 Ieag unrhyw unrhyw i'r rhan o'r cyflawn, y rhan i'w ddweud y cwestiwn yma, ac i ddweud y ddefnyddio'r cyfer o'u rhoi'r cyrdidol yn ffasel, dwyddiol yn dwylo, a'r cyfrifoedd y keeperio yn merdwiadau. 1. Rhyw i dd 95 sy'n swyddfa mwrsiaeth arniadodau i rhan o'r pobl oedd, Rodgerick Campbell. Dym ni'n pethau mewn f advertisements cyflawn, gallwn i ddifrwyddoch i'r gael yng Nghyrchu Dynogau, Ieag ym Maintain swyddfa?人ol. Ysblynight hwnnw. Ysblynight hwnnw, dwi'n cael poeisr o ddiwedd y mawr. Ysblynight hwnnw chi ysblynight hwnnw chi'n cael ei dewisio arweithio y cyflawnau cyllid ymgyrch, fel gennym hanfa y cubeisr cymryd y cyfrifol ni ti weld i'r syniadau i'r bydau. Ysblynight hwnnw chi'n cael ei wneud i'r cyfrifol wathgen i'r cyrch. Abertaeth wedi i'r cyrch ar adeg, i hollwni, am gallu bod yn gwneud yn y cyfrifol o'r arma'r blynedd, fel y bydd y cwmu geni'r gwelli, gan gen i, llwy Prison Family yn gychewr i llwy Greekwp Allwyrdd yn ymwineis ar yr uned o'r posibug effeithio, i gyda ni, chores distractions. Raibhaith sydd bondedarr pobl hyd yn gynnal-enry replacedgirke. Ie wneud disagionai'r darmerdig bow следующvydd a wnaeth iёт be Diolch ond nes y ddefnyddio? Ne premonbarthangos fel intimidating. R Gianrr 이후 renderu'r bobl mwy ddiwednaid, a weld i awturdod ag oednau cafyrdd rhan o år fel trains y cwsiedigcapell a cherdd gwneud yn ôl'o bosidigfawr.fon iddo i ddigero alsiwn yn ddefnyddio ffordd y ddigero svig ar gyfer y cyflosiwyr ac nesafoddiadol gyda'r cyllid oedd y maeniant. Am eu lleiwyr y pethau ar yr adroddiadau ar draws yng nghymru i dweud drwy'n cyflogion o'r cyllid ar gyfer y cyflosiwyr, a'n dod o yn ôl wnaeth eich ddisgrifennu o'i ddesgrifennu geisio, ac ar ddod o'r cyflosiwyr o'r cyflosiwyr o'r cyflosiwyr, from Scotland, who are living abroad as part of the worldwide diaspora. That is all hinged on creating a more vibrant economy within Scotland, and that will be at the heart of measures taken to boost the working-age population in Scotland. Lewis MacDonald Thank you very much to ask the Scottish Government whether the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth has allocated sufficient budget to meet in full the costs of revenue funding arising from capital investment in the proposed new cancer centre and women's hospital in Aberdeen. John Swinney These costs will not arise until future financial years, but when they do arise, they will be met in full by the Scottish Government. I am sure that NHS Grampian will welcome that commitment, but of course for staff and users the big question is when that will be, when the work on those new facilities will begin and when it will be completed, given that the Government announced its intention to progress these projects early this financial year. Can Mr Swinney therefore tell us in which financial year he anticipates actual constructions of these projects will begin and whether NHS staff and patients can expect to see work begin on the ground before the next election? John Swinney Mr MacDonald will be familiar with the financial model that we are utilising for the development of cancer care and maternity facilities in Aberdeen, the women's hospital I should say. This is part of the extension of the NPD programme that I announced on 26 June. The hospital developments in Aberdeen will be part of that programme, which will run across a number of financial years culminating in 2019-20. As Mr MacDonald will be familiar with, and as I have made clear to the Parliament on numerous occasions, it takes a significant period of time and the preparation of projects for them to be rolled out. The normal time is now around about 19 to 20 months of preparation before projects can actually begin on site. The work will be taken forward to assess the practicalities, because there are some complicated issues of site development that will be required in relation to those projects. However, I can give Mr MacDonald and his constituents the absolute assurance that the developments of the women's hospital and the new cancer centre as part of the Aberdeen royal infirmary campus are a guaranteed part of the Government's NPD programme. I take the opportunity to welcome the investment in those facilities that the Scottish Government is bringing forward. Can the cabinet secretary advise how much capital investment is currently being put into Aberdeen by the Scottish Government and the background that that investment is set against? In relation to NHS Grampian, the capital allocation for NHS Grampian in 2014-15 is £17.1 million. The capital allocation for all NHS boards for the sake of completeness is £347.8 million for NHS Grampian in 2014-15. That is, of course, the general capital allocation, and that has been the part of our budget that has been under such pressure, given that it was reduced by about 26 per cent in recent years. The NPD programme, of course, has been the initiative by the Scottish Government to try to ensure that we boost capital expenditure within Scotland and take forward projects that ordinarily would not be able to proceed because of the limitations of our capital budget. I begin by offering you an apology and the chamber for my late arrival to the chamber. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the Scottish Enterprise annual review for 2013-14. Although the Scottish Enterprise's full annual report will not be published until September, figures released in July give the very welcome news that the Scottish Development International has helped to create or safeguard 7,446 jobs through inward investment in the year 2013-14. On the international trade side, Scottish Development International supported 2,708 companies to operate in international markets, including 228 that have the potential to generate £1,200 million in international trade over the next three years. I thank that minister for the very positive response. Does the minister agree with me that, with a yes vote in September, we will actually be able to take greater opportunities forward to ensure that Scotland is even a more successful country? I do agree with Mr Robertson and I agree for a number of reasons. Scotland is already a great place in which to invest. We have a highly skilled workforce, great universities and colleges, a marvellous quality of life and a very supportive government and enterprise network, but we cannot offer the additional competitive advantage that comes from having the choice over things like visas, air passenger duty, where Scotland is the most expensive place in Europe to travel to because we do not have the choice to determine our own rate. Therefore, we cannot turn Scotland from being a great place in which to invest, to being the very best place in which to invest. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the recent report by Fiscal Affairs Scotland. The Scottish Government has set out detailed forecasts for Scotland's public finances under independence in Scotland's future and the outlook for public finances report. This analysis demonstrates that Scotland will start life as an independent country with strong and sustainable public finances, and by using the powers of independence to grow our economy, it could be £5 billion per year better off by 2029.30. In the Fiscal Affairs Scotland report that was published yesterday, it states that, in order to be better off with independence, we need to inherit just half our population's share of debt or get double the OBR's estimate on oil revenues. Can I ask the cabinet secretary which of those scenarios he thinks is more likely? What I would simply do is refer Kezia Dugdale to the very detailed report that we published some weeks ago on the outlook for the public finances, which sets out our assessment of the finances of an independent Scotland, which demonstrates that the fiscal position of an independent Scotland would be either identical to or very close to the position that we would be in as part of the United Kingdom. Of course, the difference is that independence offers the people of Scotland the opportunity to change the landscape of our public finances by boosting economic activity and generating greater growth within the economy and greater growth within the public finances. Of course, I gently point out to Kezia Dugdale that the financial challenges that an independent Scotland would start off addressing are not a product of independence, they are a product of the existing constitutional arrangements that have delivered us a position of where we live in a country with an extraordinarily high degree of indebtedness. Question 6, Mark McDonald. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and to continue on the theme, to ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the N56 report on oil and gas. We welcome this new report, which endorses the Scottish Government's commitment that a Scottish-based energy department co-headquartered in Aberdeen and Glasgow, along with an Aberdeen-based oil and gas authority, would create the right conditions for a close, constructive and effective relationship to be forged between the Scottish Government, the OGA and the industry, creating an opportunity to realise the full potential of the oil and gas industry in Scotland. Mark McDonald. I thank the minister for his answer, and would he agree that moving the decision-making closer to those who are affected by it in the industry would enable us to ensure that future decisions were more sensitive to the requirements of the industry and were not about last gasp tax grabs by the London Treasury, as we have seen on far too many occasions? Minister, I think that what has been absent from the UK stewardship of the oil and gas industry is the presence of oil and gas ministers in Aberdeen. I am on my fourth minister in the UK, fourth energy minister, during my relatively short tenure of three years. The member is absolutely correct. What the industry needs is a Government that spends a great deal of time to understand their needs extremely carefully, and what the industry needs is a stable and predictable fiscal regime. That is precisely what they have lacked in the UK, whose stewardship has been characterised by a series of unheralded tax hikes. Most recently, a 12 per cent increase in the supplementary petroleum tax rate introduced in 2011 without warning, which seriously impaired confidence throughout the world in the oil and gas regime in the UK. Therefore, we offer, for the first time ever, a Government that works with the industry closely but understands that a stable, predictable tax regime is the absolute sine qua non of maximising recovery and achieving the maximum possible economic benefit for the people of Scotland. Latin as well. I now call on Lewis MacDonald. Very much. The minister will be aware that when the First Minister spoke recently at the annual oil and gas conference in Aberdeen, he appeared to suggest that the only bit of an energy department that might be based in Aberdeen would be the oil and gas policy division. Can he tell us, in his plans, where he anticipates that the director and the ministers of any energy department would be based in Aberdeen or Glasgow? We have already said that the oil and gas department will be based in Aberdeen. Of course, we have said that in Glasgow we would expect energy functions such as electricity regulation to be located. I assume that it is not Labour policy that you do not want the jobs in Glasgow to do with those matters, especially since Ofgem has their offices in Glasgow and Scottish Power, so I assume that Labour is not saying that you are taking jobs away from Glasgow. The real problem is that why it is so important that we have our headquarters in Aberdeen, which is the topic of the question, and why we have it properly resourced is because of what Sir Ian Wood said in his report. He said that in the 90s the UK had 90 people working in deck and licensing, and they had 90 fields. Most recently, there are 300 fields, three times as many, but there are half as many personnel, whereas in Norway, 200 personnel are dealing with their oil and gas regulation. Maybe that is why Norway has accumulated an oil and gas fund, which is worth £500 billion, and the UK, like Iraq, has an oil fund of zero. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Oil and gas figures published this morning by the Scottish Government show that we collected £4 billion in financial year 1314. That is down from five and a half in 1213. The Scottish Government said that we were going to collect between seven and eight billion pounds for 1314. Can the minister explain why the Scottish Government got it so spectacularly wrong for the second year in a row? The OBR's forecasts, which are the UK's forecasts, are that there will be 10 billion barrels of oil extracted between now and 2040. There are various problems with that. First of all, that contradicts the UK's strategy itself, with the estimate that the recovery will be far higher than that. The basic flaw of Mr Brown's analysis is that rest on OBR figures, which are contradicted by people like Professor Alex Kemp, by Oil and Gas UK, which indicate that the amount of oil and gas that is recovered to 2040-2050 will be far higher. That is in accordance with the UK's oil and gas strategy. The oil price this morning was $103 a barrel. That figure is extremely satisfactory. There is nobody in the industry, apart from Mr Brown, who anticipates that oil will be anything other than an enormous advantage other than a problem, as Mr Brown seems to think. Can the cabinet secretary please advise the chamber, or the minister actually advise the chamber, of the Scottish Government's view regarding the possibility that large quantities of oil lie beneath the seabed of the lower Clyde, but such resources cannot be explored or exploited due to the UK Government's obsession with trident, which has led to a UK ban on such exploration and exploitation? I know that it was interesting to form a defence secretary. Michael Heseltine's recent comments reported in the Sunday Post, which give some credence to the point that the member makes. I would point out that the production of oil and gas in Scotland is about to increase very substantially. It is about to do so because of new fields such as BP-Clair, which will begin shortly, and continue production until beyond 2050. Enquests, Crackenfields, Statoil's Marinerfields, I can run through many others, Chevron, Premier, Nexon, on and on it goes, new fields, extensions of existing fields, and production is about to increase massively over the next few years. As far as new discoveries in the Clyde and elsewhere is concerned, Norway, just across the water, has seen discoveries such as the Johann Sferdrup field, the fifth largest field ever discovered on the Norwegian shelf. Of course, it is certain that there will be more fields, more discoveries, more finds of Scotland's waters. I would say that it is not improbable that some of them will be on the scale of the Norwegian Johann Sferdrup field, ensuring enormous wealth and opportunities for the people of Scotland, especially young people, for the next half century. I shame that, on every occasion, the Tories and their Labour friends talk down this industry, deterring young people from seeking the enormous opportunities that there are. They think that this is a game, but it is not a game. They have deterred young people from going into this industry for decades by talking Scotland down. It is time that came to an end. Deputy Presiding Officer, as I wonder if the minister is perhaps hard of hearing, I wonder if I could try him again with my colleague Gavin Brown's question. The Scottish Government's figures published this very morning show that, for the last financial year, the revenue from Nasiol amounts to £4 billion, precisely one-half of the estimated figure from the Scottish Government. Why does the Scottish Government get it so wrong? I dispute the mathematics that is set out and the conclusions that he draws upon it. It is clear that the enormous oil wealth over the next several decades will be a massive advantage provided the right decisions are taken. Sadly, the wrong decisions have been taken over the last 40 years. That is not just my view, it is the view of Sir Ian Wood in his report, where he said that if the right policy decisions are taken, the prize is, and I quote Sir Ian, someone of international repute and a world leader, £200 billion. Not the OBR's figures, incidentally, which are a small fraction of that. £200 billion. It was Sir Ian Wood who said that the industry believes that the stewardship of the regime has been characterised by fiscal instability and a lack of predictability. The regulation has been so poor that an entirely new body requires to be set up to start the job afresh. To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the comments by the former RBS chief executive and chairman, Sir George Matheson, that the better-together campaigns, claims on banking and currency in an independent Scotland are nonsense. Sir George Matheson is one of a number of individuals involved in the financial services sector who have indicated that the financial sector in Scotland will prosper with independence because we have the skills, the talent and the connections that are necessary to thrive. That is the most effective response to the points raised by Mr Donan. Does he agree with me that the better-together position in currency is political posturing, as predicted by the Fiscal Commission working group in their first report, which states, in that respect, it is important to acknowledge that political considerations will play a role and make loud pre-referendum comments and policy statements. However, those are likely to differ from the actual decisions taken post-referendum when agreement is likely to take place where there are common interests. I think that the Fiscal Commission working group certainly anticipated the development of this debate by the prescient remarks that they made to which Mr Donan referred. The arguments around the currency union are well stated and the advantages are clear to see for both an independent Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. There is the opportunity to ensure that businesses outwith Scotland in the rest of the United Kingdom are not exposed to increased costs of doing business within Scotland, which represents a very significant market for the rest of the United Kingdom, as a consequence of the currency arrangements that were put in place. The Scottish Government's position, which takes forward the arguments of the Fiscal Commission, demonstrates the advantages of the currency union proposition, not just for an independent Scotland but for the rest of the United Kingdom. The core of Sir George's argument and the FTP's that the question refers to is this sentence, in which he says that banks such as RBS and Lloyd's Banking Group have strong Scottish connections, but they can scarcely be described as Scottish banks. That is not what Sir George used to say when he was running RBS along with Fred Goodwin. What is the cabinet secretary's view? Is RBS a Scottish bank or is it not? RBS quite clearly operates across the whole of the United Kingdom and across a whole variety of different markets. It has a significant proportion of its activities, located outwith Scotland, which are taken forward in other markets, and particularly south of the border. RBS is a bank that the Scottish Government is very pleased to have headquartered here in Scotland. It is a bank of strong Scottish routes, and the Scottish Government is determined to make sure that that continues. In the light of Sir George Matheson's comments, why did the Government of the Bank of England today announce that emergency measures are in place to deal with currency instability if Scotland becomes independent? I am glad that Ms Goldie raised that point. I thought that the Government's remarks this morning were the type of considered contribution that we have seen from the Government of the Bank of England constantly in this debate. The crystal-clear position is that, on 19 September, if Scotland has voted yes in the referendum on 18 September, the current arrangements will remain in place and will remain in place for some time thereafter, as the Scottish Government has set out, and that the Bank of England will remain undertaking its functions without interruption, without change, from 19 September onwards, given the transition period that the Scottish Government has set out. The Bank of England Government did not set out emergency measures. The Bank of England Government set out quite clearly that the Bank of England takes into account any contingency across a whole range of different contingencies that it considers, but its crucial point, which I welcome, is the fact that the Bank of England has clarified beyond per adventure that it will continue to function and exercise its existing role in the aftermath of the referendum as the Scottish Government set out would be the case. Question 8, regrettably, has not been lodged, but a satisfactory explanation has been provided. Question 9, Alison McInnes. Thank you, Presiding Officer, to ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its position on the set-up costs of an independent Scotland. Secretary John Swinney. Presiding Officer, Scotland's future explains that a number of factors will influence the size of the one-off investment that Scotland will make in the transition to independence, including the negotiations that will need to take place between the two Governments. Since the publication of Scotland's future, we have, of course, had Professor Dunleavy's report transitioning to a new Scottish state, which completely vindicates the Scottish Government's position and demolishes the figures produced by Her Majesty's Treasury. Alison McInnes. Thank you, Presiding Officer, for that answer. We are told that everything is in the white paper, but in a recent FOI I was told that the Scottish Government has done so much work on the estimates and modelling of the transition costs that it cannot be put into the public domain because of the costs of locating and retrieving and providing the information. Will the minister now make all the information on transition costs available by placing a copy of the estimates and modelling in SPICE? I think that I am not familiar with the response to the freedom of information request to which Alison McInnes refers, but I would say that the Government has set out the information on transition costs and the necessary arrangements that would have to be considered within the document Scotland's future. There has been further discussion of that and the input of Professor Dunleavy, which, as I indicated in my earlier answer, vindicates the approach that has been taken by the Scottish Government. John Mason. The UK Treasury originally quoted Professor Dunleavy as supporting their very high figure for set-up costs, but Professor Dunleavy later accused them of, quote, very crude misinformation and, quote, taking our figure and making it ludicrous. Is the cabinet secretary aware if the UK Government has apologised for or retracted their figures? Not to my knowledge, but I have seen the permanent secretary to the treasury indicate that this material was misbriefed, which is certainly a new term on me in civil service parlaws. To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made in its discussions with the UK Government regarding reinstating coal levies to Scotland. Wrote to the UK Government on 17 September last year and again on 20 November, requesting that royalties collected by the UK coal authority, excuse me, for coal produced in Scotland be made available now to help fund the restoration of legacy opencast sites across Scotland. A holding response was received from Michael Fallon, the UK energy minister on 8 January this year, to say that this request is being actively pursued at that time. I met with Michael Fallon on 5 May and took the opportunity to discuss, amongst other matters, the coal levy issue during that meeting. I received a further letter from Mr Fallon on 29 May this year, which stated that he was continuing to pursue the issue and he would send me a substantive reply in due course. We continue to pursue this line of inquiry with the UK Government. I thank the minister for his response. Does the minister agree that if this money was allocated, it could go some significant way towards funding the necessary reinstatement of former opencast coal sites? A great deal of work is being done to ensure that objective is fulfilled over time. However, the member is absolutely correct that the money, £15 million, paid from the coal industry in Scotland to the Londonix checker, if it were to turn to Scotland, could make an enormous contribution to tackling a problem that is of great concern to many communities throughout the country. Adam Ingram? Can I ask the minister what progress is being made with the restoration of opencast sites, particularly in my area of East Ayrshire, which the minister is well aware has been hardest hit by the failure of coal companies to fulfil their historic obligations in that regard? The member is correct that progress is being made and restoration is actively under way with boots and machines on the ground in Dumfries and Galloway 5, East Ayrshire and South Lanarkshire. An extensive monitoring regime is being applied by East Ayrshire Council and restoration is under way in East Ayrshire at various sites, including Netherton, Greenburn, House of Water and Dunklemore sites. East Ayrshire Council continues to work through the process of calling bonds, and we are working collaboratively with the Scottish Mines Restoration Trust in the preparation of restoration plans for the legacy sites. However, of course, this progress could really be hastened, if we could just get a reply from the UK Government to a request that was made cross-party on the opencast coal task force, where all parties in Scotland felt that this money, £15 million, should be returned to Scotland. If we cannot achieve that cross-party, and if we cannot in this Parliament get a response to the UK Government to a request that was first made last September, I hope that many members, not just myself, will begin to conclude that it really would be better if we had control of all those matters here in Scotland. To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the latest figures from the Scottish Index of Manufactured Exports, which show that there has been strong growth in Scottish manufactured exports over the past year. I welcome the latest figures from the Scottish Index of Manufactured Exports, which show that the volume of manufactured exports sales to overseas markets grew by 3 per cent during the first quarter of this year, with significant growth in food and drink exports and in the refined petroleum, chemical and pharmaceutical products sector. Those figures come at a time when SDI announced that it has supported 2,708 companies in the past year, including that 228 that have the export potential to generate £1,200 million in international trade over the next three years. I thank the minister for his reply. The minister will be aware that, under the last UK Labour Government, Scotland lost 37 per cent of its manufacturing employment, more than 100,000 jobs, and an extra 53 per cent, more than 14,500,000 manufacturing jobs, even before the recession struck. Does the minister agree that rebuilding a manufacturing economy, with a focus on high productivity, leading to higher wages, will improve Scotland's economic growth, deliver prosperity and help to reduce inequality, and that this opportunity can only be fully realised with the full powers of independence? Yes, I do. That may not be an enormous surprise to members, but there is another point to be made that, with independence, we can have a different approach. We can work more closely, for example, with the workforce representatives. I notice that Graham Smith from the STUC is in the chamber listening to this. We can have a better relationship, a closer relationship and a more reasonable relationship, where we are working together as Team Scotland to build and support our manufacturing sector, where we have such outstanding human resource and excellence in so many sectors. To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of future local government finance following the result of the referendum. Not quite, minister, but I will take that promotion. We are currently in discussions with COSLA, representing our local government partners on local government finance settlement for next year. I expect similar discussions to continue after the referendum. The Scottish Government's preference will always be to have a fair, inequitable financial settlement for all councils that are based on local needs and gives the maximum opportunity to deliver strong local services for local people, and we will continue to work closely with COSLA to ensure that this is achieved. The minister may be aware of reports in the financial times of 7 August that the local government association in England is expected to back the scrapping of the Barnett formula. Does the minister share my concern that the only threat to local public services comes from a no vote next month, which could lead to a potential of £4 billion cut to the budget available to this Parliament? I share that concern, and the Scottish Government does share that concern. Certainly a number of advocates of the no campaign keep company with those calling for a reduction in Barnett consequentials to Scotland in an overall review. It is fair to say that there are consequences of voting no, which is a double whammy to Scotland, continued austerity as well as revising the Barnett formula. We can do better than Barnett by having access to our own resources through independence, and it is the case that the real danger to Scotland's public services is from the no campaign, better together and a continued austerity from the success of UK Governments. Question 13 has not been lodged and a satisfactory explanation has been provided. Question 14, Graham Day. To ask the Scottish Government what information it has regarding the recent discoveries of oil and gas in the west of Shetland area. Investment in west of Shetland fields such as Clare and Sheehalian is welcomed by the Scottish Government. With almost half of the yet to find reserves estimated to be in this region, exploration and appraisal drilling is essential for maximising economic recovery. Using the operator of Clare and Sheehalian as an example, the BP operated greater Clare area is thought to hold around 7 billion barrels of oil equivalent in place with production expected to continue to 2050 and beyond. Furthermore, BP's wider North Sea activities highlight the positive outlook across the North Sea as a whole, with the canal field starting over the next few months and the rum expected to restart before the end of the year. BP and its field partners will invest around £10 billion in the period between 2012 and 2017. Thank you, Graham Day. I thank the minister for that answer. Would he agree with me that, on all available evidence, granted a consistent regulatory and fiscal regime of the kind he touched upon and answering Mr MacDonald earlier, the long-term future of Scotland's oil and gas sector is extremely bright? Does he, like me, find it unforgivable that the better together parties are so intent in talking the industry down in order to try and ensure that the revenues flowing from oil and gas continue to align the coffers of Westminster instead of being enjoyed by the people of Scotland as they ought to be? I do, and there is a simple reason why the total revenues, tax revenues from oil and gas have reduced slightly over recent years. That is because there has been record capital investment of £13 billion to £14 billion. Of course, that capital investment is set against the income therefore reducing taxation. Unplanned shutdowns have been another source of difficulties with which the industry is grappling. Everybody outside the Conservative, Labour and Liberal benches know that revenue and production are going to increase substantially in the next few years. The icing on the cake is that we are talking about what is happening in Scotland with the oil off our shores. Last year, Scottish oil and gas companies generated more revenue, £10 billion, from work that they do internationally. Not only do we have an enormous resource here in exploiting our own resources for the next half century, but we are also world leaders in areas such as subsea. That brings enormous opportunities to this country, provided the right policies are pursued. To ask the Scottish Government what the impact on tourism has been for the various events across the country in 2014. The full detail on visitor numbers and expenditure in 2014 will be available in spring next year, but we already know that visitor expenditure is up 4 per cent for the 12-month period to March 2014 when compared with the previous 12-month period. We already know that 890,000 people attended funded events in our homecoming programme between January and May, and that a hugely successful Commonwealth Games saw 1.2 million tickets sold, and we look forward to receiving the independent research on visitor numbers in the Commonwealth Games. Highlight report will be published later this week. Many more events still to come with the Ryder Cup and more than 300 more homecoming events, including Highland Homecoming, the Fourth Bridges Festival, the Royal National MOD and the MTV Europe Music Awards. Briefly, Mr Adam and briefly, Mr Ewing, in response. Thank the minister for his answer. Does he agree with me that the Commonwealth Games has shown the world of Scotland that it is very best? With all the further events that are going to come to Scotland, does he also agree that this can only have a positive impact on our tourist industry? Briefly, Scotland is the place to be and Scotland is the place where people have been. Many thanks. We now move on to the next item of business, which is a