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It is on-going. There are dozens of aspects to that across the education system. Some of that, such as doing more computer science teaching is schools, is obviously going to take time because of the resource in terms of teachers that are able to deliver those courses. As Mark Logan raised in his report, that is a challenge in itself—we need to deal with that and then roll out the courses across the school curriculum. It is hugely important. Coming from a science, technology, engineering and maths background, I know how critical that is.

Other aspects of the report’s recommendations, such as the roll-out of the tech scalers, are on-going. There are different timescales for the different recommendations and action points in the report. To his credit, Mark Logan has kept up the pressure. We are asking the Government and the system to do things differently. I am keen for the Government to be more agile, responsive and able to execute initiatives such as those that are proposed in the work that has been undertaken by Mark Logan. We continue to push that along as fast as possible. We are on the right track.

The strategy for economic transformation will come out shortly and that builds on the work of the Logan report, extending it to other sectors and parts of the economy. It broadens the approach to tech scalers and supporting those growth businesses, as well as focusing on the skills aspect and ensuring that people in the early stages of their career and mid-career are able to retrain in tech, coding skills and digital skills of all shapes and sizes in order to meet the broader requirements of the new industries that we are developing in Scotland.

What we can do is what we are doing. As I said, it is not the whole answer. What we can do is marginal in the sense that it will allow us to tackle some of the issues, but not the key barriers to international trade, which is hugely unhelpful. As I said, the work that we are doing to support more manufacturing in Scotland is part of the solution, but—as you rightly said—Brexit restrictions make supply chains difficult for businesses, consumers and the Scottish economy.

The situation will vary sector by sector and opportunity by opportunity. However, in advanced engineering, life sciences and other sectors in which we have opportunities to manufacture more in Scotland, the shortage of specific skills that would normally have come from the international talent pool is a key issue. A significant similar brake has been put on businesses in other parts of the economy, including agriculture, food processing, hospitality and tourism, which rely on significant numbers of migrant workers. Those sectors are suffering as a result of Brexit and the restriction on labour migration.

Those are good questions. The first point that I would reflect on is the suggestion in your question that we know where the gaps are. It is one thing to say that the construction industry needs 22,000 people, but the question, then, is what skills are needed. Clearly, a wide range of skills is required on any construction site.

We also need to look at the trends in the sector. At the moment, we are doing a lot of work on developing capacity, capability and innovation in off-site manufacturing, which moves a lot of construction work in modular form into factory settings and therefore will require a different skill set. There has also been a shift in the materials that are being used as a consequence not only of shortages but of the transition to net zero, with more timber structures—or, indeed, different types of timber structure—coming into play, and the types of skills that are required to support all that work are different, too. The situation is evolving over time, and it is important that we stay close to it.

Likewise, we talk about digital skills, but the fact is that coding languages evolve every year or two. I am not an expert in the area, but when you look at the requirements involved, you can see how someone who was trained in coding 10—or even five—years ago might find that their skills are largely out of date. It is therefore important that they understand what the new coding requirements are and can upgrade accordingly. Of course, that is different from the broad-based digital skills that are required by people who are not necessarily involved in digital work all the time but who might need to know how to work a spreadsheet, for example, or how to deal with certain digital connectivity issues. We should understand that, even within such broad buckets, there is a whole range of different issues to take into account.

As for the question of how we get people to take advantage of these things, you are right to suggest that there will be a whole range of things involved in that. Some people will be very hungry to take part and will see it as an advancement and an opportunity to up their income and to put themselves in a more advantageous position, while there will be others whom you will need to make aware of the opportunities. That sort of thing will extend through the whole piece, so there needs to be closer engagement between business and schools to ensure that the young people who are coming through understand what the opportunities are, are able to set their sights on achieving them and can see how their choice of subjects or decision about whether to go into further or higher education reflects the types of careers and opportunities that exist and how they can take advantage of them.

Similarly, people in mid-career might decide to reskill, and there are some great initiatives in, say, coding training out there. We will look to develop that aspect. There are also, unfortunately, people who are facing redundancy and the partnership action for continuing employment—or PACE—initiative is there to support them. Again, a huge priority is to make people aware of the different retraining opportunities that exist.

I have also mentioned labour market inactivity. How do we ensure that people who are out of work for health reasons but who might be able to work, say, part-time or in certain employment can focus on getting the essential skills that they need? Moreover, people who are returning to the labour market after having a family need to be aware of what is available. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of people, but the training programmes are there and the Scottish Government is putting in a significant amount of funding. That said, you are absolutely right; we need to join all of this up and ensure that provision reflects what businesses need now and in future and that people are aware of what is available. It is something that we are constantly focused on.

Yes, of course. Transport connectivity is hugely important. The Government has published its strategic transport projects review to identify the steps that it is taking. It is important that all that is addressed and that we continue to improve transport links, whether road, rail or ferries. I have no doubt that the new Minister for Transport will already be all over that—[Inaudible.]

On you go.

You are right to say that there is labour market inactivity: 22 per cent of Scotland’s working age population—those aged between 16 and 64—are not economically active. That is about 750,000 people. That proportion is broadly similar in the rest of the UK. If we delve into that, we find that there are a number of reasons for it. Some are valid reasons. People may be in education, have childcare responsibilities or be in poor health, and there are other reasons.

We have undertaken a programme that we will talk more about in our national strategy and that will help us to understand and address the issue. Our access to international labour has been challenged by Brexit. It is becoming increasingly clear that we must focus far more on how we tackle labour market inactivity.

Some of that will come down to the expansion of childcare that we are undertaking. That will enable parents to return to work sooner if they choose to do so. Some of it will come from transport links. Our strategic transport projects review, which was published recently, addresses some of those issues so that people can get to economic opportunities. There will be work to increase skills and to make some of the people who are furthest from the labour market more aware of the opportunities that can smooth their transition back into work if they have been out of work for a long time.

We are focusing on a plethora of different aspects. We must address the issue, not only because it is the right thing to do for individuals but because we can support businesses by giving them access to the pool of labour that is available in Scotland.

Do you want me to address any specific aspect of the Audit Scotland report?

We have some levers. However, clearly, there are many levers that we do not have. I will talk briefly about the ones that we do not have, and then about the ones that we have.

We do not have control over immigration powers internationally. We constantly ask the UK Government to be more flexible about those, both in relation to the ridiculous restrictions that it has put on labour coming from abroad and in relation to devolving immigration powers. Countries including Australia and Canada use a degree of devolution of immigration powers—it is a model that works perfectly well, so there is no reason not to do it. Clearly, we want to be back in the European single market and it is our ambition to deliver that, which would resolve many of the issues.

On the levers that we can pull, there are things that we can do about labour market inactivity and bringing more people into the labour market. There are also things that we can do to focus on immigration from the rest of the UK into Scotland. At the moment, there is a net inward immigration from the rest of the UK. About 30,000 people leave Scotland every year on average, and about 40,000 to 41,000 come into Scotland from the rest of the UK. That is a net positive; we are increasingly focused on maximising that to tackle specific skills challenges.

I have a programme under way with businesses and others to understand how we can target the message more effectively and get it out there, and to consider how we can work to increase net inward immigration from the rest of the UK into Scotland. I think that there will be increasing focus on that programme because it is one of the few levers that the Scottish Government can pull in this area, given that we do not have control over international immigration powers.

The impact of Brexit has been significant. There is an issue around unpicking that impact from the Covid situation, which is difficult. When a person leaves Scotland to return home, we do not know whether it is for personal or other reasons that they want to be back in their country of origin. The current situation makes it much harder for them to move back and forth if they have family commitments in Poland or wherever; Covid has made that much more difficult. People might choose, as a consequence, to stay in their country of origin once they have gone back there.

However, I say without a doubt that Brexit has made a huge difference. Covid restrictions are subsiding and international travel is opening up again; we would, in normal times, expect the labour market to open up. However, Brexit has stopped that.

The UK Government’s hostile approach to immigration and immigrants makes things very difficult. We saw that in relation to the message that the UK Government was sending out to heavy goods vehicle drivers, which was just ridiculous. It was counterproductive and really unhelpful. Its message was that although we expect those people to drop everything and change their lives to come and help us when we need it, we will only allow them to come here for a short time. Of course that was not going to work.

Brexit has had a huge impact. As we move beyond Covid, it will become increasingly obvious that it is acting as a huge brake on Scotland’s economic potential.

Do you mean inward migration or inward investment?