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The temptation for me to comment on that is quite significant, but the Scottish National Investment Bank is operationally independent. The moment that I start to pass comment on its commercial decisions, that independence is compromised. Given its independent position, it will make investments that members might think are great ideas and others that members might think are not such great ideas. The whole point is that the Scottish National Investment Bank is free from political interference, which is what makes it such an impactful investor. I do not want to compromise that.

We have very clearly set out the three missions that the bank is to focus on: pursuing a just transition to net zero carbon emissions by 2045, which might involve forestry; extending quality of opportunity by improving places—it is a place-based approach; and harnessing innovation to enable our people to flourish by 2040. By design, those are not prescriptive, so that, again, the bank knows that it operates within parameters but that it is free to make investment decisions independently of the Government.

The legislation is extremely flexible. The point is that, under the legislation, local authorities must consult extensively with industry and, if they wish, introduce a scheme that is operational—in other words, one that can actually be implemented. On the basis of the communication that you refer to, I would assume that there is a point there that needs to be highlighted to local authorities about the way in which they charge the visitor levy.

For me, that is a question of operational implementation. Fundamentally it is a question for the City of Edinburgh Council, which should be consulting with industry as we speak to determine how to do it.

That also feels as though it could have been a planted question, because it is the question that I was hoping somebody would ask me, and we have had no conversations prior to the meeting.

I have been commissioning the audit for the past few months. We are doing it on a regional basis. The committee might be interested in bringing Skills Development Scotland before it to go through the audit that it has just done, particularly for the energy transition in the north of Scotland. It focuses on the Highlands and Islands, I am afraid, but the model could be replicated for other regions.

What SDS has done means that it has incredibly granular data, because it started with the inward investors and businesses. Rather than just getting high-level figures from them, such as that they need more people or more engineers, SDS has asked them specifically how many engineers and what kind of engineers they need over the next 10 years. How many welders and what kind of welders?

As commissioned and supported by Highlands and Islands Enterprise, SDS has produced an industry-led data audit of the skills that are required. You heard it here first—I do not think that it is in the public domain yet. The next stage is to launch that audit with commitments from the colleges and universities on how they will support the delivery of every last one of the individuals that are required. We have done it.

I think that it is better to do it on a regional level, because we are more likely to want to be able to retrain people who live in the locality than to attract people in, and we will only attract people when we know that there is a shortage. That model could be replicated for other regions, but we have proved that it works.

That is very interesting. I am not sure that it does. It is certainly broader than just the obvious industries. For example, it says if we need this many people for the energy transition, how many people do we need to build new houses? It looks much wider than the direct jobs at the indirect jobs, but I am not sure that it goes as far as the indirect jobs in the public sector, unless Aidan Grisewood tells me otherwise.

The AI Scotland programme is very new. I chaired the 2021 AI strategy group, which had a big focus on ethics, safety and security. The AI Scotland programme, which Richard Lochhead leads, is essentially focused on a pilot scheme for SMEs; it is all about positioning Scotland as a creator and supplier of AI technologies. It is fairly fresh and new, but we could certainly report back to the committee on it.

The more we do in both areas, the better. If I reflect on anything in Scotland right now, it is that the scale of the growth that is planned or is under way exceeds the ability of the workforce to deliver it. In other words, as we speak, we do not have all the people that we need to meet the scale of the industry’s ambitions, whether that is for the energy transition, what is happening in life sciences or what the construction industry needs to do with regard to building houses. There is a question about how we continue to invest in retraining and upskilling to ensure that young people come through with the skills that they need.

Secondly, it is important to consider the size of the workforce, otherwise you end up recycling workers from one industry to another. That is a particularly big risk at a regional level—the national figures might say one thing, but it is a big challenge regionally. Such problems are born of high demand for workers because of growth, which is happening across the board, whether in the aerospace cluster in Prestwick, the north-east or elsewhere.

Investing in AI is not really a choice or a luxury; it is a question of keeping up with other people and competitors, because that is where other jurisdictions are going and have gone. We have to ensure that our SMEs are well equipped, which is where the AI Scotland programme comes in.

The member has put that all on the record, and I am happy to be reminded of those wonderful statistics.

The semi-author of the NSET report is sitting beside me, so he can answer.

The questions around productivity are fascinating because of the way in which, over the 20-year period, Scotland quite definitively closed the gap in relation to the UK average for productivity levels. In 2019, Scotland’s real output per hour was £34.60 compared to £35.40 in the UK as a whole, and we outperformed all UK regions between 1999 and 2019. Earlier, I talked about how real output per hour grew by an average rate of 1.52 per cent per annum over that period.

However, the more recent period has been challenging, and plenty of Scottish Government reports go into some detail about that. The chief economist’s October 2024 report went into some detail about the succession of shocks to our economy, such as the pandemic, high inflation and significant volatility in some of the short-term indicators. In 2023, productivity fell by 1.1 per cent compared to 2022, but it grew by 4.6 per cent in the previous year.

It is important to get into the figures, but it does not compensate for actually understanding what drives productivity growth, which—as I outlined to Stephen Kerr—include business investment, investment in digital and investment in skills, and we are seeing significant outcomes from those investments that we need to keep supporting.

Absolutely, and I will quote a University of Glasgow study from December 2021 that reflects on Scotland’s productivity performance as a story of

“puzzles and apparent contradictions, with strength in some areas but below average performance elsewhere.”