Seòmar agus comataidhean

Has there been any review? Has Transport Scotland not done a review of any sort? Has there been none whatsoever, despite the fact that this was the flagship pledge, and it has completely slipped? No review at all, is that right, Mr Shackman?

I will park it there, but I do not think—

Just standing back for a moment, the capital budget that is available to the Scottish Government each year is of the order of between £4,000 million to £5,000 million. It is reasonable to assume that that will continue to be the case. By 2035, which is 10 years, my maths suggest that there is a total of £40,000 million to £50,000 million available in the capital budget. The Highlands wants £3,700 million, which is less than 10 per cent of that total.

Why is the Scottish Government not making a clear cast-iron commitment or guarantee that, if MIM proves to be too expensive, for the reasons that the cabinet secretary has set out, a sum equivalent to less than one 10th of the total capital will be available for the Highlands, particularly since—this is just a matter of fact—there has been hardly any spending on roads projects in the Highlands since devolution? All the money has gone elsewhere. We have had a couple of roundabouts and a couple of small sections of dual carriageway.

Surely the Government recognises that it is the Highlands’ turn. If the Government cannot make a commitment that if MIM is too expensive traditional capital spend will be used, does that not suggest that the Highlands do not even merit a 10th of the total capital spend between now and 2035, a proposition that will simply not go down very well at all in my constituency or in the Highlands as a whole?

I will move on to a different point that Grahame Barn raised in some detail in his evidence. Unlike in the past, over the next 10 years, an enormous amount of civil engineering work is planned to be undertaken in Scotland, and in the Highlands in particular. We are looking at £40 billion on grid upgrades, £1 billion for Scottish Water and £3.5 billion for Network Rail to electrify the rail network. There is substantial civil engineering work involving Aventus Energy in Invergordon in renewables, and then there are the pumped storage contracts that SSE and others plan.

The reason why I raise that is that Grahame Barn pointed out that that means that there will be a big choice of work for civil engineers and, arguably, some of the other works that I have mentioned may be more profitable than roads contracts, where the profit margins typically have at best been 3 per cent, although that has never been achieved in the past several years according to CECA.

What is the Government’s view? Is there a real risk that even if we assume that the money is available, there will not be the companies, the people and the expertise to carry it out, because they will be too busy doing other more profitable work, which we all hope will be able to be done as well?

That makes a lot of sense. I am attracted by the idea that it be made an explicit part of the commissioner’s functions, perhaps even on a statutory basis, as that would avoid our having to create a new public body.

Let us assume that that happens, and that it helps things to be done more quickly, as opposed to what is happening in the Edinburgh Academy case, in which we are looking at events that took place decades ago. What happens if the commissioner or whistleblowing officer says this and that should happen but the local authorities, for example, do not agree? Where would the matter go from there? Would it go to ministers or to the press? These may be sensitive matters. How would a dispute between the whistleblowing officer and the relevant public authority be handled or resolved?

I just want to emphasise the latter part of that suggestion and say that we interfere with crofters’ traditional extraction of peat at our peril.

I can certainly see Mr Torrance’s argument, because the reply that we have from the Scottish Government is quite complete in the sense that, as I read it, it is saying there are no real ways in which a definitive test can be issued at the moment. That is the challenge. It is not that there is not a desire perhaps to have a test if a test worked, but a test does not work. My reading of it is that the UKNSC is due to review the recommendation in the next 12 months. That sounds to me as if the review is to start in 12 months and it might take quite a lot longer. I wonder whether there would be any harm in the meantime in signifying our general concern and interest because prostate cancer is such a widespread cancer. I suggest that we do not close the petition at this stage, but it may be that we would close it after a further response.

We could write to the UK National Screening Committee to ask whether it will consider the findings of the TRANSFORM study; how frequently its decision not to recommend population screening for prostate cancer will be reviewed; and how it decides the frequency with which it reviews recommendations. I stress the urgency here because there are so many men who will be affected by this in their lifetime—I think that I read somewhere that it is eight out of 10, which is an incredibly high proportion—and the screening tests that are available for so many conditions and diseases have been one of the tremendous advances in society over the past 20 years and have saved lives in so many cases. The lack of a valid method for the prostate seems to be a matter of real urgency.

That is really helpful. I was keen to raise the issue because we blithely assume that, if the money is there, the work can be done. In light of what you have said, that assumption might prove to be naive and optimistic, particularly with the grid work, which—I should have mentioned—has been £40 billion, which is astronomical. We might be left as the Cinderella of the civil engineering sector for roads projects. That is the concern that I wanted to raise.

To close the question, I put to you that the solution is that Transport Scotland must work more collaboratively with industry as partners, not as passive recipients of an occasional piece of work when the Government decides to get around to it, but as partners with the Scottish Government, so that it can keep abreast of the ever-changing commercial realities and challenges that might make it difficult for the Scottish Government to achieve the dualling of the A9, such as capacity and the fact that there might be other, more competitive and financially attractive work for your members.

Okay.

The basic point was about engendering confidence. I want us to have what we have not had over almost the past three years of this session of Parliament: confidence that a stream of work will go ahead in future.

I want to finish off my point, convener. If there is time for me to come back to entirely different matters, I would appreciate that, but other members will want to have their shot.

I have spoken to companies, which I will not name, that are involved in the provision of private capital—whether that is through MIM or by other means is not really important. There is massive appetite to provide private capital to the Scottish Government, because it is recognised as a secure long-term form of investment. Having spoken to three of those companies, I know that there is a desire in Britain and Europe to provide private capital. That means that there is the potential for competitive interest and for Transport Scotland to get a good deal. That approach would involve less risk than investing in, for example, a private plc.

Given that that appetite exists—I heard Transport Scotland officials acknowledge and corroborate that in the recent briefing that we had—is now not the time to strike forward and make progress, rather than kick the can down the road? My constituents have seen that happening for nearly the past three years, and they are sick and tired of that.

I ask you again, Alison Irvine: will you not look again and urge the Scottish Government to reconsider the timescale? People are worried and very sceptical about whether, when 2025 comes along, there will be rapid moves into procurement of the middle and northern sections, which involve my constituency.