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I am sorry to interrupt, but, on that point, you said that local authorities did not want a competitive process.

Do you not think that it was not even suboptimal but really unacceptable that the selection criteria and process were published only retrospectively—seven weeks after the decision was announced? Again, that is in stark contrast to what happened in the English process.

Do you understand my frustration? You mentioned the case of Dundee. Although I am a native Dundonian, I represent the whole of North East Scotland and I am very welcoming of investment in Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen. However, in Dundee we have particular economic need, which you have set out. We also have the finest life sciences university in the UK, which has been top of the research excellence framework for the past 14 years. It is absolutely outstanding and well ahead of any other institutions in Scotland and parts of the rest of the UK.

There is consternation at the absence of published criteria, and there is real local anger. If you had seen the press clippings at that time, secretary of state, you would have understood that. The local paper, The Courier, was in uproar at the fact that we had not received a green freeport or an investment zone. Do you want to see from now on, in these joint enterprises between yourselves and the Scottish Government, bidding criteria set out ahead of time so that local authorities can build the right criteria, make the right case and make the argument that I have just made for the particular need of a geography?

I have to say that I remain sceptical about the process, Mr Gove. On 14 September, Neil Gray told the Scottish Parliament that the selection process and the decision on the investments had been agreed on the same date, 22 June.

If I might test the convener’s indulgence, I will close my questioning with a question on spending. We are talking about allocations, but are there not real challenges in getting the money spent by local authorities? Do we not risk replicating the situation with the city deal process, for which applications went in more than a decade ago? Many of those projects across Scotland have not materialised, because that money has not actually been spent in communities. Are you concerned about spend versus allocation?

Good morning, secretary of state. You have set out some detail of the application processes and assessment criteria for the levelling up fund, the community ownership fund and the long-term plan for towns, which is welcome. Why did the process for investment zones in Scotland diverge so significantly from the process in all those other areas?

Were all local authorities asked? We have 32 local authorities in Scotland. You are saying that they were asked whether they wanted to bid for enterprise zones and they said that they did not want to. I made a freedom of information request for all correspondence on this, and I did not see any evidence that local authorities were asked whether they wanted to have a bidding process or an investment.

Does that account for between £4 million and £5 million of the £28.5 million—roughly 1,200 to 1,300 students—as that bubble in student placements runs through the system? Using the same metrics, I reckon that the £28.5 million equates to about 3,800 student places. Is that the number of places that you are asking universities to cut?

That comes at the same time as a collapse in the west African market, with Nigerian students, in particular, not coming to the UK. As a result, this is a difficult and challenging time for all universities in Scotland, and there has been a double hit to the budget.

Your budget equality statement states that there is a significant risk to learners from poorer backgrounds as a result of the measure that you have taken. Would you care to explain what that significant risk is?

You are speaking to the issue of the quantum, but I am asking when colleges will know what their budget is.

So you reject the term “shambles”.