That is where you see a lot of private capital happy to invest in and the return profile is fairly consistent. Because Gresham was wanting to move away from just harvesting existing forests, it wanted to move into replanting. That required a more patient capital like the bank offers to support the growth before ultimately harvesting use for sustainable resources in the future. Replanting, the fund was not getting the traction that one of its traditional forestry funds would have done. It approached us to work with the one corner stoning the fund. In corner stoning the fund, we have already attracted additional capital in. Currently, the bank's commitment is around 40 per cent of the total fund commitments, and we expect them to raise further funds on top of that. That is very much at the heart of what the bank has been set up to do in terms of corner stoning new ideas. It is a forestry fund, but it is a new type of forestry fund that is focused on planting versus immediate harvesting. It is a longer-based return. As a member of the investment committee, I really like the idea that it supports our patient capital mantra as well. I suppose that what I am wondering is given that this is a fund that is very well established. It is a huge amount of money. How can the public be confident that the bank will not be investing in funds that are already making money for those that are wealthy? I suppose that what I am trying to get at is how does that particular investment contribute to a just transition for Scotland? A just transition from the oil and gas industry is slightly to one side. Obviously, investing in anything that we keep an eye on all our missions. Our police mission, as we call it, is primarily focused on addressing inequalities. The fund provides jobs by planting the forestry and the on-going requirement to manage the forestry. There is additional economic activity, as well as the carbon sequestration that the fund will do through the planting of new trees. As with all those things, the bank is looking at making commercial investments alongside other investors, who will also be making commercial investment alongside it. I think that investors in the fund will come from many different institutions, many of which will be pension schemes. They will be local authority pension schemes, they will be company pension schemes. They will not necessarily be wealth creation in the sense that you might imagine, but they will be from institutions that share some of the values that the bank has and want to invest in a long-term positive asset. The other point that I would make is that the Committee for Climate Change has estimated that Scotland will need to invest £5 billion a year over the next, I think, 10 to 20 years, if we are to solve the problems of carbon. That has to come from the private sector, and the private sector will only invest if it makes positive returns. So, the alignment of making good investments that make sense for climate change and making commercial returns is a really important combination. It is a combination that we want to foster and encourage. I do not know if that is helpful. I was going to ask Ailey if she could expand on the job creation part and tell us how many new jobs the fund is expected to lead to. Wille is just a final question for me. I am just wondering whether the investment will push the envelope in terms of good practice in commercial forestry. For example, will it encourage more diverse planting to support native woodland targets? Will it require higher levels of certification such as the UK woodlands assurance scheme? Yes. Ailey, you probably know the detail. The answer is yes, but I will hand over to Ailey, because she knows the detail a bit better than me. Ailey, on the jobs, it is expected that the investment forestry fund will help to sustain 200 existing jobs—a number of them is 214, which is quite precise—and deliver an estimated additional 567. On top of the mission impacts of additional planting and the positive contribution that makes to next year, on diversification, one of the things that attracted us to the fund was the diversified planting versus what is now seen as less good in terms of just spruce, because it is fast growing. That diversified woodland creation versus pure spruce forestry was a key driver in us making that investment. The fund will also be following the highest level of certification in terms of the various regulations around that. We have that built into the covenants on the investment, so it is a legal requirement as part of our contract to invest in them that they continue to do that. I am sorry, but I will add that we had a very detailed discussion about this at the final investment committee, because we knew that it would be important that the fund was investing to the highest standards. That was something that we discussed before we made the decision to back the fund. If I may just one final question, what percentage of the planting will be a native species? Do you have that information to hand? I do not have that to hand, unfortunately. I apologise if I can follow up with you directly and take that out for you. Before I bring in Mark Ruskell, just one final question on the indirect investments in funds. Presumably, the bank will incur a fund management fee for making those investments. Am I right in that assumption? Yes, absolutely. That is something that the bank is comfortable with in terms of overall return on investment? Yes, we consider the fees charged and negotiate hard on them as any good investor would in any fund investment that we make and ensure that they are in line with market, where we are corner stoning and so on. We will normally look for a reduction in fee as a result of making that corner stone investment. The commercial details of those are obviously confidential, but we are very much focused on the value of the money element. In investing in the forestry fund, one of the things that I liked about it is that the specialism that is required to invest in the forestry fund and to do that fund is something that I probably would not build into my investment origination team, because it is too specialised. The dedicated resource versus the cost of the fund management fee is actually better to pay the fund management fee versus hiring an internal team to do that given the specialised nature. That thinking was also applied to the PFP investment fund and how that is managed. Working with somebody like PFP, who is one of the largest social housing landlords in the country, has the skills and experience that I am looking at the financial self-sustainability of the bank and the cost in housing people versus external. Okay, thanks very much. Mark Ruskell, to be followed by Liam Kerr. Yeah, thanks. Just a couple of follow-up questions. Firstly about the exclusions and the ethical screening. I'm just interested in where you draw the line with this. You mentioned earlier earlier about munitions companies. If there was, say, a munitions company that wanted to diversify into using some of their military hardware for, I don't know, a technical application to the climate change or whatever, would that be within scope in terms of your investment? I suppose another example of that might be in relation to forestry, you know, obviously massively welcome investments that are taking place, but how far do you go in terms of screening how those investments are used in terms of marketing? So for example, Shell might say, oh, you know, come and fill out your car at this petrol station with our petrol and diesel and it's fine because for every tank that you buy from us of fuel, you know, we're investing in another five trees. So it's kind of these kind of secondary ethical considerations. I'm just interested in where you draw the line in terms of your governance with these companies and we're really happy for me to start on that and you can add anything, Willie. So absolutely, it's a judgment call and that's why our investment committee speaks about these things in detail and any ethical investment policy will have tremendous thresholds in it as well. We are absolutely looking to encourage good behaviour and transition. So if there was a company that was doing something that wasn't particularly oil and gas and extraction as a good example of that transition, munitions is generally something that banks would not invest in and certainly not development banks, but there are a number of technologies, for example, drones can be considered to be part of a munitions programme, but they're also hugely useful for looking over forestry or agriculture to see how that is performing and so there's multiple uses and we would absolutely consider each investment on its merits and look at the balance of what our money was going to be used for when we put it in there and whenever we make an investment, the contract, the loan document or the shareholding agreement that we enter into for that investment contains a lot of detail about what people can and can't do with the money that we are giving them and also includes a lot of reporting requirements whereby they have to tell us what they are doing with their money and that we will often also, particularly in equity investments, we will have a board seat to enable us to look and see what is happening and what a company is doing with the investment money that it receives from us in something such that you've described in terms of helping the company transition away from something that we would consider unethical and into a more positive space and the covenants that we would put into our documentation would be very tight to ensure that we got that outcome from them, but absolutely we would consider those investments in a case-by-case basis. The only thing I would add to that is that the impact reporting that the bank will do, we have based it around the IFC part of the world banks system and so we have a whole framework for reporting which we think gives us a systematic way of dealing with the challenges that you pose, which are real. You mentioned earlier that you have a seat on the board of some of the companies that you are investing in. I know that that is something that some other fund managers do like Bailey Gifford with their positive change programme. I now have a very direct relationship with the portfolio of companies that they are investing in. Out of the seven investments that you've made so far, which of those companies do you have board representation on? Let me run through them. We are in the process of appointing some of those investments representatives for the three of the equity investments that we have made this year. If you have a smaller equity investment, it does not always come with a big representative, but we do typically get board observer positions as well. In addition to the two fund investments, we will sit on a advisory panel with the other limited partners on the fund, which will govern how the fund invests the money and ensure that they stay true to the original mandate in which we have invested. It would be useful if we could get that in a list to the committee. Mark, let me bring in Liam Kerr, please. Thank you very much, convener. Good morning. A few straight questions on the finances, because this is not my area at all of expertise. I am just looking back through spice briefing, which estimated the set-up and operating costs between 2018 and 2023 at £49.9 million. Of course, that was before Covid. What are the current estimated costs to fully establish the bank? What do you project to be the annual operating costs going forward? When is the bank expecting to meet the operating costs from its revenue income? Eileen, do you want to start on that and then I will maybe come in? Sure. I will start with the second part first, if that is okay, Mr Kerr. In terms of financial self-sustainability, it is something that we are very focused on achieving. We expect to achieve it in the medium term. The important thing about financial self-sustainability is the fluctuating returns in investments. We may, for example, hit it in year four or five, but what we will want to do is to make sure that we can sustain it before we call ourselves banks and actually self-sustaining for the longer term. In terms of our operating costs for this year, they are estimated to be around £15 million, with additional income that the bank will make to contribute to that cost as well. We will not fully cover that cost this year or, in the next couple of years, we do not expect to. It very much depends on the build of the portfolio. Obviously, we are actively looking for origination investments. Our patient capital nature of the investments that we make means that the returns tend to be backended and slower in coming through. If we invest in debt, we will get a more immediate return on our capital in terms of coupon on the debt. If we invest in equity, a lot of the equity businesses that we are investing in, given the early stage of them, the return horizon for them is a lot longer. Obviously, as you have heard me say already today, the forestry fund is a longer term patient capital investment because it is more focused on planting than it is on immediate harvesting, where you would get a more immediate return. We are balancing the patient capital that was identified as needed for the Scottish economy and one of the building blocks for why the bank was established and carefully managing our costs as much as we can internally and, with a view to getting that financial self-sustainability. In terms of the costs before launch, a lot of the project cost happened before I joined the programme. I am not able to answer that exactly, but we could try and follow up. We would have to tap into some of our civil service colleagues in Government to get some of the pre-launch costs that they were responsible for, rather than the costs and self-sustainability in myself. That would be great. I am just really looking for whether £49.9 million is still the salient figure. Perhaps there is a very short follow-up question to that. There is obviously quite a significant cost to the taxpayer. Is there any concern about a duplication of costs to the taxpayer, given the other agencies involved in the sort of area that we have heard about earlier this morning? I think that it is important that there is no duplication and that we work effectively with the other agencies that are in the ecosystem. For example, Scottish Enterprise focuses very much on earlier stage than we would, but of course that means that when Scottish Enterprise investments start to mature, the bank is there to help them to scale up. Of course, there are grant fundings that are available from various agencies, but they are rarely enough to fully fund the commercial projects that we are looking at. The bank is really there to cornerstone and to also gap fund. Those are the things that we are doing. We regularly communicate with South of Scotland, Highlands and Islands, and Scottish Enterprise to make sure that what we are doing fits into something that is seamless for companies. Thank you very much. I wonder if I might explore something slightly different and again this might just be clearing up my understanding. I think that I am right in saying that the bank is not currently authorised or regulated by the Prudential Regulatory Authority or the Financial Conduct Authority. In my understanding, how is it still a bank, given that it is not yet so regulated? If that is right, do you have any plans to formally become a bank or become so regulated? We took a lot of advice before launch as to whether we could do the work that has been set for us without being regulated. The advice from the bank's own advisers and also the Government's advisers was that we could do that. That is a position that the Financial Conduct Authority is entirely comfortable with. I guess that we are a bank in the sense of being a development bank. Banks cover a multitude of sins, as you will well know, and we are a very focused institution in that development bank space. I think that the use of the word bank is permissible. The second part of your question is whether we intend to become regulated by the FCA. The answer to that is yes. We have stated that publicly. We think that that is important to the on-going development of our missions, because £2 billion over 10 years is a significant amount of public funds. We are very mindful of the stewardship of that public capital, but it is not enough to achieve the objectives that we have to meet our missions. To do that, we need to be able to manage third-party capital, and to be able to manage third-party capital, we believe that we need to be FCA-regulated, because that will give people confidence to give us their capital to manage. So, Ailey and her team are leading a project with the FCA, which is happening now. I understand, and I'm very grateful. I see that the British Business Bank publishes a rate of return to demonstrate the taxpayer's return on investments and the targeted return on average capital employed of over 2 per cent. Does your bank plan to do likewise? The legislation that set the bank up does envisage a target rate of return being set for the bank. I think that we believe that the bank should have a target rate of return, and we have started work on how that should be calculated, over which period and how it should be met. We will be working in consultation with the Scottish Government on that factor, but the answer is yes. We think that it is important that we need to make a positive net return, and we need to be scientific about working out what that should be given the activities that the bank is involved with. I answered my question from earlier, when I was going to ask about what discussions had been undertaken on the local government pension schemes. I just want to drill down a bit more on that. You touched upon the Strathclyde pension fund. What other local government pension schemes have you been having discussions with? The pension schemes have been under a lot of scrutiny on disinvestment and more ethical investment. Is that something that has formed part of those discussions as well? I suppose that it is trying to catalyze on the investment as well, and it is just what is planned going forward. Aileen, maybe I could start and then I will pass over to you about the specifics. I think that you are absolutely right that local authority pension schemes have an interest in sustainability in their investment activities. They are also, because of the nature of their liabilities, which are very long-term in terms of the pensions that they provide for their members, long-term investors. There is an alignment of interest between the values of the bank and the values of pension schemes. In a Scottish context, the local authority schemes across Scotland are important. I have already mentioned Strathclyde as being someone that we have already partnered with. I would say that this is an area where we could develop our links over time and would be a natural fit for us. However, I will hand over on that note to Aileen to add anything that she might want to add. Sure. I will answer the question to whom we have spoken. I had a launch of the bank, aside from co-investment with Strathclyde and the PFP fund. I had a conversation with Strathclyde, and I have also spoken with Lothian. I expect to speak with more of the schemes. From my previous life, where I managed money for a lot of UK local authority pension funds, I know that they are all very focused on investing in sustainability. All of them have been on the SD journey for a long time and ensuring that not only do they provide their pension investors with sufficient security for their returns, because that is obviously their primary purpose. Make sure that they can pay their pension holders the pensions when they are required, but they are all, without exception, across the UK, the ones that I have seen being very focused on trying to improve the sustainability element of their investments, but doing so responsibly. I know from previous conversations, not necessarily with the Scottish pension funds but with others, that just exiting all of their historic oil and gas investments is not a smart thing for that industry to do, because that industry still supports a lot of jobs and everything else. However, they are looking to look at their portfolios on a net zero basis, which I think that Mr Kerr has talked about in his previous question. Is that continued balance between what we need to do and what we can do to counter that investment versus a car versus a tree plant, et cetera, that Mr Kerr touched on as well? Does that help Ms Stevenson? It is good to hear that the local government pensions are on board with him as well, and they are taking serious net zero going forward. You alluded to the yarn discussions with Wodion and Strath Clyde. Has there been any others that have come forward in terms of how you do that crowd and investment going forward? Is that on your radar, basically? It is, and we also talked to some of the pool pension schemes as well, so people like Ancient Investment Corp, for example, where Strath Clyde and others invest. We are ongoing conversations that are early days and we are connecting with everybody, and we will continue to do so. As Willie Kerr has already touched on in response to the FCA question, we are very keen to raise additional capital to invest alongside us and, as we get through our initial launch phase and looking into the future of managing that additional capital, once we have the regulatory commission to do so, we will pick up those conversations with Tension Funds and our investors who would like to invest alongside us, because we would hope that it would not just be the local authority pension funds that would be interested, but they would be a great asset to have alongside us investing, and we could help them, and we could help Scotland as a whole. Thanks very much, Collette. Jackie Dunbar has a question to be followed by a final question from Fiona Hyslop. Jackie. Thank you and good morning. I will be brief, because I realise that time is getting on. How does the bank interpret its legal objects in relation to supporting a wellbeing economy, and what does supporting wellbeing mean to you in terms of how you approach identifying and assessing investment opportunities? Hayley, do you want to take that one? Yes, sure. Every investment opportunity we look at—sorry, Willie—was crackled, as he said. When a first investment opportunity comes in, the first filter that we apply to that investment opportunity is to look at our missions and identify which mission that opportunity aligns primarily with that being net zero or place, as we call it for short, which is very much focused on improving equality and improving wellbeing through investing in communities. The innovation mission, which is more focused on investing in companies like N-squared or R3 and looking to the future economy of Scotland. For me, all three missions have an element of wellbeing on a personal level, because the net zero mission is obviously very important for their human race as a whole. The place mission particularly looks at the community building and the improvement of equality across that. We would not invest in anything that would go against our missions, and that is how we make sure that we are promoting that wellbeing piece across all of our investments in the same way that we would not invest in something that we cut across our overall net zero idea. I talk about it more as a common theme. That wellbeing of the economy of Scotland and the people of Scotland who are ultimately our beneficiaries is very core to the investment decisions that we make. Thanks very much, Jackie. Fiona Hyslop, please. Thank you and good morning and good to see you. I would like to just recognise the major achievement of setting up a bank from scratch during a pandemic, and you are coming into post in April 2020. It was an interesting time. I want to look to the future, and recognising that we are still in a pandemic, there are also the influences of COP26 and some of the objectives that globally have to be met, not just by Governments but by private finance. Can you maybe comment as to how you see the market going forward, bearing in mind that the bank is looking at cornstone financing but also gap financing? Have you seen changes, even over the last year, on what you might forecast in terms of generation of private capital and the major billions of green investment that are going to be required for the world to meet net zero? I think that there are areas of the market that are well served with private capital. For example, offshore wind, which has gone from being an investable 10 or 20 years ago to being fully financed by the private sector. In emerging technologies, there are gaps. For example, in green hydrogen, there is a shortage of capital for projects in that area. The uses of that finance are not yet proven. The uses of that technology may be proven on a small scale, but they are not proven on a large scale. The same might be true with regard to tidal power and also to some of the service sectors that we have made investments in. I hope that one of the things that we can do is prove that commercial investments can be made in these sectors, which will then give confidence to the private sector to come in beside us. Aileen, you can elaborate on that point. I have been hugely impressed and excited about the diversity of the pipeline of investment opportunities that we have seen from Scotland. It gives me a great amount of confidence that the bank is here at the right time to do the right things and investing there. As you will remember, it says that, before we launched the bank, we had to get a state aid approval from the European Union, and a lot of that state aid approval is focused around crowding in versus crowding out and ensuring that the money that we invest is not available to be invested in the private sector. We continue to follow that guidance as we have been told to do and as is the policy across the piece. Whenever we are looking at an investment opportunity, we will actively quiz and query the investment, the investing company or the borrower, as to whether they could find that money in the private sector. Obviously, we would not want to crowd that money out. There is ample opportunity for investment. The private sector does have a lot of cash at the moment to invest in things. A lot of private sector funds are very focused on investing in green at the moment and, as Willie identified, things like offshore wind do not need public capital any more. Typically, those deals are heavily oversubscribed by the private sector, but there are continuing things in your investment and NOVA title, for example. That title technology required a bit more proving. I hope that, by the time they get to their next investment round, a combination of the bank's investment and further proving of the technology will allow further private capital to come into that investment. The reason for our existing is to try and lead the way in those. Back to the forestry fund, one would typically expect a forestry fund to find it easy to raise money. The Gresham fund did not, because it was focused on planting in a slower horizon for a return that, for us, matched our patient capital mantra, and, by cornerstone investing in that and doing the hard work on that, it already has impacted additional capital. We are very focused on and conscious of that, but I am coos that I think to Willie and our board that I am hugely excited about the diversity of the pipeline that we have building in the bank. That brings us to the end of this session. Let me once again thank both of our guests for attending this morning for your time. We very much appreciate it. I enjoy the rest of your day. I will now suspend this session for a panel changeover. Welcome back everyone. I am pleased to welcome our second panel of witnesses this morning. Thank you very much everyone for joining us. We have joining us remotely, Audre McEaver, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Martin Valenti, South of Scotland Enterprise, Clare Renton, South of Scotland Enterprise and Andy McDonald, also of Scottish Enterprise and Ewan Mern's team leader strategy Scottish Enterprise. Good morning everyone and thank you for taking time out and joining the committee this morning. Thank you also for the very valuable written submissions that you provided to the committee in advance. As we have a large panel this morning, I would ask members of the committee to please indicate who on the panel their questions are addressed to. If a panel member wishes to contribute, please raise your hand or type R for a request to speak in the BlueJeans platform. We will now move on to questions. The first question I have is the question to each agency, starting with Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands and South of Scotland. The question that I have is on policy alignment and how the agencies ensure that the transition to net zero is being co-ordinated across agencies and government. In particular, how much specific guidance do the agencies receive from the Scottish Government in terms of the priorities that they should implement in the transition to net zero? If I could begin with that question being put to Scottish Enterprise, please. I will take that on behalf of Scottish Enterprise, given that I am within the strategy team. We work very closely with the Scottish Government and agencies in terms of co-ordinating what we do, but also aligning our activities with policy. We receive a ministerial guidance letter each year, which sets out ministers' expectations of Scottish Enterprise, but we are in regular contact with Scottish Government policy teams and ministers in between times. We collaborate very closely on an ongoing basis and also via the strategic board on business planning processes, but also operational issues, to make sure that we offer consistent advice and a business support system across the whole of Scotland that businesses are able to access. Thank you very much. The same question to Highlands and Islands, please. I am afraid that you will not hear it. Thank you very much. We follow the similar approach in terms of the ministerial guidance that we get each year, which is very much involved in the strategic board level, in terms of our planning. I also want to highlight that there are many levels that are very close working between the Government and the agencies across the broader net zero agenda. What we have witnessed over the past 18 months to years is a lot greater efforts to ensure that that does not just fall in the energy space, it does not just fall in the business space. There is a real co-ordination of efforts and seeking to align funding as well. There is a clear understanding of the outcomes that we are all trying to achieve. It is strong in terms of the alignment. There are still areas in which we need to continue working, and that would be a proposed round measurement in terms of how we measure the outcomes relating to net zero. Broadly, our strategy level is very clear, and that is reflected in our own operating plan in terms of how net zero is really effort to do that. We are very involved just now in terms of the sear strategy and feeding into the 10-year economic transformation strategy. Thank you very much. That question also to South of Scotland Enterprise, please. Thank you. Rather than repeat what you have heard from Ewan and Audre, I would say that about that alignment, we are in very close conversation all the time with Andy and Audre and from high and NSE because we realise this is a team Scotland co-ordinated effort. We work very closely with lots of Government departments and we are thankful for that, but not just our respective sponsorship teams but also with teams from other parts of Government just to get that broader perspective to make sure that policy alignment is clear for us, because the more we understand the alignment, the more we are able to help and support the businesses and communities in that area. Rather than just repeat again about the ministerial guidance, that is really important, but I think that what is really quite critically important is that practical relationship that they have between the other agencies, not just economic agents but the nature agency, the very related agencies and those bodies that support them. I think that that is quite important. I would like to follow up on a couple of the issues that were raised in those opening answers. I think that the strategic board was mentioned a few times. The ministerial guidance letter from the Scottish Government was mentioned and I have seen a copy of those in the past. I guess that what would be helpful is to understand what specific targets are set by the Scottish Government to each agency and or what internal targets do you have so that we or you can see a real outcome on an annual basis or a longer term basis in terms of not just strategy and alignment but real results in that transition to net zero. What metrics do you use? What internal measurements do you use to assess your progress towards the transition to net zero? I suggest that we take the same order that we had the questions previously starting with Scottish Enterprise. Scottish Enterprise delivers its activities and reports its activities in the context of the Scottish Government's national performance framework. That really is the context for how we work. We are in evidence-led organisations, so we measure and report on our activities on a regular basis. In addition, we have our own measurement approach internally, so what we need to do is to ensure that we measure the activities that we are delivering and that that is evolving. Right now, we are actively looking at our measures for our next three-year plan. That is in the context of the Scottish Government's national strategy for economic transformation, which I believe will be published later this year. For many years, we have looked to measure activities in relation to net zero. In particular, we have measured CO2 savings as a direct result of the activities that we deliver. We have also introduced a measure for green jobs this year, and we have had activity to support company investment in new projects that will result in green jobs. However, we are looking to broaden that. Right at the moment, we are looking at other activities that measure company investment and the impact of social and environmental outcomes. That, as we just said, is something that we are talking to other agencies about. Thank you. In addition to that, we are highs before focusing on its efforts currently around what we are calling a net zero ladder. We are looking at how we can track progress of the companies and communities organisations that we engage with, in terms of their awareness of net zero and what it means for them as an organisation, but it also writes through to adopting net zero practices—good practice in this space—in terms of their own carbon measurement and processes. That is under development, and we would be happy to share more details with the committee as that progresses. Our rationale for doing that is to ensure that we recognise that that is a transition and that, engaging with our clients, we want to work with them through that transition and that we want to collectively learn as to how to make those next steps and understand clearly what those barriers and challenges might be, but also to make sure that it is generating an impact in terms of carbon reduction in terms of that contribution to net zero. I think that there is just a bit more. The reason for doing that is to engender that more behavioural approach to net zero as opposed to just only quantifying sums at the end of an investment, if you like. We want to be able to track progress over time. Thank you very much. The same question to the House of Scotland Enterprise, please. Thank you, convener. I think that I will answer a part of it. I will answer another part of the actual metrics that we are looking at developing. It is actually very exciting to be involved in society at this stage at a fairly new agency, as the panel will know. I am only 55 days, I think, into the role. Everything is new in this respect, but we are, as you, and rightfully say, this is evidence-led agency. We are also leaning into opportunity-led, where are the opportunities for that just transition to net zero? How do we align our strategy working with all of those government agencies, partnership agencies and the business in the private sector? How do we bring them to bear to deliver the impact that Sozi was set up to do? On that point, I will hand over to my colleague Claire to tell you how we are measuring some of those impacts. Inquiring about the approach from Sozi regarding impact and measurement. As Martin said, we are a new agency and we are developing our systems and procedures. It has really been a good and exciting time for us because our focus is around making sure that this is relevant, responding to national strategies and making sure that we are focusing on the needs and understanding the needs of the south of Scotland. In terms of developing that, we have been working with the University of Edinburgh on the data-driven initiative to have a focused and bespoke approach that meets the diverse needs of all of our businesses, communities, initiatives and projects, so that we have a measuring system that is relevant and is responding to the net zero agenda. We currently have three trial projects under way, which is testing out that impact and measurement framework and would happily share that with the committee as we develop and progress on the thinking and testing of the model. We are really focused on creating a local bespoke approach that captures the full range of benefits from the very small communities that we work with through the bespoke range of businesses that we are working with. We are making sure that we really challenge ourselves to be doing things differently and engaged and collaborative and sharing that experience with our agency colleagues across Scotland. Just a very brief follow-up from me, because quite a few of our guests have mentioned the creation of jobs as part of the net zero transition and the overall agenda. I think that that is going to be a key challenge in delivering a just transition to develop a Scottish supply chain in emerging areas of technology that makes sure that the jobs of the future are created and remain in Scotland. That has not really happened at scale in the past decade. My question is what needs to be done differently to make sure that we can develop that Scottish supply chain and those high-technology jobs. First of all, Scottish Enterprise, please. We are fully committed to supporting a just transition and we want to support good and green jobs that are well rewarded. That is our focus. For example, what we have done recently over the summer is that we have delivered a call to businesses to come forward with innovative projects to create jobs and safeguard green jobs. We are just in the process of evaluating the responses that we had to that call, but we had a really positive response to that. In terms of delivering a just transition, we have been talking to the—we have been keeping close to the work of the Just Transition Commission and working with the secretariat within the Scottish Government. What we need to do is to support that economic activity here in Scotland. We want to retain those jobs and businesses given that we have a clear, strong strategy that is focused on the net zero transition. We want to help those businesses to transition towards a net zero future. That is very much what we are focused on doing. We can maybe talk a little bit more about some of the operational support, but, in general, that is our approach in terms of the Just Transition. Thank you. I think that we are really focusing on the strategic opportunities that net zero presents. We believe that it presents the Highlands and Islands region with real opportunity to create new employment. The prospect of quite significantly greater offshore wind around our waters and moving into deeper waters and looking at floating wind, for example, we believe that the region's infrastructure and the supply chain is in a relatively strong position to try and capitalise on that. I totally appreciate that. Perhaps we are not in the position now that we hoped to have been 10 or 15 years ago at the earlier leasing grounds for offshore wind, as an example. However, I am really encouraged by the much more collaborative approach that we have seen from developers, OEMs and working with the local infrastructure providers and the local supply chain at an early stage. Much of that will be stimulated, and I have no doubt, around the real industry commitment to increase Scottish or UK content with Scottish and the Highlands and Islands content. We are seeing it in those projects and the measures that are being put in place around supply chain development statements and in the CFD process around the supply chain plans. However, we do appreciate it still as a global market. Therefore, there is a lot that we need to focus on. We are actively working closely with Scottish Enterprise, with Skills Development Scotland, with Sosie as well as with Scottish Government and with the agencies or other organisations such as the Net Zero Technology Centre to identify not just the business opportunities but the skills needs that are going to be required and planning ahead for those skills so that we can enable the transition of jobs particularly from the oil and gas sector but from other sectors into the jobs that will be created in the offshore wind space. I will quickly, without hijacking the slot, indicate that we recognise other areas around green hydrogen and for our region, particularly around tidal energy and wave energy in future. However, what we are keen to do is continue to build on the successes that we have seen both at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney and also with the outputs of wave energy Scotland. In those technology areas, those energy generation areas, I do believe that there will be opportunities that we need to continue to work closely with industry and to try to secure those. Indeed, if we are to quickly touch on the other areas around heat and transport, the measures that have to be taken there and the progress that has to be made, we have to create those opportunities and also for those to be built in many of our rural and coastal areas. The same question to South of Scotland Enterprise, then I believe that Andy McDonald of Scottish Enterprise would like to follow up after that. Is someone from South of Scotland Enterprise able to say that question? It is, convener. Sorry, the mic was off, so I will just come back on. I will take that if that is okay. Welcome the question around creation of jobs, particularly under the net zero, and the aspect about the supply chain from our perspective in South of Scotland. We have been very proud in the first 15 months of identifying that we have retained 2,000 jobs with our help and support and created another 1,000 more of which green jobs are embedded into that, and we are really looking forward to actually seeing how we can create more opportunities for the South of Scotland. In terms of our local supply chain, we have identified that there is a significant amount of sole traders and SMEs. That is a really focus for us in terms of building capacity and resilience and looking at the current skills and transferable skills. It is really important that we work with our cross-agency colleagues, such as them, developing Scotland's young workforce to create pathways for our young people in retraining into the green jobs sector and the opportunities that they bring. We are seeing very much activity with our colleges, Dumfries and Galloway College and Scottish Borders College in terms of their proactiveness and understanding that we need to be ready in us and active in green jobs with the Green Skills Academy in embedding sustainability in all the courses. We see opportunities with supply chain across tourism, construction, property, food and drink, creative industries, so that they all have a role and opportunity in creating green jobs with new businesses and communities. A lot of the work that we are looking at is around the current skillset and identifying the new skills that are required, making sure that we capitalise on opportunities for transferable skills and the ability to teach new skills. We are mindful that with our supply chain, 10,000 of our businesses with 10 people or less is going to be quite challenging for them. It is working hard to give them opportunities to actually develop and grow to respond to the needs and opportunities that working to develop our businesses and communities to deliver next zero will give. So, while it is a challenge, we understand the level of challenge that is on our plates and are prepared and ready for taking this forward into the future opportunities. Thank you very much. Finally, Andy Mcdonald wants to come in. Thank you, convener. My colleagues have covered a number of the things that I was going to raise. I think that you managed to ask at the start of the question about where we learned from previous experience. We began supporting offshore renewables many, many years ago, and one of the things that was very clear in trying to get businesses engaged with that to then create employment was a real need for education about what was different and what the things were that you needed to understand to move into new areas. As we diversified further and more recently with the opportunities in heat and the opportunities in transport, that has become even clearer, particularly some of the scale-up that colleagues have referred to in particular in the heat area, for example. Not only do we need to manufacture technology like heat pumps, we need to be able to install those at a rate of knots in order to achieve the targets that we have for decarbonisation. There is a great deal of opportunity in there, but there are also a number of small companies that need to have the capacity to learn where those new opportunities are and how to adapt to them. We have brought in support programmes to focus short-bust of attention to those companies to help them to understand that. We have developed cluster builder programmes in order to get companies engaged with each other across the industry in opportunities to understand that. We have created and supported the development of offshore wind clusters, for example, to bring together communities of companies so that they can work together and understand where those challenges lie. Obviously, I will align the programmes of support that we are bringing to those companies behind those in order to deliver the support that they need to then take up those opportunities. The international element is also important, particularly in the likes of the diversification of the oil and gas sector. Those companies, in many cases, have a lot of experience of working in international markets. We have also been looking at how we take the opportunities in those new technology areas and recognise where those opportunities are internationally to work with those businesses through our colleagues in SDI and in the broader organisations as well. Thank you very much. A few of the panel members mentioned that they were working on transition plans to net zero and updated strategies. If and when those plans are ready, it would be appreciated if you could share them with the committee. Thank you very much. Let me pass over to Monica Lennon, who is a brief supplemental in this area, to be followed by Jackie Dunbar. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. The green jobs fund has been mentioned a few times and in some written submissions. Given that there has been that call to businesses to apply for the fund over the summer, perhaps Scottish Enterprise could advise how many applications have been received in total and how many good green jobs you expect this first round of funding to create? We are still working through the application to the programme, applications closed to the first round of the call in July. We anticipate completing the evaluation of them by the end of this month. We had over 200 applications for it, which was a significant number. I do not have immediately to hand the number of jobs, but we can certainly provide that unless my colleague Ewan may have that to hand. Yes, just a little bit more information with the caveat that this is on the basis of what applicants have told us before evaluation, but from the more than 200 applications that Andy mentioned, the projects have the potential to create more than 3,000 new jobs, transitioning more than 2,600 jobs and protecting 1,800 existing jobs. That is a sizable and significant response to that call. I can just very briefly, because there is not one overall definition of green jobs. In terms of the applications that have come in, do you think that there will be some companies who will be quite disappointed because they do not meet the criteria? Do you think that we need to do more work to make sure that we have a good, robust working definition of green jobs? I could happily take the answer. I suspect that the answer will be yes. It has been clear that the programme is funded to an extent, but we expect to be evaluating projects and that it does not run. Everybody will succeed. The best projects will succeed and be taken forward. There is also a significant amount of learning in this call for all of us to understand what the businesses out there see as being the opportunities to focus on, and that will allow us to focus on future elements and future versions of the call. In terms of the definition of what is a green job, at the moment we have tried to be as open as we can and as wide as we can in order to understand how we support companies without the danger of actually blocking development. Transitioning to a green future is a key part of that. As I said, the significant amount of learning that we expect to take from this first call and to share among us clearly and with colleagues in the Scottish Government to help us to define what could be the right shape to define or the right things to define as important in identifying green jobs support for the future. Thank you convener and good morning panel. My question is to Scottish Enterprise. I note in your submission that you are focused on stimulating early action in terms of supporting the transition to net zero. Are those early actions and how will you or do you measure the success of them? Maybe I can take that question first of all. We have published our net zero framework for action in June and we have been having a conversation with our board for probably the best part of two years in terms of exploring what else Scottish Enterprise could do to respond to the climate and nature emergencies. That is both to help reduce emissions but, as others have said, to help to focus on net zero opportunities and supporting a just transition. The 2020s, many commentators talk about this being the decisive decade, so there really is an urgency for us to focus on this early action. The framework that I mentioned is a five-year plan but most of the actions we are delivering this current year. For example, we are making sure that we are embedding net zero goals throughout the whole of the organisation, so aligning all of our support for innovation, investment and internationalisation, helping to unlock net zero opportunities in terms of the support that we offer to industries and businesses. We are taking forward a number of strategic programmes of national significance to focus on the opportunities for Scotland as a whole and we are working with industry and partners and investors on that. We have talked about the funding calls that we are delivering. We are holding a number of round tables with investors at the moment. There is a strong appetite from the investment community, as we heard earlier from the Scottish National Investment Bank. We are wanting to align our support with the appetite that we see from the co-investors that we work with. We are also delivering a whole range of other early actions to ensure that internally our staff are well-equipped in order to deliver on our ambitions. We are delivering climate literacy training, targeting our senior leadership team—about 70 senior leaders across the organisation are completing that at the moment. We are also offering net zero training to all of our staff in Scotland and overseas. Finally, we have two climate change champions on our board who are advising us on the action. There is a lot going on. We are committed to the net zero transition and this is at the heart of everything that we are doing in our current business plan and in the future. We acknowledge the urgency to take action just now. I want to focus on each of you's talk about supply chain development programme and taking that forward. I used to sit on the board of the Supplier Development Programme, which, as a councillor, we were the host authority for. One of the questions that I wanted to ask each of you is what are you doing in terms of supply chain visibility going forward? I can answer that in part. In terms of the supply chain development activity that we undertake, when we are working with companies looking to establish new opportunities, clearly we are encouraging them to engage with and work with the Scottish supply base and try to focus on building the right suppliers for each of those companies. In terms of legal commitments, clearly there are constraints around what you can legally do in terms of placing contracts and commitments in front of companies from the support perspective. We currently ask companies to undertake their contracts on a fair work basis, but there are not constraints about supply chain. However, you will be very aware, I suspect, that in the context of the next round of offshore wind there are agreements and commitments from industry to set significant targets for local content. Clearly, we are working with the supply base and the developer base to bring companies together to understand how that is going to be achieved and to ensure that the supply chain and the supply base in Scotland is particularly well resourced and able to meet those challenges to the extent that it can. We are also delivering, as agencies, collectively and in partnership with the Scottish Government and the industry directly and industry bodies, the making Scotland's future programme and the industrial supply chain development programmes related to that and looking at how we build the infrastructure that supports the development of supply chains, supply industry, the base of the companies, but then take that forward in terms of the resources that we are putting behind companies and intending to support the manufacturing supply base and better integrate it together. Not related to your question, but related to the supply chains, one of the challenges that we've had is that we've tended historically to respond to opportunities to diversify the supply chain from oil and gas or from aerospace or from the marine sector. One of the things that is now in place is a much more joined-up approach to looking at what are the opportunities that exist for the whole of the Scottish supply base, whether that's in its manufacturing supply chain or digital supply chain, and bringing those opportunities together in a much more focused fashion to then allow companies who may well be capable of acting in more than one of those sectors to actually identify what the skillsets are they have and look for the opportunities across a number of sectors to those. I'm sorry, if I could go to Highlands and Islands and ask that question as well. Thank you. It's similar to Andy there in terms of restrictions around what we can or can't do in terms of any legal obligation, but I think that we're very focused on working collaboratively with the industry just now and really, as I said earlier, that really encouraged by the response that we're seeing from industry. Just as a bit of an example, and I know this hasn't yet translated into jobs, but just last week, Scottish Renewables and Renewable UK held their floating offshore wind conference in Aberdeen, and the demand on the clusters in terms of the deep wind cluster, for example, which covers all of Scotland, but it really focused on floating wind opportunities, was exceptionally high and the conversations were very encouraging. I think that we've got a reason to be optimistic around a more positive outcome from the current leasing rounds in terms of supply chain, but we do appreciate that it's not straightforward and there are lots of risks there that we need to navigate through. As an organisation, we've been very alert to, for example, the challenges around CS wind and entering recently in administration. I think that from High's perspective, our main objective was around securing economic activity at that site and we will continue to pursue that, but we have learned lots of lessons and we will continue to learn those, and that's just as I say in the offshore wind space. I think that the other aspect that's quite different now from where we were 10 years ago is just the pipeline, the scale and the pace that those projects will need to proceed at it. Therefore, those developers that are taking forward those multibillion-pound projects in relatively short order will have to look at a more collaborative approach as a solution to their delivery timescales. In itself, we present much more constructive dialogue for our business base. Our role as enterprise agencies is to continue working with those businesses to understand what investment they need, whether that be in automation, digitalisation or really to make them very lean and competitive, and that's where we're working with, like the National Manufacturing Institute, if it knows as an example. We need to draw on that expertise to support our companies. Mark Ruskell, please. I was struck by some of the comments that you were making, Andy, earlier about the challenge with heat decarbonisation and enormously challenging a million homes who will have to be decarbonised by 2030 to meet government targets. I'm just wondering if you could perhaps just give us a bit more background as to how you see the skills gap around heat decarbonisation being filled and also the relationship between your enterprise agencies and the new public energy agency that will be launched in Scotland. In terms of delivery, how is this going to work? How are we going to develop those supply chains and deliver at a scale that we've never seen before in Scotland? Thank you. Currently, we have identified, within Scottish Enterprise, seven national programmes that are key areas of focus. One of those is around decarbonising heat. The rationale for that is bringing a focus across the whole of the organisational resources that we bring as an agency, and the same is true of our colleagues and other economic agencies as well, around the particular challenge. In the context of heat, it's recognising that there's a need to build the technology base and the innovation around that and support companies in that space, and also recognising the challenges that are going to be in creating the workforce. Transitioning existing companies and, for example, installers of heating systems to cope with the new technology, but also just recognising that scale up. We worked with Skills Development Scotland on the climate emergency skills action plan, and that's been one of the strands in there that we've been in discussion with. I've been party to, but not in the middle of discussions with, for example, with local authority partners as well through Skills Development Scotland on the implementation group for the climate emergency skills action plan. I'm trying to understand how we're going to make sure that the infrastructure is in place for that. From our perspective, we're also working with colleagues in the Scottish Government in the heat team on the energy team and the question of how we will resource those things up, bringing together the training and skills needs that will exist. I'm looking at creating, in conjunction with industry, a number of discussions about the creation of a heat hub of some form that will focus the skills requirements and the development and delivery of those. It will bring industry in to understand the opportunities as well as the challenges in there. Clearly, we're seeing that as a significant opportunity. It's a challenge to do it, but it's a significant opportunity for Scotland to build on expertise in things like heat pump technology, build on some of the companies that are already here doing innovation and innovative developments in that space, but also to significantly scale that up and that these things will be required around the world as well. Again, there's an international dimension to it. The question of the skills element of it is bringing together things like the construction skills innovation centre and local authority training opportunities and colleges as well as universities to bring together all the dimensions that are required to scale across the supply chain and to ensure that those reach into communities. We think that there's a very big opportunity in terms of community-level opportunities. There's a lot of vocational skills involved in those opportunities. We're going to be working in conjunction with the whole of Scotland, the public and private sector as well through local authorities in things like planning and the delivery of those things, working with housing authorities as well in the context of domestic heat. There's a huge opportunity there to build an extraordinary level of skills opportunity. The challenge then is how do we make sure that that's delivered and that's where we're again working closely with colleges and skills development in Scotland. We bring that forward. In terms of your very specific question about the agents of the heat body, we're working with the Scottish Government to understand how we deliver that in partnership with the structures that are in place. As they develop that, I would fully expect that we'll be collaboratively engaged in that conversation to understand how we put in and enable that to succeed. Perhaps a question now for Sosie and also HIE as well. There's a commitment in co-operation between my party and the Scottish Government to develop at least one national park in Scotland by the end of this session. I wondered what your perspectives are on that, if there are any lessons that we can learn from the existing national parks and what you see as the jobs opportunities with that. I think that my colleague Claire is going to answer that one. Thank you and thanks for the question. While Sosie has not been directly involved with the national park today, what we have is good experience around the Galloway and southern Ayrshire biosphere. It's been a five-year project that Sosie is contributing funding to explore and develop an economic and environmental model that is relevant and local to the region. It's really focused about engaging the businesses and tourism and all the opportunities of the integrating opportunities with energy and transport to create a model to support that transition into our future in a net zero environment. It's very early days but there's some good feedback and reporting that will be taken to our board. We can follow up and share with the committee in the next month or so. Will you be working with particular campaigns in the south of Scotland around developing a prospectus for a national park or is that outside of your aim? Our focus is on the existing opportunities with the biosphere and that. If any of the organisations or parties are active in the area, I'm sure that we'll have dialogue as with all community and business opportunities in south of Scotland. I don't have a perspective from HIE as well. There's been discussion about, for example, Marine Coastal National Park. I don't know if that's something that is on your radar at all. You're on mute, I think. Hi, there it is. Sorry, it's not something that I'm personally in that way of, but certainly we'll be happy to come back with a high view on that. Other than, obviously, we were out very closely with the Cairngorm National Park in the context of the funicular that we're being stating now, but also in terms of the wider business benefits in that area. In terms of marine, I'm clearly very alert and aware of that with all of the interest around offshore developments and whether that be in offshore energy or whether that be in aquaculture and whether that be in seaweed, all of that presents really quite exciting opportunities, but obviously needs to be managed in a very careful way. The approach to date in terms of Marine Scotland's marine planning has been really welcome and in terms of alignment with County State Scotland with respect to leasing, again, is really welcome in terms of just understanding the full process and enabling a careful planning and engaging the coastal communities that are impacted by that. That maybe we'll need to come back with a more formal view on the highest response to the potential for a new national park and what role we might have on that. Thanks very much, Mark. Monica Lennon to be followed by Liam Kerr, please. Thanks, convener. I was just to go back to the green jobs fund. I just wondered if a proportion of the funds will be used to help those groups that are most underrepresented already in green sectors and green jobs. I'm looking at some analysis by Close the Gap, for example, looking at women's opportunities and women's experience of the labour market, particularly during the pandemic, as well. I wonder if that's something that's being looked at and maybe to get a regional perspective if that's something that's particularly more relevant in perhaps Highlands and Islands or south of Scotland. Thank you. In terms of the green jobs within the Highlands and Islands Enterprise area, we're taking a slightly different approach in that we're not having launched a call as such, but what we took a view for this first year, where our budget allocated for the green jobs fund was at £800,000, was to look at projects that we were already aware of and we had a lot of interest anyway and that were aligned to the objectives of the green job fund. In what we've already committed to, there are a number of projects, including wind sweat, which is an innovative wind turbine technology using kite and fabric material that is in Shetland. Another award was made to use distillery, which is fantastic in terms of that location and creating new business opportunities in Uist and making sure that, from the outset, that distillery is a green distillery. A more recent award has been to trees for life for a rewilding centre. Just to give an example of some of the variety of the projects that we're supporting through the green jobs fund, we see high participation levels from women across a range of our programmes, particularly around entrepreneurship and leadership, so we're newly encouraged by the steps that are taken to try to encourage more broader engagement and ensure that our means of delivery is conducive to females participating in accessing the funds. You mentioned £800,000. Is that Highlands and Islands allocation of the green jobs fund to date? That's our budget allocated under the green jobs fund for this financial year. We're 1.2 million allocated in subsequent years. It doesn't seem like a huge amount, but we're 1.2 million allocated in subsequent years. It doesn't seem like a huge amount, but we're 1.2 million allocated in subsequent years. Thank you for the question and opportunity answer. We've taken the same approach, and we haven't done a call-out for funding. In every aspect and opportunity that is presented to us, we're looking for opportunities for green jobs but also to support a wide range of under representative communities and groups. We have a wide range of examples of where that has been possible. Particularly, we're active in terms of securing and supporting women in terms of accessing this area, and that's going to be a real focus going forward. Again, as we develop our strategy regarding women in business and communities, we welcome sharing that with the committee at a future date. We also look at the wider range of underrepresented groups, particularly in terms of adults with autism and young people and adults with additional needs, such as better lives partnership in the usual place. We've supported them funding in terms of more opportunities in this arena and to broaden their skillset. We're really looking at it from a south of Scotland perspective across all the broad range of underrepresented groups and giving them an equal opportunity in that fund. Thank you. A more general question to the Scottish Enterprise. COP26 is just around the corner. What do you see as being the main opportunities for Scotland at COP26 to attract investors? In the context of COP26, I think of the question. It is a massive opportunity to the eyes of the world on Scotland. Clearly, the priority is about the environmental decisions that are made for the future from our collective perspective. Economically, it's an opportunity to do a number of things. The first of those is the increased awareness of the whole issue of environmental futures. It is to work with the industry-based and company-based Scotland to get more companies to think about, from their own perspective, what the implications of a net zero transition are for them, how they become more adapted to their businesses and the things that they make and do in the way that they do that, to recognise that, to understand what the challenges could be and what the opportunities are of that. The second element of it is obviously while the event is here and the eyes of the world are on us, the opportunity to showcase to technology and businesses in Scotland where, collectively, along with colleagues in Scottish Government and local authorities and other partners, a wide range of industry bodies developed a programme of activities that mirrors the duration of COP and tries to highlight a number of Scotland's key areas of technology and innovation in that space and some of the companies that we have and we're trying to ensure that we engage the world in that during the time that COP is here. Beyond that, there's a focus on the legacy that COP then gives us, both the environmental legacy and what that means and the things that we need to do, from a policy perspective, to continue to achieve our ambitions around our net zero future and net zero targets, but also from an economic development perspective of what that means for companies, what are the opportunities to take new technologies out internationally as well as domestically and apply those and starts to really take a future build on Scotland's position as a key area, a key country in developing these kinds of technologies and sharing them with the world and emphasising the importance that we see in net zero as a core part of the future, but the opportunity in that as well. Thank you. Thanks very much. Monica, before I hand over to Liam Kerr, Andy McDonald mentioned a number of like trade events, trade promotion events surrounding COP, which I think is an excellent idea. I wondered if you could share with the committee to the extent possible what those events are, what's planned, if it's appropriate coming from Scottish Enterprise or we could ask the Scottish Government? I can certainly share the broad intent that there are a number of events mirroring some key areas of activity that we're undertaking in Scotland, the opportunities around things like transport, environment, space, heat, things that are related to the net zero area. These will be a mix of events, some of them will be audience events, debates, conversations, some of them will be talking about specific technologies and putting on exhibitions. There will be a mix of live space and meetings and virtual events around those key themes. We are utilising in partnership with Scottish Government things like the lighthouse in Glasgow in order to host events, but we will be able to share them as widely as we can in terms of the opportunities. Also opportunities out in other parts of Scotland and linking them into an overall programme. Transport events that will be included in things in Aberdeen, Orkney and Dundee at the Michelin Scotland innovation park, as well as co-events around COP and Glasgow and around the Glasgow facilities, and other events across Scotland that link into it. We are trying to build a cohesive programme with industrial partners, academic partners and with Government, so we are showcasing what policy is doing and driving, showcasing the innovation of Scottish companies, but also sharing that as widely as we can and working with people who are coming to Glasgow for a COP to try and make sure that there is engagement between some of those world leaders in different companies, different businesses and different technologies and policy makers as well with the business and industry base here alongside programmes that will be running around community engagement and social engagement as well, so that the economic element of that is covered to us by a broader programme. A broader programme, clearly, Scottish Government has better placed than we are to talk about, but the economic element of it is very much a collaboration of our agencies and a number of other industry partners and bodies and academic institutions as well. Okay, well thank you very much for that update. Let me bring in Liam Kerr, please. Thank you, convener. Good morning. It's a question specifically for Scottish Enterprise, perhaps, for Ewan Myrns. Clearly, the north-east is going through a transitional time, and in fact the press and journal was reporting yesterday that Aberdeen is facing a challenge unlike anything in its history, partly due to the energy transition and the oil and gas downturn. Now, there are those who say that the north-east needs a dedicated enterprise agency, which would just be focused solely on the needs of the north-east. So what does Scottish Enterprise think of that proposition? Thank you for the question. We absolutely understand the issues that are... I think that we temporarily lost Scottish Enterprise there. Perhaps we can move on. Liam, I'm not sure if you had a supplementary question. Oh, hello. Ewan, you're back. Can you hear us? Yes, I can. Apologies for that. I was saying that we absolutely acknowledge the issues that are facing the north-east of Scotland along with other regions across Scotland. We are delivering a national approach to economic development, but we are tailoring our support to particular regions. We are active in working with local authorities and other partners at a regional level to make sure that we can support the specific opportunities and issues and challenges that they may be facing. As we discussed earlier in the session, we are very actively involved in supporting the energy transition that Andy talked about. We are able to work with other agencies in the north-east of Scotland to address some of those opportunities and issues. Okay. Thank you, Liam. Let me bring in Fiona Hyslop, please. Thank you and good morning everyone. To Highlands and Islands, we acknowledge that not all green jobs have to come from the green jobs fund. Can you confirm my understanding that at the request of high and to secure more flexibility in the general and uplifted budget last year that you've ensured that you can invest in green jobs and that the majority of the green jobs fund is actually with Scottish Enterprise for that purpose? For Scottish Enterprise and for South of Scotland, you've all talked about how you support your clients or account-managed companies in achieving net zero, but bearing in mind the biggest impact to achieve net zero is going to be heating and buildings and decarbonisations. What are you doing or what do you think needs to be done to help SMEs in this area who are not account-managed or have access to a regular relationship with SE or SOZI in order to help them to achieve investment to decarbonise and for the heating of their buildings? I'm particularly bearing in mind that many of these SMEs will be carrying a lot of debt because of Covid debt in terms of business debt, so I'm concerned whether there's any sort of gap in the market there, but it may be high if you can confirm that you're investing in green jobs, not just through the green jobs fund and SE and SOZI if you can address SMEs that you don't account-manage and how do we help them to invest for decarbonisation and to reduce their heating emissions? Just to say that in terms of, we absolutely can confirm that we are investing in creating jobs and using more than just the green jobs fund, and I think that that actually reflects the demand that we're coming, that we're seeing, the nature of the projects and the proposals coming forward from our businesses and our communities that were already on this trajectory, so we knew that we had that sort of pipeline of demand that we were looking to support and make that as mainstream, and I think that all that we're trying to do within high just now is to mainstream this net zero approach in all of our interventions, whether that be financial or advisory or other means there. Also, in terms of delivery, as you'll appreciate, we've been very focused on Covid recovery and over the last year in terms of delivering Covid recovery funds, Covid resilience funds and Covid recovery, so as we move forward, then what we'll be looking to do is continue to have that heightened engagement with a broader mix of clients or companies and organisations, but also then just to be having that conversation around the nature of the investment that we want to make and to make sure that it is compliant with net zero trajectory. Thank you. On SMEs that you don't have a relationship with just now, but we need to decarbonise and help in terms of their emissions. I can pick that up at the level of decarbonisation in particular. We have, in a similar fashion to, as Audrey said, following the period of Covid recovery and we're still clearly engaged in that. We are working with a broad base of companies. In any case, a key part of our work in each of the areas that we're focusing on in decarbonisation in transport, heat and energy is about building up the opportunities for the whole supply chain and bringing new companies into that. As Zew and mentioned earlier on, the net zero framework for action overlays all that we're doing in Scottish Enterprise around those challenges. In specific focus on small and medium companies, we've changed the model that we operate by, so our business support is not done in the old fashion as we did around account managed companies and a particular priority around those. It's very much around opportunity now. The green jobs call that we took was an example of that. It wasn't constrained to particular companies that we account managed. It was open to any companies to apply and we are setting up our response to be much more focused on particularly digital technology, allowing companies to contact us to enable a broader range of companies to come to our support. The support will be around a specific challenge or a specific issue, so decarbonisation would be one of those. While we will still have relationships with the companies that will be with a broader range of companies, it will be more time limited in the sense that it will be responding to immediate challenges and opportunities. A broader range of input will hopefully allow us to be more focused in the range of services that we provide to those companies, too. It looks like we've lost our panel for the moment. It's probably a good idea for us to suspend at this moment. Welcome back to our panel. Sorry for that technical interruption. I'll hand over to Fiona Hyslop. I don't know if Andy had anything further to say and then I can move on to South of Scotland. Andy, were you coming to a close or was there anything else? I was coming to a close in the interest of time. I'll call you from South of Scotland to step in. It's interesting that I was on to comment to the Scottish Enterprise for 22 months before joining SOSI and I see the alignment of how we work together. SOSI is quite different than the fact that we work in business advisers and community advisers. We are working almost all the time with SMEs and micro-businesses. That is the general make-up of the regional economy around here. For us, it is very much a belief that we have. We really need to listen closely to the business to find out the sort of level of support that they are looking for. We are going to be developing toolkit. I know that there is a toolkit frenzy everywhere. Lots of people have toolkits, but a lot of those have been developed without working so closely with business. We are absolutely adamant that we are going to make sure that we are working with businesses in this region to make sure that we can support what the partners we work with and the level of interventions that they need so that they can benefit from the just transition to net zero. It is a very big focus of SOSI. One of my top priorities joining here was to make sure that we could get in working closely with businesses, not just to support them, but to amplify what they are doing. Certain businesses have been visited lately in this region, which are just unbelievable the things that they are doing, the ethical dairy, some of the distilleries. It is fantastic. There is a huge appetite for businesses. Rather than just saying that there is a toolkit here or there, I want to make sure that we are working closely with businesses to articulate the support that they need. I might ask my colleague Claire to jump in with supplementary, because Claire has been here since almost the start of SOSI. She knows about the day-to-day dealings that we have had, so Claire, if you would not mind adding some examples, perhaps. Super. Thanks, Martin. Thank you, Mrs up, for the question. There is some really good and developed work in the south of Scotland work on the supply chain, particularly the sole traders and the SMEs, to understand what opportunities there are in this area for them and what are they needing. We are working closely with the development of Scotland's workforce and our colleges, who are understanding and acting and creating bespoke solutions that meet their needs and understand the barriers and challenges that they have on a daily basis. When you have a single person who cannot afford to take time off his work to do the training or the redevelopment, it is really looking about what support and alternative mechanisms we could do. We are developing digital systems, and we have Digital Construction Skills Scotland involved. We are working with the colleges in terms of the green skills agenda and how we take what they are already good at already and offer other opportunities. There is some really good engagement with that with the Heat and Energy Forum and the Construction Industry Forum that we have set up. All partners with CITB and Guild Development Scotland are involved in those discussions. By working together and using our skillset across all the agencies, we are developing solutions that are going to make a difference and respond to the needs and opportunities going forward. We are reminded that this is difficult and challenging, but we are aware of that. We have made a commitment to work together to find solutions and to work through the hurdles with the opportunities and funding that we can give in additional support and expert help that we are dialing in to help our small businesses and our communities to increase their skillset so that they can respond and deliver on the heat agenda, the re-carbonisation agenda and really make it local and specific. We started to do pilot programmes and pilot projects to lead by example. We have a key pilot project with the Mountain Bike Innovation Centre, which is an opportunity for us at the Borderlands growth deal to set an exemplar way of working that the supply chain will benefit from. We are building skills at the heart of the project so that we are starting on the right foot and we can monitor and track its progress. Again, it is something else. We are welcome to bring it back to a committee at a future date to show you what can be done when we work differently and work together. Mark Ruskell has a brief supplementary question. Can you give us some clarity that you are able to work across sectors so that you are not exclusively working within the private sector? You are able to work with public companies, with social enterprises and I am struck with the heat sector for example. We have some great examples of public companies that deliver heat, such as Favardine Heating Power, for example. Councils are interested in that space of delivering heat networks and local heat to communities. Can they get support from enterprise companies to do that or are there restrictions in terms of the remits that you have? Are you working across sectors? I certainly have an initial response if that is okay. Thank you for that question, that is really probing. We are very keen to make sure that there are not artificial boundaries that would inhibit anything. To do that, the local authorities in the south of Scotland and Brees and Galloway and Scottish Borders are very active in terms of the heat agenda and decarbonisation. We are working closely with the RSLs, the register of social landlords as well, because there is a key aspect here in terms of the supply chain for affordable housing. The other important item for all of us is around the poverty agenda, because that is another way of helping people with less affordable incomes and means to make sure that they are not in fuel poverty. We see that as a really important agenda, and certainly we are seeing cross-sectors, cross-areas working, because that is what is going to create the new and innovative solutions and having communities embedded in that because they know what they need and want and what is right for their community. Having that cross-economic, environmental and social approach to those wicked issues and problems has given us new ways to create solutions and to create bespoke systems that we are starting to put in place. I see cross-sector working as key. Anyone else? Andy? I echo Claire's view that nowadays we are working with a broad range of partners in order to ensure that we address the challenges, particularly around climate, but more broadly as well economically. We are working with third sector organisations and social organisations very much to an increasing extent over the years that I have been involved in the economic development through local authorities as well with partners there. The regional and place dimension is hugely important to the economic development work that we are doing now as well. We are working closely in local partnerships as well as at a national level across a number of those issues, recognising where the solutions lie. Thanks very much Mark. Collette Stevenson has a brief supplemental. Yes, it was just based on what Ms Hyslop asked us about supporting SMEs and sole traders going forward. It was just to see for each of the enterprises, where do you see the role of business gateways, the 19 business gateways in supporting SMEs as well and sole traders and how joined up are each of the enterprises in working with the business gateways in order to support just transition and net zero as well. I am sorry if I could go to Scottish Enterprise on that. Certainly, I am happy to do that. We are very much still involved in a broad partnership with the business gateways and are critical to that in terms of delivery through the business support partnerships that we have been working on. That came together very rapidly in the response to Covid and bringing together the various areas of support and bringing together all the partners that could provide support to companies. However, the business gateways have long been and continue to be a critical part of the routes to engagement with businesses. It is about the right resource to support the right questions for the right businesses and working very much in partnership across that. The best place for support for an individual business will be in one of the agencies. There is a single point of entry through the business support partnership and the right support will be brought to that business. Can I ask the South of Scotland enterprise that question as well? Thank you, Ms Stevenson. I welcome answering that question. In terms of the business gateway aspect, that is really important. It is important about creating that one-stop shop, that customer journey, so that any business that comes to seek any of the agencies for advice and support is a smooth list and they are getting to the point of entry that they need to be at. With respect to the model in the south of Scotland, we are actively delivering business gateway on behalf of the Scottish borders and working really closely. Business gateway through Dumfries and Galloway is delivered through business through Dumfries and Galloway Council. Again, we work very closely with our Dumfries and Galloway Council colleagues because it is really important. As I said, we have a seamless experience. It is a customer journey that is really important here. Any business that approaches us regardless of the point of entry should get the same experience and get to the point. The south of Scotland approach is to work very closely with business gateway so that the end user is getting a seamless experience. It is almost the regardless of who is delivering that service. They get what they need at the right time to give them the opportunities to respond to the agendas around heat and decarbonisation, and we are working closely together in the background with the councils and other agencies that are relevant here, such as Skills Development Scotland and Development Scotland's own workforce. There are so many opportunities and the more conversations we have and the more we join up our systems and procedures, the better experience the business and the customer. Collette, you have a very brief final question for me. Collette Stevenson asked a very good question about how the agencies work with business gateway. My question is, how do the agencies work with the Scottish National Investment Bank, who we heard from earlier this morning? The bank works together with the agencies to originate investment opportunities, but we heard from the bank that it is creating its own origination team. I wonder if the agencies could give us a very brief view as to how that origination function might look in the future. Do you still see the agencies having an origination role or over time would that perhaps be something that the bank assumes and takes over? Perhaps I could ask the Scottish Enterprise first. Maybe I will make a start. I am looking at Andy here, wondering who is going to take a lead. We clearly work closely with the Scottish National Investment Bank. We heard earlier in the earlier session about referrals. The Scottish Enterprise is focused on supporting early-stage investment. We have programmes that help businesses to grow into new markets, particularly in terms of net zero-related opportunities. As part of that, we are working with the investment community, which includes the Scottish National Investment Bank, as well as co-investors. We are focused on early-stage investment, but when businesses scale and grow, perhaps the scale of that investment may be more relevant for the bank. I do not know if Andy wants to come in on that as well. I am happy to hear that. The detailed answer to that question lies with our colleagues in the growth investment part of the Scottish Enterprise. We are engaged in the direct discussions with the National Investment Bank on where the transition happens. However, as you understand, we still have a very strong role in early-stage business development and the investment community. Our growth investment team is still a very active part of our support for businesses. The delivery that my teams do, for example, in our age of activity, is very much aligned with that. The growth investment team aligns with us in terms of where those opportunities are to invest in technologies and in businesses. We have developed over the years, along with colleagues in high, ahead of the development of SOZE, in the energy investment fund, for example, which was previously a renewable energy investment fund and has supported a lot of projects and technologies, both technology development and renewable energy technologies, but also in supporting community projects to embed and deliver those. That is a function that has been a significant part of the development of the company and industry base, as well as community projects, over the years, particularly in conjunction, as I say, with high. We are in discussion just now with the Scottish Government and the National Investment Bank on how those types of activities will happen. We are also in the broader question of where the transition of business development happens and business growth as businesses scale up and come into the remit of the National Investment Bank, as opposed to the growth investment function that we have in Scottish Enterprise and in the other economic development agencies. Thank you very much for that response. I appreciate that we are running slightly beyond our allocated time. That brings an end to the questions that we have for our panel this morning. Thank you once again for joining us and for providing an update on your respective agencies plans. Enjoy the rest of your day. That brings an end to the public session.