Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good, thank you. That was an easy one.

Okay, that is fair enough.

I will turn to the money, which is always far more interesting. There were comments in the report of 9 December 2020 by the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee that highlighted the fact that some milestone payments or stage payments were somehow out of order. The clear finding was that they were being constructed in such a way that qualification for payments was not necessarily in the order that it should have been, and so on. We have also heard that that is normal for the industry. Is it normal for the industry?

I am a layman. I have no idea how to build a ship, but in any contract, milestones exist to say that a certain sequence of events has taken place leading to a critical point at which payment is triggered. The Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee found that that was not the case and heard evidence that that was not the case. Why is that practice okay in the industry? I am trying to understand that. To have one isolated event that will result in a payment then another isolated event that will result in a payment, although the bits in between have not been done, seems odd to me. I do not understand.

Okay. You paid FMEL £83.25 million. That is about 85 per cent of the contract value.

At the time of nationalisation, there was every indication that the vessels were far from ready to be launched. Did you have any questions about the amount of public funds that had been paid in, the lack of progress on these vessels and the fact that they were far behind where they should have been? Surely the milestones and the robust checks that took place should have thrown up quite clearly that some of these works were not happening.

At this point, we are not touching the loans that came from the Scottish Government. My understanding is that you were not part of that particular discussion.

A great number of objections have been lodged—over 2,700, you said. There has obviously been a large campaign orchestrated by one of the political parties, and I understand that the cycling organisations have geared up. I also understand that the vast majority of the objections are outside my constituency and the immediate area of Sheriffhall. Have most of the objections been satisfied?

I have one final point.

Do we have evidence of Derek Mackay’s approval? I presume that he must have signed off on something to authorise the change in the terms.

Did anything come from Transport Scotland?