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Finally, as Marc Crothall and others have pointed out, although a number of areas have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic, with visitor numbers and hospitality in city centres highlighted, non-traditional tourism destinations in some rural areas have seen a boost from staycations. One might argue that these are fragile economies, with all their economic indicators probably lagging behind cities, and, with all the stress seemingly on getting people back to where they used to go, surely it can be argued that there are non-traditional tourism areas with huge potential that, for purely historical reasons, have not had the same visitor numbers as other areas have perhaps had. Rob Dickson will know exactly what areas I am talking about. Perhaps the strategy should be about ensuring that people stay in or come back to those non-traditional areas, given their real potential for growing the overall tourism market in Scotland.

I will start with Rob Dickson, as he is on my screen, but I am sure that Vicki Miller will want to talk about how we market those areas.

Let me build on that point. In the previous evidence session, Marc Crothall from the STA made the point that it would help businesses—and probably VisitScotland—if there was flexibility around when grants and, indeed, budgets had to be spent. There is an expectation that spending has to be done by 31 March. Do you have any comments on that? Would such flexibility help VisitScotland? Would it help those businesses that you have been providing grant funding to as we head towards the end of that financial year?

I am not sure who wants to grab that one with both hands. I will leave it to the two of you to decide.

As a final point, you say that this is covered in the criteria, but one of the biggest criticisms of the ScotWind leasing process was that having a local supply chain was not one of the criteria. Companies had to have development plans, which we will see at some point, but the big criticism from trade unions and many others was that having a local supply chain was not part of the scoring process in awarding these leases.

Do you accept, though, that there has been an increase in large contracts, with a small number of big construction firms winning all those contracts? Is there an active piece of work on that? I am not clear about it from what you say, apart from there being on-going work. Is there now an active piece of work about, say, adapting the lotting system, with a real focus on ensuring that smaller local suppliers are not driven out, and taking into account the environmental impact when it comes to the criteria?

I always joke that the fastest-growing business in Dumfries is the guy who sells the bacon rolls on the outskirts of the town, because he serves all the white vans that travel from Glasgow to Dumfries every day to work. There is clearly an environmental cost in the big central belt businesses carrying out contracts elsewhere. Surely environmental impact and the focus on local businesses should make up a bigger proportion of the criteria for awarding contracts, and you should be breaking up the lotting system a lot more in order to focus on smaller contracts.

The committee has heard a number of concerns about the current procurement regime, including claims that it is very focused on price, does not properly measure the environmental benefit of using local products, and the use of local firms is largely ignored in any scoring process. There is concern that the procurement process is about encouraging local firms rather than making it a requirement in contracts to use those firms, and that the process does not encourage the use of alternative products or materials that could encourage the growth of a Scottish supply chain.

Does the minister recognise those concerns from businesses, and has any consideration being given to fully reforming the procurement process to better prioritise local companies?

I was not asking a leading question; I was outlining the concerns that the committee has heard.

A clear view came across in evidence that the extent to which supply chains are covered by the process of determining a contract does not go far enough. In fact, recent changes to the process have driven many of the problems. If a local council is building a new school, for instance, that is now a very centralised process. When I was a councillor, we awarded a contract directly as a council. In Dumfries and Galloway now, that goes through the hub south-west process. Notwithstanding all the accountability issues that that causes when something goes wrong, it means that there is a real emphasis on economies of scale and large contracts. The use of local supply chains often relies on the big contractor to subcontract the work at their discretion. Surely the process that we have been driving in recent years has caused an increase in large contracts—driven, I suppose, by the fact that budgets to councils have been cut. Surely big contracts driven by price are still a big part of the process.

I am unclear how in effect freezing the revenue budget when inflation is over 5 per cent is somehow protecting the budgets of the enterprise agencies. The Scottish Fiscal Commission recently warned that the Scottish economy is lagging behind that of the rest of the UK. Compared to pre-pandemic levels, gross domestic product and employment earnings are all recovering more slowly than in the rest of the UK. The Confederation of British Industry Scotland has said that Scotland is lagging behind other parts of the UK on nine of the 13 productivity indicators. Surely we should not have a real-terms revenue reduction now for the enterprise agencies. Why are we not increasing the budget in real terms in the year ahead? Does the budget not impact at all on the fact that the Scottish economy is lagging behind the rest of the UK on the key indicators, as your Fiscal Commission highlights?

Why is Scotland’s economy, on all the key indicators that the Fiscal Commission has flagged up, lagging behind the rest of the UK, if it is not to do with funding for the enterprise agencies?

Good morning, cabinet secretary. I return to the issue of support for enterprise agencies. You said that you are protecting funding for the enterprise agencies, but real-terms cuts are not really protecting. The revenue budget for Scottish Enterprise is pretty much flatlining in real terms compared to last year and, as you admit, as inflation rises that becomes a cut. The Highlands and Islands Enterprise overall budget is being reduced in real terms, and that includes day-to-day revenue spending, not just capital spending. The budget for Skills Development Scotland has been cut by £5 million in real terms alone, and we do not see any stimulus for our struggling high streets.

Given the scale of the economic challenges that we face, surely this would have been a year not just to tread water when it comes to economic support but to boost the budgets for our enterprise agencies and SDS.