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Thank you.

I will play devil’s advocate here, as a former Minister for Local Government, Housing and Planning. You quoted a cost of £30,000. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of that sum. Could you send that to the committee?

I will put a challenge to you. You talked about land supply, for example. What are you doing to encourage your industry to stop land banking and to get on with building in certain places?

I get some of the difficulties at certain points around utilities for instance. I have led the way to overcome some of those difficulties in certain parts of Scotland, including in Gretna in the convener’s region, where it was said that housing could not go into various sites because of issues with Scottish Water. All those difficulties were overcome.

I get your point about some of the issues that are faced. However, I think that we also have to recognise that there are real issues that are brought about by the house building industry itself. Probably every one of us around this table could point to an area of land within our constituencies or regions that has had consent for a very long time and yet there has been no development and nobody has come forward to raise any of the issues that you have mentioned. It is not just about a conversation with Government. If there are difficulties in particular areas with pushing forward building in certain areas, why is there not more contact with local members of the Scottish Parliament to see whether those issues can be overcome?

We have to be completely and utterly honest in our conversations. I recognise that the Government has a responsibility to do a huge number of things—I get that. You are talking about more targets. Some folks say that there are too many targets. However, the onus is not just on the Government; it has to be on industry as well in terms of bringing forward projects that, in many cases, have been consented and planned for a long time.

I canna help it.

I asked the previous panel of witnesses whether they thought that their communication with Government and with politicians was right. We could probably talk all day about that.

I will ask Luke McGarty in particular my basic question—I am sorry I am picking on you. Each and every one of us MSPs around the table represents a constituency or a region, but at the end of the day we are ordinary folk. We go into the convenience store, the pub or the restaurant. We hire a local builder. I cannae say that I have got much information technology work going on, Karen; I would be lying. In certain places that I go to, I get questioned all the time. That is part of the job. That is a good thing. It is nae so great if you are trying to wolf doon the roast beef at that point, but that is the name of the game. In communication with your members, do you say to them, “Take the opportunity to invite somebody along for that 15 to 20 minute chat”?

I will play devil’s advocate again, as is often the case. A huge amount of today’s conversation has been about whether Government gets business. In the previous session, however, Nathalie Agnew posed the question whether business gets Government. What is your view of the communications and the understanding that you have, not only with Government but with individual politicians such as us?

Nathalie, you talked about communication. Tony, your communication of your passion has been quite fantastic and that is grand. It is what we need, quite frankly.

I want to talk a little bit about communication and getting the messaging about what is required across, not just to Government but to us in here, to other politicians in local government and the UK Parliament as well.

I will look at my engagement with business over the past couple of days. Last night, I was at an Ocean Winds event here in the Parliament. In the very short speechifying last night, they got across what their major challenges were. They talked about the positives of the Moray east and Moray west offshore wind developments but also about the future challenges. That then becomes a challenge to me because they have the information there about the grid, transmission charges and all of the rest, in easy-read format, easy to take in, easy for us to understand and to recognise what needs to be done to move forward. In some cases, as you have said, some businesses do not have the ability to do that.

The other day, my engagement was at Charles Michies Pharmacy in Aberdeen. One of the owners, John Michie, is a man a bit like Tony over there: he is very direct, knows exactly what is required, has probably never been on a communications course in his life but knows exactly what needs to be done. How do we get to the point where, whether businesses are as big as Ocean Winds or as small as Charles Michies Pharmacy, they feel that they can communicate directly to us the simple facts, so that we know what is needed as we move forward? I will go to the comms expert.

Let us look at that example of the one-on-one. Ministers are immensely busy. My experience, having been a minister myself, is that I was always out and about, and you can see quite clearly that ministers are out and about all the time. MSPs are also out and about, however, and we are policymakers. Obviously, we scrutinise Government and we have ins. Do your members take advantage of that to the degree that they should?

I will make no comment on cross-party groups. There are far too many of them in my humble opinion.