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I apologise for not being in the room but I did not want to spread my cold to everyone. I hope that you can hear me okay.

Mr Gillespie, you commented earlier that the 30 per cent cut in the Scottish Enterprise resource budget by the Scottish Government over the past two years means that you are now in danger of not being able to cover your fixed costs. Will you elaborate on what it would mean if you had a further funding reduction in the forthcoming budget? Would that mean redundancies or recurring commitments not being delivered, for example? What is the implication of more cuts to your budget?

How do you anticipate that target evolving post 2025-26?

Do you have a view on whether the target is likely to reduce, or are you looking to further scale it up beyond 2025-26? I am not asking you to have a crystal ball, but what is your longer-term strategy for the target rate of return?

Has Professor Roy any comment on that? There are inequalities.

Perhaps I can bring in Professor Bell. A related matter, I suppose, is the fact that Scotland has significant economic inequalities. I am based down in Dumfries and Galloway, which is the lowest-paid region in Scotland. At the moment, the debate with regard to the just transition is on how we maintain the economic premium in the north-east but, to be frank, for my constituents just maintaining the status quo does not equal a just transition.

As for the drive towards renewables, the argument is that we do not build any of the turbines in Scotland; however, we put them up all over Dumfries and Galloway, and they are monitored not there but in an office in the central belt. Is there any evidence developing that the transition is tackling any of the economic inequalities that we have in Scotland, or is it just maintaining the status quo when it comes to the economy?

The point has been made a couple of times that one of the challenges of the transition is that, currently, wages in the oil and gas sector are often better than those in the renewables sector. I suppose that my question is for Professor Roy. Has the Scottish Fiscal Commission made an assessment of any of the second-order effects of the transition? For example, what is the impact of wage variations on the public finances?

I agree with you about highly paid jobs. Some of the sectors that we have mentioned so far—you have both mentioned tourism—are hugely important to our rural economy, but the jobs do not pay what an aircraft engineer is paid, for example. How we get highly paid, high-quality jobs into those areas is the challenge.

Has the balance of where your money goes changed? You published your annual report last week. About 150 businesses, I think, were involved in £9 million of direct grants. I am also conscious that, according to the report, your wage bill went up by 13 per cent. I appreciate that that is because you are a new business and are still ramping up your structures. However, the message that I often get from businesses in the south of Scotland is, “We had a really positive meeting with SOSE and got some really good advice, but there’s nae revenue or no money or no grants.” Will that balance of direct support through advice and grants tilt towards advice? Will the grants get progressively smaller next year as a result of those budget cuts?

I will pose a similar question to Stuart Black and Nick Kenton. Stuart, you mentioned a 5 per cent reduction in revenue and a 10 per cent fall in capital. Specifically, what will you not do next year that you would like do?

I absolutely take on board the point about advice. I have spoken to many businesses in my region that have benefited from advice and support from the agencies.

I have one final small point, though. I note that, in the submission from HIE, your target for the number of jobs to be supported next year is substantially less than the target for this year. Is that purely because of a major investment from a Japanese company? For the “Number of jobs supported” line, the target for next year is 600 to 700, whereas the target for this year was between 1,000 and 1,200.