 The next item of business is the debate on delivering economic transformation in Scotland's inward investment and export growth plans. I invite members who wish to participate in the debate to press their request-to-speak buttons now or as soon as possible, and I call on Ivan McKee to open the debate, Minister, for around 11 minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Scotland is an outward-facing nation. We take a place in the world very seriously and work hard to build our links with international partners. That is true very much so in the field of our internationalisation of our economy. The Scottish Government takes that internationalisation very seriously. That is why we published three years ago our export growth plan and two years ago our inward investment plan. Both of those plans are evidence-led and are action-focused. The answer to the hard questions around where the Scottish Government should place its resources to maximise returns. Those plans, Presiding Officer, are delivering results. I will come on to talk about those results in a minute, but that is why we have published updates on the plans at this point in time to make members aware of the actions that we are taking to deliver on the actions and the plans and to make them aware of the results that are being delivered as a consequence. It is very true to say that we have faced more than a fair share of challenges over the last number of years. We have had the challenge of Brexit and the impact that that has had on businesses, on business growth and on businesses' ability to export. We have had the challenges of the Covid pandemic. Currently, we are going through a cost crisis and the energy price crisis as a consequence of events that we are aware of. Despite that, the export growth plan and the inward investment plan have been delivering results. I would like to take the opportunity to thank Team Scotland for the work that they have put in to ensure that the plans have been delivered. First of all, we are looking at non-oil gas exports. We have seen those over recent years growing at twice the rate in Scotland across the rest of the UK. Last year, those exports in Scotland were up 5.7 per cent, while the UK number was down 2.9 per cent compared to the same period two years previously. Instead, Scotland is the only part of the UK that can boast a positive balance of trade and goods, plus £2.2 billion compared to a deficit across the rest of the UK. We are looking at inward investment. The goal standard for the results of inward investment is compared to what was published earlier this year. Scotland is increasing by 14 per cent compared to an increase across the rest of the UK of 2 per cent and across Europe of 5 per cent. It shows that Scotland is cementing its position as the leading part of the UK for attracting inward investment outside London. It shows that 122 projects are attracting into Scotland, creating almost 8,000 jobs. It shows that that benefit is happening all across Scotland, with Edinburgh being the number one city in the UK, Glasgow in fourth place, Aberdeen in joint eighth and Dundee in Livingston also making it into the top 20, so five Scottish locations in the top 20 across the UK. We are also seeing an increase in the percentage of investors that see Scotland as the most attractive part of the UK, an increase from 7 per cent of investors to almost 16 per cent of investors according to the UI results. I congratulate the member's intervention. Daniel Johnson I am very grateful to the minister for giving way. The EMY is a well-known survey, but it largely focused on the number of projects. An alternative survey conducted by CVER, which looks at GVA, shows Scotland behind regions such as the Midlands and the North West. The Scottish Government has done to look at GVA and what can be done to improve our position against those regions of the UK. It is a very good point. If the member has read the report on the original inward investment plan shaping Scotland's economy, he will recognise that we have put considerable analysis on understanding spillover benefits. We are recognised in that case, east of Scotland, east of England being the leading part of the UK with regard to maximising spillover benefits within some considerable analysis on the additional benefit to Scotland's economy, where we emulate its performance as opposed to being average with the rest of the UK. A big focus of the plan is to deliver on those benefits. Work is under way to further analyse that. I appreciate that that is not as easy to analyse as some other data, but we are very conscious of that and very focused on that. Maximising spillover benefits and spreading those benefits across the whole country, but, as the member recognises, the EUI report is very clear about what has been measured, that in terms of projects, Scotland is significantly outperforming most other parts of the rest of the UK. That demonstrates the clarity of having a very focused strategy, an evidence-based strategy and co-ordinating right across Team Scotland to deliver on that consistent message to investors over a number of years is what is delivering those results. Those results, we are saying, officer, did not happen by accident. I want to please Paul Sweeney. I recognise the headline figures that he describes about foreign direct investment. Does the minister also recognise, however, that all foreign direct investment projects are not created equal and that there are developmental projects and dependency projects? Is the Government investigating whether those projects are adding value to the Scottish economy or taking Scottish economic sovereignty out of the country? Yes, of course. I understand that and I will come on and talk about the approach within the investment plan as to how it focuses on maximising values alignment between what we are trying to achieve and what investors are trying to achieve to the benefit of Scotland's economy. The export plan focuses very much on answering four key questions, which markets should be focused on. It was very clear on our top tier 15 and our second tier of 11 international markets to focus on, which sectors should be prioritised. How do we support small, large and medium-sized businesses through a smart segmentation process that has been delivered to great effect? How do we mobilise Team Scotland, the SDI and their specialists in the market, be it our global Scots network or trade envoys or universities that are alumni of the whole of Team Scotland internationally to deliver on that plan? The investment plan was about understanding the global opportunity where the flows of FDI met Scotland's strengths and identified nine sub-sectors for Scotland delivered those strengths. We focused on ensuring that those were the opportunity areas that we went after. That clarity has delivered those results. We had a very clear focus on the regional impact of those results. As I mentioned earlier, we are seeing benefits as a consequence right across Scotland, including in rural areas and elsewhere. Many of the examples in the update that is published today are of businesses that are invested in rural parts of Scotland. We focused on the spill of our benefits, and I have already mentioned the impact of that. Very importantly, values were central to our investment plan. We look for investors that share our values on net zero, on the well-being economy, on delivering living wage jobs as a minimum. Very often, those jobs are very high-paying jobs and businesses that are focused on the transition to net zero are focused on delivering. That aligns very much with our vision for trade. The work that we have done there answers the member's point that we absolutely recognise as different types of foreign investment. That is why we proactively go and work with investors who we know share our values. On that point, and we are almost halfway through his contribution today, and he has not mentioned the very alarming and troubling situation with the GFG alliance at the Lanarkshire Steel Mills and the Labr smelter. Will we be addressing that in his contribution? I think that everybody would like to hear what the Government's response is to that situation. I know that Willie Rennie never misses the opportunity to raise this issue, and I never miss the opportunity to put him right on the situation with GFG, so I will take a few seconds to answer that. First of all, we are at the point about the publication of the documents. I think that it was yourself that raised that point earlier. I would have been happier to have had those documents out earlier, but I am informed that parliamentary procedure is such that, when we are having a debate on something, the documents can only be published shortly before the debate, but I am delighted to take as many opportunities as members want to debate this issue and to share the information with members and to meet them in any forum. I am delighted to discuss that. On GFG, I will make the point very clearly. The smelter is still there. It is increasing the number of people that are employed. The Scottish Government has had no payments that have been missed due to the Scottish Government and the Scottish Government's liabilities. As a consequence of the deal, it is more than covered by the assets that the Scottish Government has a call on. We see that as progress, and I know that the member would rather place it shut six years ago, but that is not the business that we are in. We are in the business of saving jobs as a consequence. One further point that I want to make is that it is very important that we see inward investment as being very much complementary to building indigenous supply chains, building clusters that maximise Scotland's economic impact in our key sectors. We see very much that inward investment being attracted is good for Scottish businesses. It gives them more opportunity, more access to global talent, technology and markets, and it builds those clusters that position Scotland's businesses at the forefront of those global technologies very quickly, because I am running out of time. Jamie Halcro Johnston I thank the minister for taking the intervention. It was actually on the point that Willie Rennie. Do you have any concern over some of the reports in the newspapers in regard to GFG, Lachaba and Dazael? We engage frequently with our advisers on that. We engage frequently with GFG Alliance on that. We understand the challenges that are going through, and we are very focused on making sure that we maximise the value for the Scottish economy as a consequence. I will put the member back to what I said before, as he argued that we should have allowed that factor to close. If that is what he is saying, his constituents would not be very happy about that. We have delivered that for the economy, for the people of Scotland, but I need to carry on, please, to make some points here. I want to talk briefly about businesses that are covered in the reports that we have issued today. There are many examples of businesses that have maximised their export potential as a consequence of working with the Scottish Government and the whole of team Scotland to deliver on the actions and the plan. Likewise, we have had significant confidence in Scotland as a result of what we have displayed in those plans. The communication that we have had and the ministerial engagement that we have had with them in the work that has happened to build strong relationships with those investors. It is worth noting that 70 per cent of investment over the recent period has been repeated investment from investors who are already here and have strong confidence in the Scottish economy. This morning, I visited the Tartan Blanc Company, down in Leithan. Those who have not been there are very well worth a business that is growing from a start-up to turning over £5 million growing at 50 to 60 per cent per year. Most of that business is export, and it is a hugely encouraging success story that we have been delighted to support. I recently visited DSM Dun and Del Rye, who have chosen to invest £100 million in their methane-reductive additive to be the global manufacturing centre for that because of their confidence in the Scottish economy and their ability to deliver what they need to do on the global stage. There is a whole list of things that I could go through in terms of the specific actions that we have taken and what we have delivered on. Those are in the report for members to read. I could also spend considerable time going through the actions that we are still working on that will further strengthen our export and investment performance. Those are also in the reports for members to read. We will continue to deliver on those plans. I will continue to engage with officials on a monthly basis and with our agencies to make sure that we are completely focused on delivering on those plans. What that demonstrates is one final comment, which is the strength of Scotland's economy, what Scotland has got to offer the world in some key technology sectors of the future across those key sectors, across all regions of Scotland, to realise the full potential of Scotland's economy and do better, even better than we have done so far. Scotland needs the full powers of all economic levers and the full powers of independence. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I can advise the chamber that we have no time in hand for it. Your interventions will have to be accommodated in your speaking allowance. I call Liz Smith for seven minutes. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I add my concerns to those that were expressed by Willie Rennie. Minister, we did not really receive these documents in good time. There was something that came out last night, but the two that have been published today came out with very little time for us to consider them, particularly in a debate where there is actually no motion and therefore there is no guidance. Yes, of course. I will be honest with you. I asked that they would be published as soon as possible. I think that they are a great news story and I would love members to have as long as they could have to review that. We were advised that parliamentary protocol was such that, if we were debating something, we could only publish it shortly before the debate started. If that is incorrect, I would be delighted to take that on board and talk to the relevant officials. That is the advice that we had from our parliamentary business according to the parliamentary protocol. Thank you Minister. As a former chief whip who attended Bura, I do not think that that is quite accurate if you do not mind me saying that. However, I do think that there is an issue about a debate happening on important and, let us be honest, there is some good news in this on a debate where we do not have a motion and therefore we do not have any ability to amend anything and that slightly constrains some of the material that we may use. That is because we were still in the post in the morning period and, as a consequence, we were advised that a motion cannot be put forward. Again, if that is incorrect, I am happy to be corrected, but that is the advice that we have had on protocol. I think that there is some substance to debate in this, so we will leave it there. The minister has spelt out this afternoon that, among all the gloom of the current economic forecast, there is at least some good news for Scotland, both in terms of the trends that he has mentioned in inward investment and in exports. That is good news, and we should acknowledge that. Most especially when it comes to the EUI measurements, Scotland is performing well just behind London when it comes to attractiveness for inward investment, outpacing growth in the UK economy and many other nations. It is good to see Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen functioning well. Daniel Johnson made a good point in his intervention. That is about qualitative changes, as well as the quantitative ones. We have to look at what the outcomes are of some of those decisions. It is extremely welcome news that 4,400 inward investment jobs were delivered in 2020-21, and that is on top of the 4,408 new jobs created by foreign direct investment, most especially in things such as engineering and electronics. However, I think that there are some qualitative judgments to be made and perhaps the minister can come back in his summing up on that. The minister has been open prior to this debate, too, about the fact that the Scottish Government's intention is to increase the value of Scottish international exports to 25 per cent of GDP by 2029. Although there is still an awful lot of work to do, there are also some encouraging signs, particularly in things such as chemicals, manufactured goods and financial services. That is helpful. One of the concerns that I have is that, if you look at the latest business polling, two thirds of exporting businesses are relatively optimistic about the trade, but there is another third that is much less confident—in fact, in some cases, he is very pessimistic—given the on-going supply chain disruptions that they are facing as a result of the war in Ukraine and, of course, the tail end of the pandemic. I will come back to that third in a minute, because I think that they have some extremely important pieces of advice for both our Governments. Although the minister is absolutely right to identify the good news, I am not going to counteract that. We have to set that in the context of the wider economic forecast. We have debated this many times already in the past months. The Scottish Fiscal Commission for many months now has been highlighting a lot of the weaknesses in the Scottish economy. Some of those are inherent within the UK economy, too, but I do think that I will come back to that issue of weak productivity within the Scottish economy. It is very serious. When you put that together with the demographic issues that tell us in the next 50 years that the population in Scotland is likely to fall by 16 per cent with an emphasis on the problems of the shrinking working population, that makes for very difficult circumstances for us all. The long and short is that much more needs to be done to ensure that Scotland is a much more attractive place in which to live and work, as well as in which to invest. That is the bigger picture that we need to pay attention to. That is the very strong message that is coming from business and industry. As well as investment incentives, we obviously need tax incentives, a better environment for innovation and skills. If we do not have those in place, the rest of our endeavours to take full advantage of the improving performance around inward investment and exports will fall short. Let me address just a few of the issues before we move on to some of the more detailed comments that I know my colleagues will make. Without any doubt, business is asking us time and time again for an assurance that our two Governments will be working together, not against each other, because they see that when it comes to effective co-operation, whether that is in things like city deals and free ports and some of the infrastructure projects, that co-operation has worked well and it needs to be enhanced, particularly in light of a lot of the cost of living situation. It is also the case that businesses must have as much certainty as possible in these difficult times. That is just one of the reasons why, previously, we have been asking the Scottish Government to match the UK Government's pledge to reduce income tax from 20p to 19p in 2024. Obviously, that has a knock-on effect to the block grant adjustment and all sorts of other issues with regard to the tax take. I think that when I read the detail of the medium-term financial strategy, there was a slightly worrying hint there that there could be an increase in the business rate at some stage. That is something that is causing the business community real concern, because they too are pointing to the productivity trends and demands that we have to do an awful lot more in business to support them through upskilling and reskilling. I think that there is an important difference there. This Parliament has to be on the side of business when it comes to helping them to address the barriers in the private and public sectors that restrict modernisation and which can impact on them when it comes to employment and entrepreneurship. I will make a brief comment to finish off, Deputy Presiding Officer. It is good news that the export side and some of the inward investment is going in the right direction, but can we set it in the context of the bigger economy and ensure that we do everything else within economic policy to enhance the progress that we are making? I think that we have grown used to in recent months hearing about the cost of living emergency and the harsh reality of people's wages simply not stretching to paying their bills, the cost of their shopping and the fundamentals of life. However, the stark truth is that this is not an emergency that has come out of nowhere. Wages have been stagnant for a decade, a fact that the UK Government seeks to ignore. However, the other stark fact is the one that was hinted at by Liz Smith, which is that, as the Scottish Fiscal Commission is clear, Scottish productivity has stalled since 2015—not my words, but theirs—that coupled with the fact that the way the fiscal framework works that was agreed to—and indeed trumpeted at the time by John Swinney—is that when our income tax receipts grow more slowly than the UK average, we have less money to spend. While there is good news today, those are the fundamentals, those are the serious issues that we need to grapple with. I welcome the opportunity to debate those things, but, like others, I lament the fact that we have had no real time to digest the facts that are contained in those papers. It is nothing preventing the Government from sharing them under embargo. Frankly, it is slightly shameful to point to the Queen's death as a reason why they could not be shared. The fundamental issues and trends are those of productivity and wage growth. If you would like to apologise by all means. What I said was that the reason there is no motion is a consequence of the events of recent days. That is not the reason why the documents were not published. I have already explained three times why the documents were not published. I am not clear that that is any better. I welcome the three plans from the Scottish Government, because they do in broad terms deal with those issues and how they can be tackled through exports, through capital and through inward investment. I recognise that they are an attempt to deal with the serious and difficult issues through the need for co-ordinated investment underpinned by infrastructure, clarity about the need for sustained focus on skills and human capital and that those two things are linked with investment and clarity about those things that we want to make and the services that we want to provide and sell to the world. Having that focus is fundamental and important if we are going to be successful. Overall, and I will contain myself to the plans overall because I have had no ability to engage with the results, is that there are shortcomings in those plans. The first thing perhaps most important is that I think that we have failed to learn from the lessons of the past. Those plans are overly reliant on foreign direct investment and there is an awful too familiar pattern of jobs lost through industries such as shipyards, steelworks and factories and various administration trumpeting replacements from overseas employers in new industries. We could all name the electronics firms that came and went and came in the 80s only to go in the 90s and 90s and no one talks about Silicon Glen any more. Mistakes that I think we repeated with wind power generation because no one talks about the Saudi Arabia of wind any more. While Scotland is name-checked in all of those plans, I think that there is little more than the verbiage around domestic supply chain to guarantee that those mistakes are not being repeated. Ultimately, what those plans fail to do is engage with why we make those investments stick, how we create the conditions where when people invest in Scotland they do so because this is the only place that they can make the things that they want to make and do the things that they want to do. Another key issue running through those plans is the lack of analysis depth or clarity around how they are to be implemented. This is, I think, a key criticism of the end set and it's also, I think, echoed in these plans. There is no real analysis of what has worked to arrive at this point and therefore how we build on it, let alone what hasn't worked. I think we've had plenty of interventions from the minister so far and the inward investment plan is much the same. There's no clarity about what the enhanced status for these down-selected industries is. There's clarity about what assistance they will receive. Likewise, we hear much about alignment with higher education but little analysis of what makes our higher education sector successful or how we enhance that. There's talk about clusters but no discussion around planning policy and things like that which hold back investment, which I hear time and time again, from sectors ranging from renewables through to life sciences. Perhaps most concerningly is that the failure of those plans to draw conclusions of their own little analysis that they provide. The inward investment strategy document sets out different productivity levels depending on domestic investments as compared to overseas and indeed our UK investment. Those differences can be as much as 20 to 50 per cent. With that showing any analysis, the Scottish Government seems to assume by virtue of that investment being foreign that it somehow improves productivity. I would suggest that it's the fact that those businesses and enterprises are receiving investment. I think that the very fact that there's a difference between UK investments and those domestic should be a cause of great concern and that it underlines the underlying problem that we have in terms of indigenous domestic investment. I welcome focus on investment, delivering new jobs, but my fear is that we're failing to learn the lessons of the past. If the London Government is trying to reheat and revive trickle-down economics, I think that this Government is laboring under the outmoded idea that the only form of investment that is valuable is that that hubs from overseas. I'm going to talk about the GFG Alliance and the Lanarkshire Steel Mills, and the Harbour Alluminium smelter. The minister is laughing, but this is a very serious situation and he has not addressed at all the substance of the matters that I'm about to cover this afternoon, especially since we didn't receive the documents in advance. I think it's appropriate for the minister to answer questions, despite his desire to shut me up. We know that the Lanarkshire Steel Mills are owned by Liberty Steel, which is part of the Troubled GFG Alliance. It was previously owned by Tata. Auditors, King and King, minister didn't refer to this, quite recently, stating that they were unable to complete audits. I've got new information today. A new freedom of information request confirms ministers, including the First Minister, were told of the risks of the deal when they signed it off. Those are risks that the minister, Ivan McKee, has since avoided telling Parliament about even when we asked him directly. Let me spell this out exactly what it means. Ministers chose to throw their weight behind Liberty Steel, despite the Government's top economic official writing to Nicola Sturgeon warning off very significant political, financial, state aid and legal issues, and carrying significant state aid and financial risk because of Tata's terms. Ministers were specifically warned by their advisors about a lack of due diligence, the risk of the untested state aid position and the risk of not having a business case that sets out the rationale for our intervention. Ministers were warned that the Government could become liable for the environmental costs. Those two calls into question, Ivan McKee later telling Parliament, that it was not our intention to sign up to a contract clause that may not comply with state aid requirements. That's despite being warned by the top economic advisor that that's exactly what they were getting into. Ministers knew fine well that this was a risk and they were warned about it by their advisor. Tata refused to deal directly with Liberty because they didn't know enough about the company or its business plan and they were already in a discussion with another company, Grey Bull. The price of Tata not selling to Grey Bull was for the Scottish Government to take on Tata's past and future liabilities through a back-to-back deal. Members will recall that the Scottish Government has since tried to renaig on the commitment to take on the environmental liability if Liberty Steel were to collapse and the GFG Alliance were unable to step in. Tata had another buyer and the Government warned about the state aid rules and financial risk, yet they charged ahead with a company now on the verge of collapse and the minister doesn't think it's appropriate to fill us in on any of that detail this afternoon. All of this reveals a regardless reckless approach from the ministers, dismissing advice and warnings and a failure to be open and straightforward with this Parliament about the decisions that were taken behind the scenes and it is the workers and the taxpayers that may pay the price. Let me turn to Lachaber Aluminium Company Alvance, also owned by GFG Alliance. In unoddited accounts, Mr Gupta outlines material uncertainties that cast significant doubt on the company's ability to continue as a going concern. This is the top man expressing his real concern about whether the company is going to continue to be a going concern. Yet again, the minister doesn't think that it's appropriate to update the chamber on his but I've just got more to come, believe me, I've got more to come. Members will recall that Mr Gupta acquired the Lachaber plant and it's a company hydropower station in 2016. However, documents filed at company's house reveal that, while the Scottish Government provided guarantees of up to half a billion pounds for the deal, Mr Gupta just put in £5 towards the deal. Now the assets are worth £100 million more. The minister's got time in his summer up, I tell you, I've got an awful lot more to get through. Despite the flashy promises of 2,000 jobs and a new billet plant, nothing has materialised, even though the SNP Government provided no, provided hundreds of millions of pounds of financial guarantees. It's pretty clear now that the minister and the Government were duped by the DFG Alliance. The Scottish Government must set out what will happen to the financial guarantees that it has provided, what will happen to the plant and what will happen to the workers most importantly. I don't have time to remind the chamber of the issues from the failed BiFab issue as well and the loss of millions of pounds for no return. All in all, we have a Scottish Government that is cavalier, ignores advice, uses vast sums of public funds to make political gestures rather than sound economic investment. The industrial intervention strategy is simply not working. It's about time that the Government was open to the situation that it has created. We now move to the open debate. I call first Fiona Hyslop to be followed by Douglas Lumsden for up to six minutes. I will address the debate and it's a pity that the intervention offered by the minister was not taken by Mr Rennie. Scotland has got what it takes to be a success for country in key areas of dynamic international growth, renewable energy, digital and life sciences in particular, and we have regularly operated a trade surplus in the past, unlike the rest of the UK. We are an international partner of choice as the minister has set out. A strong inward investment and exporting base is important for a number of reasons. Exporting companies tend to be more innovative, productive and competitive, but trading strength is but one of a number of firm bases needed for economic transformation. As the economy committee pointed out in our supply chain report, we need strong indigenous companies with secure supply chains to thrive despite the economic shocks of pandemics, EU exit and war in Ukraine. In particular, inward investment as a result of the takeover of previously owned Scottish companies is a double-edged sword, as it can in some cases diminish our Scottish-owned entrepreneurial company base. New inward investment has benefits and brings more and more high-value jobs. Mr Johnson means growing Scottish income tax levels, and we have export strengths, too. In my area of West Lothian, we can count on some of the most successful examples of inward investment and export businesses. Mitsubishi Electronics, with its £15 million investment announcement, Shinnetsu, in life sciences Q2 solutions, European lab services operate from Livingston, and exporters Calnex Solutions in the Lithgow, whom I visited a few weeks ago, whose test instrumentation for network synchronisation has secured orders from over 600 customer sites in 68 countries across the world. Scotland's Educated Workforce superb world-leading research university is great natural energy and other capital of all areas with specific Scottish Government responsibilities for leadership. While the Government can create the conditions to foster and promote success, it is the businesses that choose to invest here that will deliver economic growth from exports. However, the Scottish Government does not currently hold key levers to face down the fiscal challenges and build resilience in the economy to support trading businesses. It is the UK Government that benefits from co-operation tax and vat income, but it is also responsible for the plumeting of the pound for rising inflation and for the collapse in the number of companies that are wanting to export. The UK economy has seen decades of relative decline to compare to companies, and the current state of the economy is extremely serious with a historic low value of the UK pound, Liz Smith. To Mrs Loughford for taking intervention, I agree with what she set out primarily about some of the strengths within what Scotland can achieve. Does she accept, however, that one of the great concerns for business is the fact that, if Scotland moved towards an independent state, and 60 per cent of our trade is with the UK, we would end up with a hard border between Scotland and the UK. How does that help? If you look at some of the issues on the exports to the UK, it is in services, and it is particularly in value in terms of electricity. If we are talking about energy security, which I am about to come on to, there is obviously a benefit in terms of that export of our energy and electricity in terms of those issues. Those will be issues that I have no doubt the minister will explain will be coming out in paper form from the Scottish Government in terms of setting out the current case for Scottish independence. However, we have a relative decline in the UK, but that does not mean that the Scottish Government does not have responsibilities either. The Scottish Government needs to drive forward integrated policy, and renewable energy must meet the heart of the Scottish Government's economic policies. We will be and already are a magnet for international companies, but we are in danger of leaching the rewards and benefits overseas to international shareholders instead of benefiting in terms of jobs or cheaper energy, and that is likely to get worse under a list trust-led UK Government. The Scottish Government and the Scottish approach should look at a basis of energy security for the future. We are and can be world leading as we build a just transition from oil and gas using skills for carbon capture, utilisation of storage and deliver renewable energy. We have the energy, but we do not have the Government's powers. An independent Scotland could provide energy security for individuals, energy security nationally and energy security internationally to tackle climate change and help partners to withstand hostile aggression, but we must execute that with pace and opportunity. Plans for green hydrogen exports, particularly with Germany, must be grasped and pursued with a vigor. The rapid escalation of demand we are not currently meeting in terms of development or manufacture. Instead, we have been resting on hydrogen research while other countries surge ahead. Scotland has so much potential, but its prospects are dictated by a UK decline. Indeed, OECD has just the summer forecast that the UK will deliver 0 per cent economic growth next year, the lowest of every G20 member bar Russia. The true measure of wealth is of the state of its populace. It is a sign of relative decline that 63 per cent of Ireland's poorest people have better living standards than the poorest people in the UK. Other countries have also experienced Covid disruption, the impact of Russia's war in Ukraine, but none instigated its own self-inflicted economic damage of Brexit and leaving the EU. A third of companies' reduction in exporting is beyond alarming. In conclusion, Scotland means business, the UK is stunting our growth potential, and if we want economic transformation and growth, then Scotland needs to be complete in its Government powers for growth to generate that entrepreneurial attitude and use the energy of its peoples, talents and resources. Most importantly, use the wealth of Scotland to be rewarded, rooted and returned to the people of Scotland for the benefit of the people of Scotland. I welcome the unusual focus on issues that matter to this country, but I also have to highlight the fact that the current targets laid out by this Government remain like many others unmet. In 2019, the SNP Government published their targets for exports and they have fallen short, missing their targets by between around 10 per cent and 16 per cent. The promised 50 per cent increase in value of international exports has been consistently missed. It is also important to note that there is no time-on for interventions, and it is also important to note just where our exports are going. The rest of the UK accounted for £52 billion worth of Scotland's exports, three times larger than the EU. The rest of the UK is our largest export partner between 2002 and 2019. 62 per cent of Scottish exports went to the rest of the UK, with 17 per cent to the EU and 20 per cent to the rest of the world. Half a million Scottish jobs are supported by trade with the rest of the UK. That is one in four, according to the Fraser of Allander Institute. Yet, this SNP-green devolved Government wants to put barriers in place between Scotland and the rest of the UK. A hard border with our largest trading partner is quite simply a disgrace. In contrast, the UK Government is working hard to secure investment throughout the UK. In 2020, it established an office for investment to further attract foreign investment into the whole of the UK, with other initiatives such as the high potential opportunities programme and free ports to assist with the movements of goods. The UK Government has launched a new trade hub in Edinburgh to attract inward investment, and through the hub, businesses are able to utilise the UK Government global networks, expertise and influence to grow trade overseas. When this policy was launched, the minister said that domestic business can learn new ways of operating. Managed well, that brings opportunities across Scottish supply chains and ensures our skills system and management match global standards. I think that the key phrase in all of this is managed well. Will this be as well managed as the ferry contract or the rangers debacle, or what about the NHS waiting times of the crisis and local government funding? The SNP-green coalition of chaos has no credibility or track record when it comes to managing things well. I feel fear for the future of this policy, given so many of our core businesses and services that rely on investment and exports for the future. I will not take any interventions. We have got these documents about an hour before we came in here, so I am not taking any intervention. No, you have already answered that, and it was not very good. I was listening, but it was a load of rubbish. When it comes to inward investment, what businesses look for is certainty and security, and the constant threat of another divisive independence referendum is driving investment away. At this time, supporting our recovery from the pandemic and helping businesses through the global cost of living crisis should be our main priority, not stoking division and dissent and creating borders where none should be. A border between Scotland and England would end the free movement of goods within Great Britain and see a trade border imposed between England and Scotland, our main trading partner. Independence is never going to happen, but the constant threat of it is harming us and driving investment away. When I was reading the investment plan last night, I did think that I had missed a chapter. The oil and gas industry has been a key part of our economy and inward investment, but this devolved Government seems to want to airbrush it out of our economy. It is clear to see when you look at the table in the plan that shows wages in the north-east at the top when it comes to foreign-owned firms, that is down to the energy industry. However, this Government seems intent on driving this investment away just to appease its green partners. While we still have a need for hydrocarbons, we should be supporting the industry in this country, not relying on imports from other countries. That is better for our jobs and better for our economy as a whole. As part of the finance committee, we are constantly hearing that we are underperforming compared to the rest of the UK. A big part of that is because of what is happening in the north-east of Scotland, but it is very clear that this Government has turned its back on the industry and the north-east. We have heard a lot from this Government on energy transition, which greatly affects the north-east. We have had many debates about a just transition in this chamber. Given our global energy crisis, I welcome the UK Government's pragmatic approach to developing domestic supplies of the fuel that we need while moving away from fossil fuels and towards sustainable energy. I know that the energy companies in the north-east welcome that approach and see an energy transition as the way forward. The SNP-green Government would send it off a cliff edge, making us more reliant on foreign oil and gas and less able to be self-sufficient. Its policy would be detrimental for the economy of the north-east. It will not increase investment, it will decimate it. In closing, I would once again ask that this SNP-green Government, if they are serious about investment in Scotland and growing our exports, then do not pursue this obsession about splitting up the UK and creating uncertainty. Instead, support and work with the UK Government and understand that that trading might that we have as a united kingdom is far more than we can ever achieve if splitting from our largest partner. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Scottish Government decided that it would work to rebuild our economy in a way that is ethical, bold and aimed at sustainable growth, publishing its inward investment plan in October 2020, followed by a global capital investment plan in March 2020. Together with the pre-pandemic export growth plan, those strategies give Scotland a three-pronged approach to achieving sustainable export growth. In addition, the Scottish National Investment Bank and International Trade Invoys and Offices helps Scottish businesses in their efforts to secure investment and exports. According to Scottish Development International, 7,780 plan real living ways jobs are created by inward investment projects in 2021-22, with 39 investors choosing Scotland for the very first time. Scotland grew eight times faster than the UK in attracting foreign direct investment projects, while the UK is a whole of the lowest rate of business investment among the 37 countries of the organisation for economic cooperation development, Bargrease. The 2022 EY attractiveness survey shows that Scotland's perceived appeal to investors now sits at a record high, with 15.8 per cent rating Scotland as the UK's most attractive location, up from 15 per cent last year, and more than doubling its 7 per cent in 2019. While 90 per cent of the inward investment projects are in the nine areas of opportunity identified in the Scottish Government's inward investment plan, which accurately assesses Scotland's needs and strengths, as well as our ability to attract the right investment, and my constituency of Cunningham North is delighted at recent investments made. At COP26, which the minister referred to, Dutch Headquartered Global Health and Nutrition Company, Royal DSM, announced that its ground-breaking feed additive, BOVAR, which drastically reduces cattle produced methane, a molecule with more than 80 times the warming impact of carbon dioxide, will be globally manufactured at the firm's site in Del Rye and be fully operational by 2025. Del Rye was chosen over dozens of other sites globally, showing the confidence DSM has in Scotland and its Ayrshire workforce. £100 million of private investment is supported by £12 million of Scottish Government support through Scottish Enterprise, which will sustain or create at least 350 high-quality, well-paid jobs, including dozens of new apprentices who were delighted when the minister visited just last month. Times like Fond Direct Investment, inward investment next-world export growth sound abstract and make us think of markets running people. However, when I visited DSM during Scottish Apprentice week and spoke to young employees, I reminded how much new investment means to real people, and how, for many, it provides them with an opportunity to enjoy a potentially well-paid, highly skilled and secure career. DSM emptied 190 apprentices by 2024, some of whom will work on BOVAR. The ground-breaking project has been a long-time strategic investment of Royal DSM into improving sustainability, and having BOVAR producing Scotland allows us to make a huge contribution to the reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions from milk and beef production and, indeed, sheep, as in teric methane, is dramatically and consistently reduced. I have asked the Scottish Government how it intends to incentivise use of this new sustainable feed additive by Scottish farmers. Once the UK joins other countries from the Benelux to Brazil in providing regulatory approval for BOVAR, I would expect that Scottish ministers will be keen to assist their farmers in providing this low-cost additive, which is probably the most cost-effective way of reducing the impact of our emissions. Such support will surely encourage many others to buy BOVAR, impacting even more widely to limit climate change globally. Another welcome news for people keen to work in Cunningham North and impending new project Anderson is expected to provide 900 jobs directly by 2024, with thousands more generated in the wider supply chain across Ayrshire and beyond. This new facility will manufacture cables for what will be the world's longest sub-sea infrastructure for the Morocco to UK solar power project. It almost did not happen. Back in May, the project director of Essex-based company XLCC contacted me to say that, as North Ayrshire Council's planning committee was not going to consider their planning application until August, the project could go to T-side, where it would be considered first. I immediately contacted North Ayrshire Council's SNP leader Marie Burns and chief executive Craig Hatton, and that very same day, they agreed to bring planning consideration forward by eight weeks. Planning consent was granted, and this episode shows how crucial the timing of such decisions can be. As anticipated, some employees of Hunters and Beers, which was closed in January, will transfer their skills, and this is inward investment, aiding the just transition. We are making great progress in exports too. Three weeks ago, I visited Dunbaill in Meets and Soulcoats, which exports 16 per cent of its product. That state-of-the-art cattle processing facility employs 325 people on-site, and once there are 1,000 Scottish farmers, all no-fuller than four hours away from Soulcoats, the cattle being born and reared in Scotland to the highest standards. The boning hall, which represents a £12 million investment in more efficient processing, was built with the assistance of a food processing and marketing co-operation grant of £2.5 million from the Scottish Government. Another successful company, and indigenous to North Ayrshire, is the highly innovative steel fabricator, Giant D Pierce, founded by Jim Pierce in 1975, which now employs 425 people. The largest steel fabricator in the northern half of the UK. It is crucial that we create and sustain jobs of all-skill levels across North Ayrshire and beyond, and I am optimistic about the prospects that this offers my constituents and others in the west of Scotland. I am keen to see more companies invest in my constituency where we have plenty to offer and need to create and sustain greater levels of employment. On a national level, many will have been heartened at Scottish Development International will lead Scotland's presence at the five-day Hanover mess integrated energy expo in April next year, one of the largest events of its type in Europe, attracting over 1,800 exhibitors. With the 2019 expo leading to £27 million of export scales from Scottish exhibitors, next year's promise is again to be a valuable opportunity, sadly one that the UK Government is not going to participate in. The Scottish Government also published a special export plan for tech companies that supports the specific needs and needs of Scotland's valuable technology sector, which provides 83,610 jobs with a £21.6 billion turnover. It is important that we use the limited powers that we have to help to nurture and grow our businesses and markets, and the Scottish Government continues to do just that, looking forward and outward, and will do even more with independence. Thank you. I now call Richard Leonard to be followed by Jackie Dunbar. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and let me begin with a few facts. We export 50% more to the rest of the UK than we do to the whole of the rest of the world put together. Fact, we export three times as much to the rest of the UK as we do to the whole of the European Union combined. Fact, exports, which are shipped via a port in England to France, are classified as Scottish exports to France. Fact, these are all published in the Scottish Government's own Export Statistics Scotland. Fact, so to the nationalists who want us to break away, to set up a separate currency, to withdraw all of our democratic representative votes and voices over the political and economic direction of our biggest export market, I say, you are presenting a prospectus not for gaining control but for giving it away. Here is another fact. We have a state investment bank that has made its biggest investment £50 million over five years, not in our manufacturing base, not with a Scottish exporter of high value services, but with the Gresham House Forestry Fund, who admit that only 60% of that investment from the Scottish National Investment Bank will be directed to Scotland. This is an asset management company whose primary business objective is not to plant trees, it's not to save the planet, it is to aid the super rich to avoid paying tax, go and look at their website, they offer favourable income tax treatment exemptions on capital gains tax and 100% relief on all inheritance tax. So when the minister tells us that, and let me quote him, Scottish Government backed investment funds are designed to fill key gaps in the continuum of growth capital to enable Scottish companies to scale up, he must know that that is not what is going on out there in the real world. And here are some more economic facts. One worker out of every three in Scotland is now employed in a company which is owned and controlled outside Scotland. More than half of the turnover in the Scottish economy is owned and controlled outside Scotland, more than two thirds of business research and development over three quarters of Scottish exports are from businesses owned and controlled outside Scotland. The minister I know is relaxed about this, but I put it to him that this overreliance on mobile extractive capital means that the Scottish economy is in effect entirely dependent on decisions made by a small number of financiers, speculators, landlords, capitalists in faraway boardrooms. Long-term strategic decisions on investment, on production, on jobs, on supply chain procurement, even on marketing and sales are not made here but they are made externally. And this has all too often meant lagging productivity, poor quality, non-union jobs, downsizing and ultimately a heightened vulnerability to closure. And all the time, all the time while this is going on and the Scottish government continues to quote ad nauseam, the E&Y attractiveness survey local indigenous business development is stuck at dangerously low levels. Compassion, solidarity, a sense of common good, values so evident during the lockdown were so scarce in our economy pre-COVID-19 that many of us, many of us vowed that we must never go back. But when I listen to the debate today, it sounds like we have. So I say to ministers, you cannot base your economic policy on being and I quote a magnet for inward investment and in the next breath say you want a country where economic power and opportunity are distributed fairly. You can't have both. This is not a policy for taking back control. It's a policy for giving it away. This is not a policy for selling Scotland as it says in this document. It's a policy for selling Scotland off. What we need and what we have long needed is an industrial strategy investment led jobs first people centered manufacturing driven based on democratic economic planning, which is environmental sustainable cooperative built from the bottom up. We do need a redistribution of power, but towards working people. And that is not about putting a few token people on a few token boards. It's about the producers controlling more of the organization of the production process. It's about the wealth creators controlling more of the distribution of the wealth that they create. We do need transformation, a transformation of the social and economic forces, which breed poverty, inequality, class division, not merely managing the economy, but fundamentally changing the economy. That's what we need to do. And the sooner we start, the sooner we will deliver the very real economic and environmental social transformation which the people of this country are crying out for. Thank you. I now call Jackie Dunbar to be followed by Maggie Chapman. I welcome the opportunity to speak in this vital, important debate on Scotland's inward investment and export growth plans. Scotland is leading the UK when it comes to securing foreign direct investment in spite of the significant challenges posed by Brexit and the pandemic. Scotland is an attractive country for investors due to our highly skilled workforce, strong business networks, which are supported by regional economic advisory bodies. Our goods exports, excluding our oil and gas, increased by 5.7 per cent from March 2020 to March 2022, while UK goods exports decreased by 2.9 per cent in the same period. Indeed, Scotland attracted 119 inward investment projects in the year to the end of March 2022, a 29 per cent rise from the previous 12 months, creating 4,408 new highly skilled jobs for people here in Scotland. That shows that the approach that our Scottish Government has taken to attract investment is working. People and businesses are prepared to invest in here, due to our progressive internationalist outlook compared to the insular ideologically driven UK Government. Scotland has been the most successful nation in the UK outside of London for nine of the last 11 years and for the seventh year running in attracting foreign direct investment. That is testament to our highly qualified workforce and its exceptional skill base. Indeed, along with Edinburgh and Glasgow, my home city Aberdeen remains in the top 10 locations outside of London for attracting inward investment projects. Our four leading sectors are digital technology, utility supply, business and professional services and machinery and equipment. Digital projects in Scotland increased by an impressive 73.4 per cent in contrast to a 7 per cent decline in Europe and only a 7 per cent growth in the UK overall. Scotland is now firmly established as the UK's number two location for digital projects behind London. That is welcome and Scotland will continue to do all it can within the bounds of the devolution settlement to have a progressive approach to attracting inward investment, showing Scotland's success as we build on our record as a world leader. It would be remiss of me to discuss the success of Scotland's approach to inward investment without acknowledging the challenges that we face caused by the UK Government. We know Brexit as forecast to cause more harm to the economy than Covid. The Office for Budget Responsibility has forecast that the impact of Brexit on UK productivity will be worse in the long run than Covid-19, with Brexit reducing the UK's potential productivity by 4 per cent, and that amounts to around £40 billion a year, whereas the pandemic is expected to reduce it by 2 per cent. Indeed, recent trade statistics underline the negative impact of Scotland's forced exit from the EU. Scotland's total trade with the EU was 16 per cent lower in 2021 compared to 2019. Trade with non-EU countries fell by just 4 per cent over the same period. Now, a London School of Economic Studies shows that Brexit-related trade barriers have so far driven a 6 per cent increase in UK food prices, adding to the Tory-made cost of living crisis for households not only in Aberdeen-Donside, but right across Scotland. If it was not for the Tories and Brexit, Scotland's exports would be soaring, but do not just take my word for it. We know that exports of goods to the EU from Scotland were 19 per cent lower in 2021 compared to 2018, and that non-EU exports of goods were only 4 per cent lower. The difference is Brexit. Trade figures continue to highlight the negative impact of Brexit on our economy and strengthen the case for Scotland to be an independent country. We will do so much better when we control our own affairs. There is one potential opportunity that could really boost the economy of the north-east, and it would be remiss of me not to mention it. A major regional alliance made up of Aberdeen International Airport, Port of Aberdeen, Peterhead Port Authority and Aberdeen City and Shire councils announced its formal bid for green-free port status for the north-east. The bid, if successful, will boost gross value-added income by £7.5 billion over the next decade, and it will usher in a new era of investment, innovation, regional regeneration and opportunities for those who need the most across north-east Scotland. 30,000 highly skilled, highly paid jobs are estimated to come to the region, and I want to help to make this happen. Although the minister cannot comment on any particular bid, as the Scottish and UK Governments are still to determine the successful projects, I seek assurances from the minister that the north-east bid will receive full consideration. Not only could it bring an economic boost to the north-east, but it could also help the region to reach our net zero ambitions. In conclusion, I again welcome this debate, welcome the progress that is being made to attract inward investment here in Scotland, and again reiterate my asks for a potential green-free port for north-east Scotland. This debate comes at a time when the importance of energy and the global economy cannot be overstated. For some time, there has been an ambition, shared by many here, to make Scotland a world leader in clean energy. The opportunity is well understood. We have massive capacity for wind, significant potential for new technologies like Wave and Tidal, and we have, despite the failure of the UK Government to support onshore wind, installed huge capacity for generation. As the need to replace Russian gas takes on geostrategic importance and the need to replace all other fossil fuels grows increasingly urgent, it is vital that we develop the capacity we have. But we have a problem. The jobs expected to come with the renewables revolution simply have not yet materialised in the Scottish economy. Partly this is because we are shackled to a UK economy that has little interest in generating these skills and jobs in our economy. Everything we do is in the context of a UK Government that aims to undermine the Scottish economy at every turn, be that through seeking a hard Brexit or failing to support renewables infrastructure investment and what a previous UK Prime Minister called green crap. No. But it is also because we have not yet grasped the significance of the new global economy, a global economy in which we cannot rely on the very efficient supply chains that have up until now located manufacturing in the global south. We have seen with Covid shutdowns in China, the closure of the Suez Canal and the Russian invasion of Ukraine that these supply chains are something that we cannot, that we should not have to rely on. Instead, we must identify onshore supply chains, which might be less efficient in some ways, but certainly will be more reliable. We will move from just in time to just in case. We will get the jobs and the skills. Our economy will benefit from providing the clean green energy that can decarbonise the electricity supply. What is to be done? The severe shortages in ships used for electric vehicles, for computer processes and so many other technology uses point to the need to invest in manufacturing. By bringing investment and skills to Scotland, we can create new indigenous innovation networks. We know that Scotland has already been successful in attracting foreign direct investment over the past year, despite significant economic headwinds. However, this influx has largely been into our three big cities. What about other parts of our country? Indeed, the UK's attempt to replace EU structural funds follows the same pattern, boosting performance where it already exists. If Maggie Chapman goes and has a look at the analysis that was done in the Inward Investment report, she will see that the spread of inward investment is right across the country. If you look at it on a proportionate basis, many of the regions outside of the last cities are leading that table. It is a real balance. I thank the minister for that intervention. That is hardening to hear, but it remains the case that so much investment that we see follows the pattern of boosting performance where it already exists, resulting in more unevenness than we would like to see in our economy. We know that economic clusters can be more innovative with thicker job markets and can retain industries in a way that locating sole plants in isolation does not achieve. We need to work to ensure that we support the development of clusters that serve all of Scotland. We know that the top four sectors that have benefited from inward investment are digital technology, utility supply, business services and machinery and equipment. Manufacturing has seen significant investments, so we must ensure just transition and circular economy supply chains benefit from this trend, building our expertise in areas like advanced manufacturing and data to create a manufacturing economy. This will build a virtuous circle of investment, innovation, export opportunities and well-paid good secure jobs. Of course, boosting the attractiveness of direct investment in wellbeing and local agri food, we will help to tackle the geographic unevenness that we see in investment to date. Food poverty is a major issue on the horizon, so there is a strategic opportunity here for all of Scotland, but particularly for many of our rural areas, such as those in Aberdeenshire and Angus in my region, to create a more food secure future for us all. On skills, our very high level of tertiary education is a strength and things like skills passports will increase the availability and skills for local workforces, which investors look at when deciding where to go. The precarity of work offered by the fossil fuel industry can be counterbalanced by enhancing the mobility with a strategic emphasis on the areas where skills are lacking, for example in heats, in buildings, renewables, transport and storage. All of this fits with the mission-based approach that we have advocated and which has, to some extent, been adopted by the Scottish National Investment Bank. This is something that should be a mission across Government. Others in this debate this afternoon have already highlighted just how important it is to have joined up thinking across not only Government departments but across all different levels of Government. On our trading relationships, there is much I want to say about how we must use these to secure the highest possible standards, workers' rights, environmental standards and more welfare standards and so on, not just for the benefit of consumers and communities in Scotland but as part of our desire for Scotland to be a good global citizen. However, to conclude, we must ensure that our inward investment and trading plans really do focus our investment and trading activities on supporting the kind of economy we want, wellbeing and sustainability on our integral, not accidental, for prosperity. I now call Rachel Hamilton to be followed by Michelle Thomson. I thank the Minister for the Progress Report received at 1347, which is hardly time to have digested this to have been prepared for today's debate. However, I do welcome the debate today and I think everybody in the chamber would agree with me that creating jobs and exporting Scottish goods across the world is a positive goal for any Government to have. We may disagree on how to go about it, but I am pleased to be able to speak in today's debate, which focuses on the goals that we all share. Scotland has around 11,000 export businesses that are successful across the world, and my constituency in the borders plays host to many of those businesses from our world-famous weavers based in Huykin Selkirk, supplying textiles to fashion houses in Milan and New York to fantastic cattle farmers in the borders, supplying beef and dairy to supermarkets just over the border in Barrick upon Tweed. Engaging with these businesses regularly is one of my duties as an MSP. It paints a clearer picture of where businesses have concerns and how things like inflation impact on their plans for the future. The Scottish Government's plans for the trading nation, I believe, do not entirely focus on the whole of Scotland. It is yet another example, I believe, of a central belt focus Government leaving rural areas behind and not focusing specifically on the issues and challenges that we face in places like the borders. In his closing, I would like the Minister to address the specific points that I will make during my contribution. We know that rural areas are depopulating. Scotland's population is aging. There are a higher number of retirees in the borders, for example, who are driving economic inactivity. Skilled workers are just not being replaced. Wages in the borders are £3,000 below the Scottish medium, and 9% of workers are earning below the living wage, with gender pay gap being four times greater than the Scottish average. There is a sense of deep frustration in areas such as my constituency and other rural areas of my colleagues across Scotland, that despite the enormous contribution that Scotland's rural economy makes to our country, it is simply being ignored. In many cases, it seems that rural businesses are not only being ignored, but the Scottish Government is unable to just grasp the nettle to deal with depopulation and to boost the housing stocks, which are key drivers for businesses to attract investment and growth. We know that the food and drinks sector accounts for around £10 billion of Scotland's overall exports. The industry employs more than 100,000 people, yet it is hamstrung by the inability to be able to drive innovation under this Government's policy, an anti-scientific political rhetoric from this Government and the Greens. Whilst farmers in England will look forward to forging ahead with the use of gene editing technology to increase their yields, to protect crops, to increase biodiversity, to help them with the threat of disease and drought, Scottish farmers will be left behind due to the intransigent position of aligning with the Europe and the hated cap regime. The Scottish Government have brought a debate on export growth plans to this chamber at a time when Putin's invasion of Ukraine in a second is harming global food security, but their intransigence fails to see the absurdity in the position that they are taking on gene editing. Research and development, as I have said, is absolutely key to scaling up businesses and driving in wood investment and exports. The expenditure in the borders per head on R&D is just £60 per head compared to £258 per head in the rest of Scotland. Across Scotland, every business needs the tools, all the tools in the books that they can get their hands on to take advantage of innovation in order to drive the investment. The point is just made about the Scottish Government aligning with the EU. Given the fact that the UK Government is clearly telling us that there is not going to be an American trade deal, would it not matter for the UK Government to align with the EU as well? I think that you are missing the entire point here. The Scottish Government in itself is missing its own biodiversity targets, its own environmental targets. This is one way of not only driving innovation and investment, but of helping farmers to address the challenges that they are facing head on and the environmental targets that they have to meet right now. My colleagues have discussed the impact of uncertainty on Scottish businesses. As we have already heard, the latest available data shows that the value of Scotland's exports to the rest of the UK is £42 billion. One of the most common concerns that I hear from businesses in my constituency is the fear of constitutional grievance on top of all the other concerns that they have, such as rising energy costs. For businesses close to the border where cross-border trade is absolutely fundamental to their future, they must have the confidence that they can invest and grow without this constitutional upheaval. While some of the report today is welcome and good news, we need to look at the bigger picture as my colleague Liz Smith highlighted. The Scottish Borders is falling behind in productivity, reducing opportunities for shared prosperity. GVA per job in the south of Scotland was 70 per cent of the national figure in 2019. The borderlands inclusive growth deal, a shared investment between the Scottish and UK Government, has put shared prosperity at its heart. When both Governments work together, it creates jobs, allows opportunity for local people and allows them to take part in a better quality of life and wellbeing. In the Borders, people are less likely to attain higher levels of skills. Daniel Johnson talked about skills. Seven per cent fewer people in the Borders are holding a degree level qualification versus a Scottish average. To drive investment, I want to emphasise that point that we want to see skilled people living and working in rural areas and stemming that widening employer and workforce skills gap. I want to say that the Government must place rural regions at the heart of their economic plans. We need to look at the catalogue of the broken promises on skills shortages attracting investment and addressing productivity issues in rural areas, but, finally, they have to drop their reckless ambition to break up the United Kingdom. The William of Aberdeen vessel sailed across the Atlantic in 1596 in the first recorded Atlantic trade ship from Scotland to what is now known as Newfoundland. Long before that, Scotland already had trading links with our much closer neighbours in Europe. Our trading history has fundamentally shaped who we are. In the 18th century, Adam Smith would walk along the bank of the river forth and gaze at the great trading ships of the day, taking goods and people to other lands. That inspired Smith, too, to consider the positive benefits of international trade. Some Tories today have not appeared to notice that the shock of a Tory Brexit and decimation of exports to mainland Europe. HMRC data confirms the number of businesses exporting goods to the EU following 33 per cent in 2021 compared to 2020. Of course, to make matters worse, Liz Truss has confirmed that it will take years to negotiate a trade deal with the USA and we have the paltry trade deal with a strail that directly harms our farmers. Perhaps the trailing from the UK Government of removing the cap on banker bonuses tells its own story about where their priorities lie. I therefore want to thank the minister for his good work thus far, and I note that Scotland is the only part of the UK with a positive trade balance in goods with the rest of the world. I look forward to reading the progress reports released today, although I would add my voice to the lateness of their arrival, which I regret. In this speech, I am going to focus on international trade in the present day, and also on the Scottish diaspora. Some of the early diaspora that Smith watched leave their homeland and find new opportunities, particularly in America's resonates with me. A few years ago, I undertook research into Scotland's business diaspora. We collected views from more than 1,000 business leaders in 74 countries, and it presented a clear picture of Scotland and also what could be done to support international trade. Amongst many findings, Scotland was seen as friendly, resilient and entrepreneurial. However, there was also a significant minority view that pointed to a cautious, risk averse and inward-looking community. Scottish business people were largely viewed positively, too, with key characteristics, such as ethical, hard-working and well-educated, while some critics thought that we were too inward-looking. Put simply, in terms of the Scottish brand, the quality of our people was prominent in comments, and I was pleased to see the mention active consideration and modern development of our brand called for years ago by Murray Pittock. In this regard, our universities and colleges have had a pivotal role in developing our people and in the enablement of an outward-focused entrepreneurial export sector. What recent discussions he has had to ensure that the university and college sector continue to contribute to our export-focused and entrepreneurial-focused cultures, which are more than just the passing over of skills, of course. Returning to the research, I mentioned that there is also a strong perception that the Scottish diaspora is insufficiently mobilised, while many stated a willingness to help if asked. I therefore recognise the mobilisation of the diaspora highlighted in the progress report and the increase in the number of global Scots alongside the digital system that has been put in place. However, development capacity in all its forms takes time, and I wonder if the minister is summing up, could give further flavour to his capacity building plans either directly through the Scottish Government or via their partner agencies. I regret that Scotland's lost some of its capacity for direct exporting today. Too many of our goods are having to pass through England before moving on to export markets. I know that it cannot be sorted overnight, but perhaps future iterations of the trading nation or some other document will consider wider infrastructure rather than just supply chain requirements to build and embed resilience and enable international trade, although I recognise the constraints on capital expenditure, particularly just now. I have had meetings with Marco Forgione, the director general of the Institute for Export and International Trade. His thoughts regarding developing a full mentoring service, including technical support from trade specialists, tapping into our business diaspora, creating specialist advice lines so that business can access timely advice and support, and much of that I am delighted to see is already included in the progress report, so it saves me suggesting him to the minister, although it might be worthwhile a minister meeting him too if he hasn't done so already. I therefore commend in particularly the outstanding work of Ivan McKee's, he made tremendous efforts to get a focus on international trade and championing the Scotland a Trading Nation report, all the activity that goes along with it and its subsequent progress report. I am delighted to see that, under his direction, Scotland continues to be an outward looking trading nation. We will now move to winding up speeches. I call on Paul Sweeney on behalf of Scottish Labour to wind up the debate. Six minutes, please, Mr Sweeney. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. It has been an interesting debate despite the difficulty and fully digesting quite substantial documents within such a short period of time, which was unfortunate. However, I think that we have been able to glean some useful characteristics across the chamber. I think that there has been a shared sentiment from members speaking today that we want Scotland to fulfil its full economic potential. We want our people to be prosperous and we want to build prosperity in our country, but there was a bit of a disconnect between the rather bombastic claims made by the minister in his open remarks and the preceding statement and questions from the Deputy First Minister, where we were faced with severe economic headwinds that threaten the prosperity of our country. There are difficulties and structural problems in the Scottish economy cannot help, but be factored into this. I do not feel that this report is in any way going to help us fundamentally shift that. There are some interesting points made, but the fundamental issue is that it is passive in the nature of the challenges we face. It is too passive in the nature of the challenges that we face. Since 2014, Scotland's GDP growth has taken a bit of a... Minister. What is in the report that the member would like to see us having there with regard to driving export growth and driving inward investment growth? Does he not accept that significant results we have achieved over the last two to three years are testament to the fact that those action plans are absolutely right on the money when it comes to doing what needs to be done to further drive Scotland's success in those areas? Well, if they were right on the money, we would not be facing these significant revenue challenges, nor would we be undershooting our export growth targets, which are massively ambitious and are not simply on the trajectory of the curve we need. A good example is action number four on the inward investment plan. It talks about identifying and practically targeting 50 leading global companies that we want to attract to Scotland. Why does not it talk about building 50 world-leading companies in Scotland? It does not mention that idea. It does not look at building wealth and capacity in Scotland. I am afraid that the time is against me, Minister. I will endeavour to bring you in a suitable juncture, but I want to develop some of my arguments, first of all. We do have good advantages in Scotland. For example, economic development spending is higher in Scotland than anywhere else in the UK. Indeed, it is 60 per cent higher than UK average, but unfortunately that higher spending is not feeding into better productivity or growth because there is too much of a quick turnover and churn and lack of focus in investment strategies. As an alumni of Scottish Enterprise, I can attest to that at first hand. It was not an organisation that was fully geared up to building the kind of capabilities that we need in Scotland. That is because it is too passive. I have seen it first hand. For example, let us look at some of the issues that we have dealt with. The Minister will be well aware of, for example, the recent closure of the Calerill works in Springburn, just next to his constituency. Let us look at that as a case study. When it was bought over by Matares, a German firm, that would have been counted as inward investment, lauded according to the minister, because all inward investment is great. What was the inward investment about? It was debt-loading Scottish-owned assets. It was flogging the real estate off to real estate investment trusts overseas, based in New York. It was asset stripping those industries from Scotland to service the debts, to focus on the intellectual property that was held by the English subsidiary, not in Scotland. The Scottish subsidiary was thrown away. Now, we have 163 years of railway engineering in Scotland destroyed because of inward investment that was predatory in nature, not developmental in nature. That is why we cannot simply look at FDI and think that it is a panacea. That is what my friend Richard Leonard was alluding to when he was talking about the extent to which the Scottish economy is increasingly characterised by becoming a branch plant. When we see stories, for example, McVitties, a Scottish company having had its ownership stripped from the country and centred on Turkish ownership, at the last factory with the McVitties brand closed down in Glasgow and losing that brand that is so synonymous—one of the best Scottish brands globally—with America allowing Coca-Cola to go the same way, I do not think so. We have to fundamentally focus on how we retain and build Scottish wealth in this country. It would be things around looking at where we are world leaders and have potential to be world leaders, and building the companies in Scotland, building it with the Scottish Investment Bank, taking those stakes, building that equity but ensuring that predatory overseas takeovers are prevented. That would be the fundamental ethos at the heart of a strategy like this, but, unfortunately, when it comes to that kind of thing, it is thoroughly silent. I think that members on the Government benches—I think that Fiona Hyslop, Member for Llythgow mentioned that as well—her concern that Scotland is too vulnerable to overseas takeovers. I have all got stories, I am sure, where we have seen great Scottish potential thwarted by overseas takeovers. I am going to be great to see Scottish businesses going out into the world and buying over other companies and building that global network with the control and capability headquarters in our cities that are not being located in boardrooms in other countries. Rather, in Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Development International, going around begging other boardrooms in other countries to invest in Scotland, we could actually take up the bull by the horns ourselves and do the hard work that it is needed. However, I do not think that the agencies are doing that well enough, and that needs to be a fundamental challenge back to them to up their game and stop this neoliberal passiveness. For example, when the suggestion came up about emulating the Mondragon concept in Spain, let us build the railway engineering in Springburn, let us allow the ploys to take ownership of the assets there, let us build, along with the new public, the railway company, a centre of excellence for railway engineering in Scotland. I was looked at like I had two heads. It just did not compute with their thinking at all, economically and fundamentally. We have seen the same issues such as mentioned by Willie Rennie, liberty steel. Fundamentally, it could have been at the heart of a renewable renaissance, green steel, rolling plates, electric arc furnaces, because I have been all that stuff what we are doing now, dealing with our distressed company on the brink of collapse, same with Ferguson Marine's long-term investment plan, long-term procurement plan, CMAL is interested in sending orders to Turkey. All of these things are fundamentally odds with each other, and unless we get it all shaken out and get it right, which we all desperately want, we are not going to achieve the gains that are needed to help us to fund our public services, and we are going to continue to have the Deputy First Minister coming on here and making cut after cut to our public services. Thank you, Mr Sweeney. I now call on Jimmy Halcro Johnston to wind up on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives. Up to seven minutes, please, Mr Halcro Johnston. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. It is welcome that the Scottish Government has brought forward this debate today at a time of unprecedented strain on our businesses. Many across the country are struggling. They face additional costs, although the help announced today and over the last few weeks by the UK Government will be welcome. But above all, they are still emerging and recovering from two years of a pandemic. This is an unprecedented time in our history and calls for a serious approach from Governments everywhere. I was disappointed with the national strategy for economic transformation earlier this year, which was genuinely considered a thin rule for business. Introducing the strategy, Kate Forbes promised a ruthless focus on delivery and that the Government would be judged on the outcomes that we deliver, not for the strategy that we write. But those fine words will only be realised by ministers meeting those commitments, and so it is disappointing that the delivery plans for the five programmes for action were not published by the 1 September date, as promised. We face challenges like never before, and the economy will be central to how we weather the years ahead, how we maintain jobs and how we ensure the living standards of our constituents. The UK has long been a global and European leader in attracting inward investment, and Scotland punches above its weight in that regard, too. This is testament not only to Scotland's attractiveness as a destination, but to the quality of work to remote Scotland that is done on our behalf. From its origins as locating Scotland, SDI has a commendable record of bringing investment, but, of course, it is far from the only organisation looking towards trade and investment in Scotland. The new on-the-ground presence of the Department for International Trade just down the road at Queen Elizabeth's Houth is extremely welcome, and will hopefully drive further positive working relationships between the Department and SDI. We recall particularly the conclusions of the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee in 2015, which observed that co-ordination between SDI and UKTI, one of DIT's predecessors, was not as strong as it could be. The Deputy First Minister was, at that time, optimistic about the role of collaborative working and the importance of getting the right services to business, to trade internationally and to locate their businesses in Scotland. I am more than happy to echo those sentiments today because, as my colleague Liz Smith said earlier, both the Scottish Government and the UK Government should be working together in these areas, despite their political differences. There should be a shared ambition for Scotland and one of positive and sustainable economic growth, although I appreciate that that is not necessarily what the SMP's new green colleagues in government support, but hopefully more sensible heads will prevail. It is regrettable, then, that the economy portfolio, including the enterprise bodies that work to support business, have often been the first casualties of these Scottish Government's cuts. We have at least seen a positive example recently of the sort of intergovernmental co-operation I've spoken about, and it was good to see the First Minister visiting the British Embassy in Copenhagen, which hosts the SDI's Danish operation. Both of Scotland's governments sharing resources and knowledge for our benefit. Across the world, in fact, many of these offices are co-located within British embassies and high commissions, benefiting, I'm sure, more than just from pulling the rent and the electricity bills. We will also hope to see further work on green free ports, which have the opportunity to drive trade and investment, particularly in my own region, the Highlands and Islands. Their creation has lagged behind those announced in England, which is regrettable, but it's clearly a proposal that has captured the imagination of business in our region. One area that has been little discussed but Paul Sweeney raised is the nature of inward investment, not every pound of investment is equal. We should ask whether we are seeing jobs emerge in Scotland as a result, what the wider impact on local, regional and Scottish economies is from investments. This is an appropriate consideration. Inward investment should be beneficial not only to local employment, but also to local supply chains. This sort of deeper analysis is largely lacking in the Scottish Government's figures, and so too with the international offices. We know they are operating, but what analysis is made of their success? What are they getting right? And what value are they adding? Of course, there is a broad recognition that Scotland and the UK more generally have suffered from relatively poor productivity, and here innovation can be vital. It's a key driver of sustainable growth and also vital in streamlining operations across the public sector. While significant work has been undertaken, particularly with the support of universities, to boost innovation in Scotland, there remains a lack of leadership in embedding innovation across both the public and private sectors. Phase 1 of the Enterprise and Skills Review of 2016 observed a need to review, streamline and simplify the innovation support ecosystem, connecting programmes, funding and delivery mechanisms. However, since that time, support and encouragement for innovation has become even more cluttered, sitting across multiple agencies, including Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, South of Scotland Enterprise and Scottish Funding Council, the Scottish National Investment Bank, as well as the Scotland Can Do programme. There is work being done in this area. In June 2020, the Scottish Government called for evidence in the new 10-year innovation strategy closed, and in July of last year, the UK Government released a new innovation strategy, noting that, while the strategy applies to the whole of the UK, it also sits alongside important work being taken forward by the devolved administrations, recognising a need for collaboration, but also for specific action from the devolved bodies. The Scottish Conservatives have consistently supported a more active role in encouraging innovation. Our policy paper Power Up Scotland published in September 2020 advanced the argument for greater innovation spending and increased direct support for innovation. We must also ensure that spending is directed in positive and structured way, that value for money can be assured and that support can be accessible but also remain results-driven. We need to see a more streamlined approach to innovation, one which provides a key point for encouraging innovation within the public sector, but also more accountability and spend. It is vital that we get the support for business right and ensure that public money that is used to encourage business growth and location in Scotland is achieving the best value possible for every pound spent. We have seen several examples of where that has fallen short. In my own region, as Willie Rennie has highlighted, the investment in the Lacharbus smelter has failed to live up to its promise, either in terms of money invested or jobs created. In those cases, we have seen very little accountability with the Scottish Government's role and much of their work hiding behind the cloak of commercial sensitivity. And yet, still, the Minister claims that he has no concerns about the deal. I hope that he will address the issues that Willie Rennie raised in his summing up. Presiding Officer, we must ensure that Scotland remains an attractive place to work and to invest, that we have a streamlined and transparent approach to support, and above all, we must ensure that we use all the resources available to us, including the ability to work effectively with partners in the UK Government and its agencies. Before I start on the substance of my closing remarks, there is a lot to cover, so I will get through it as quickly as I can. It is important to draw a line under some of the comments that have been made already about the lack of motion today and the publication timing. In particular, frankly, I am disappointed with one member who has accused me of being shameful because of my behaviour this afternoon. My comments have made of hiding behind the Queen's death, in fact of there not being a motion today. That policy has been agreed at the bureau by all members, including the Labour member, Neil Bibby. The member that applies to may want to apologise through the course of this debate and I would happily take his intervention to do that if he feels so inclined. To the substance of the debate, it has been an interesting debate. I have to say that some members have been very positive about Scotland's success in regard of what we have delivered in terms of export growth and inward investment. Unfortunately, some members could not bring themselves to accept that Scotland could be successful at anything and that talks more about its attitude to Scotland and Scotland's economy and how much it cares about Scotland than anything else. Liz Smith, I have to say that we have opened up extremely well. To be honest, Jamie Halcro Johnston's closing speech recognised and welcomed the significant progress that we have made in highlighting some areas that we can do better on. That is hugely welcome. I want to touch on some of Liz Smith's supply chain disruption without mentioning Brexit, which I thought was an interesting omission, given that it is the main driver. I have not got a lot of time, but I will try to get you in later, but I have only a few minutes left. Likewise, on population, we have a declining population and Brexit is the primary cause of that situation. An interesting data point that Liz Smith will reflect on. Scotland every year attracts more working-age people from the rest of the UK than leave Scotland to go and live and work in the rest of the UK. That net inward migration to Scotland from the rest of the UK is about 35,000 over the past five years. Testaments to the fact that people from the rest of the UK want to come and live and work in Scotland because of what Scotland has to offer in so many, so many regards. In our comments about UK co-operation, I believe that we might try to co-operate as much as we can with the UK Government. The reason why there is no Greenport announcement yet is not because of us being ready for weeks but because of the inaction, incoherence and lack of focus from a UK Government down south over quite a period of time now through the summer. Likewise, on the cost of living crisis, First Minister made it very clear what we asked the UK Government to do. We are very late to the table on that as we waited for the change of government for many, many, many weeks, and that has been disappointing. Daniel Johnson, frankly, has been struggling to find something sensible to say. He has been all over the place on that and it has been quite disappointing because usually he is much more focused and coherent in his interventions. He does not recognise the fact that this document is absolutely jam-packed full of analysis that focuses on what we should be delivering on. He does not recognise what has been delivered as a consequence of the strategy. His comments about commercial shipyards are still on the client because of the actions taken by the Government. He talks about silicon glen. Let me tell you, I worked through silicon glen, I was in silicon glen and I got made redundant from my business in silicon glen. That was under a Labour UK Government and a Labour Government in this chamber as well. So do not talk to me about the Government not being focused on supporting industry and preventing redundancies being made. He talks about the Saudi Arabia of wind. We are absolutely focused on delivering the renewable potential of Scotland up to 40 gigawatts of offshore and onshore wind. Indeed, just this afternoon I was on a call speaking to businesses and investors and governments in Germany virtually to impress upon them the importance of Scotland's hydrogen offering and what we can do to support their requirements. In that regard, in next week I will be in Hamburg to do exactly the same. Willie Rennie not much to say the member for shitting smelters. Frankly, we are round and round the houses on this. The jobs are being saved. The plant is still there. If it was up to Willie Rennie it would be shut by now. Scottish Government is receiving all the money that is due to it and we have a liability that is more than covered by the asset that we can call on in the event of anything happening to that business. Just on BiFab, Harlan and Wilson, he took over BiFab. It has now deployed 400 people as a consequence. Fiona Haslop very clearly laid out that Scotland has got what it takes through the businesses and the sectors that Scotland enjoys great strengths in and, of course, highlights the impact of Brexit and the damage that that has done to Scotland's economy. Douglas Lomster, again, is another member that I have only got four minutes and I have still got half of the members to get through. Douglas Lomster is another member that cannot bring himself to recognise the fact that Scotland has been successful. Another member that has taken interventions—I took several in my opening speech—again, Brexit is driving much of the problems there. In terms of productivity, we have closed—I will give you in one minute—Scotland has closed the productivity gap with the rest of the UK over the last 15 years' significant improvement. We have got the lowest unemployment consistently across the rest of the UK. Why are investors coming to Scotland in such numbers if we are so concerned about independence? That is an opportunity. That is one of the reasons why Scotland is leading the rest of the United States of London in terms of attracting inward investment. Liz Smith? I am grateful, minister. Can we address this point about Brexit, which you have mentioned time and time again? People in this chamber know what my views are about Brexit. It has happened. We have to deal with it. Can he explain where the logic is within the SNP? You are always moaning about this wonderful problem that we have had because of Brexit, but the same thing—exactly the same thing—you are wanting to split up the UK, which has 60 per cent and will cause just as much and more trouble than it would be with Brexit. Your own advisers agree with that. I am glad that Liz Smith recognises the damage that Brexit has done to Scottish and the UK economy. What can we do about Brexit? Tell Liz Smith and the rest of the Tories and the rest of the better together coalition what we can do about Brexit. Scotland is going to become a normal independent country and join normal international relationships and escape from the damage that the UK Government is doing to Scotland's economy and take our place as a normal independent European country. Kenny Gibson has always made great focus on the success of businesses in north Ayrshire, many of which had the pleasure of visiting recently, both in terms of inward investment successes and in terms of export successes. It makes a very important point that the Scottish Government will be at Hanover message next year representing the Scottish economy. The UK Government has declined to attend. Richard Leonard, I do not know where to start. I cannot put a positive note, because we are all agreed that we want inward investment here that has value to Scotland's economy. That is why value is such a central focus and absolutely core to our approach. We are all agreed that we want inward investment that delivers in building global leading clusters and supports local businesses as a consequence. If you are a local business in a sector and an inward investment investor comes in parts himself next door, you have access to global technology, to global talent, to export markets as a consequence of that and it builds and strengthens that cluster. If it is right inward investment, which is absolutely what we are focused on and the plan is very clear on that, it supports local businesses to grow and prosper as a consequence of that. There are many Scottish businesses that are appointment raised, but other Labour members Scottish businesses like Wood, like we are and many others that have grown from Scotland and gone internationally and acquired them as a consequence and that is very much the case. As a two-way street, countries that trade and invest internationally are more successful and we are very focused on making sure that the inward investment comes in here. Minister, you have 30 seconds left. Minister, you have 30 seconds. I do not have time to go through everybody else's contribution. I think that the rural point that Rachel Hamilton made is very important. Have a look at the regional aspects of that. There is a huge focus on that. I work very closely with Sosie, who is doing a great job in supporting rural investment, and my tour is down there. We recently saw some great businesses, so the rest are sure that we are hugely focused on that. I think that this debate has shown that, in the work of the report, Scotland has great strengths across a whole range of global leading sectors of now and of the future. We are clearly focused on what those sectors are and on delivering Scotland's potential. Our innovation strategy, which has been mentioned, will further take that analysis and focus to the next level. Scotland has got what it takes, but the only way we can realise the full potential of Scotland's economy is for Scotland to become a normal independent country. That concludes the debate on delivering economic transformation Scotland's inward investment and export growth plans. It is now time to move on to the next item of business. The next item of business is consideration of business motion 5998, in the name of George Adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau, setting out a business programme. I call on George Adam minister to move the motion. The next item of business is consideration of six parliamentary bureau motions. I asked George Adam, on behalf of the parliamentary bureau, to move motions 5999 and 6000 on approval of SSIs, 60001 on committee substitute and 60002 to take 60004 on designation of lead committees. The question on those motions will be put at decision time. There is one question to be put as a result of today's business. I propose to ask a single question on six parliamentary bureau motions. Does any member object? The question is therefore that motions 5999 and 6000 on approval of SSIs, 60001 on committee substitute and 60002 to 60004 on designation of lead committees be agreed. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed and that concludes decision time. We will now move on to the next item of business after a brief pause and I would ask those members who are leaving the chamber to please do so quickly and quietly. Thank you.