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My question is on that point. I note that the minister pointed out that there was, I think, a 10 per cent reduction. I am going back to my school mathematics but I think that a reduction from £50 million to £12 million is a lot more than 10 per cent.

As the convener highlighted, a lot of witnesses have spoken about the need for multiyear and revenue funding from the just transition fund, because they spend so much of their time applying for the fund annually but have a short time in which to spend the money. Does the Scottish Government recognise that there are limitations to an annual funding agreement, especially if groups are restricted to capital funding? Will the Government consider that?

Together with others, he has been very vocal on that issue and, with a number of colleagues, has pushed very hard for the A9 and the A96 to be dualled. My fear is that that issue has overtaken the concern over the A77, which has been long running. It first came to my attention when, in opening the Cairnryan facility, Alex Salmond promised significant upgrades to the A77 and the A75. Subsequent transport ministers have offered the same assurances. However, STPR2 has been going for some considerable time now, and there has been very little movement at all.

As you rightly said, convener, even though the Maybole bypass was not dualled—which was a missed opportunity—it has had a significant impact on the health and wellbeing of the community there, as well as bringing inward investment, and it has changed the whole aspect of the town. That represented an investment of £29 million.

The evidence is there for everyone to see of the impact of the significant dualling and bypassing of various towns along the A77. That should be coupled with the fact that 110 44-tonne lorries come off the Cairnryan crossing every single day and travel up that route. What is not often mentioned is that also on that road is a major distillery, where 50 wagons come in and out every day. The road is a connection between Northern Ireland, the European Union, central Scotland and beyond. As everyone who has been on it or seen it will agree, it is currently not fit for purpose.

My concern is that the A77 is falling further and further down the list of priorities as other matters take over and that eventually it will be kicked to the kerb and nothing will be done about it. I therefore ask that the committee continues to consider the petition and to put pressure on the Scottish Government to maintain its promise to deliver significant upgrades to the A77.

Thank you very much, convener. Good morning. I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak again on the petitions, which have been running since I was a member of the Public Petitions Committee in the previous parliamentary session.

Since the last time we discussed the petitions, matters have moved forward in that the United Kingdom Government’s connectivity fund has indicated its desire to help with the upgrading of the A75. Initially the A77 and the A75 were taken as a group. We did not want to separate them, but that has happened, given that the A75 is a Euro route. My concern is that the A77 might be overlooked, because the A75 will now be considered in depth by the UK Government and we have a fairly hefty MSP cabal looking at the A9 and the A96. For example, I know that my colleague Fergus Ewing has been vocal in his desire to have the A9 and the A96 dualled.

There is an interesting web, if you like. We will not be refining crude in Scotland any more, so there will be a reduction in carbon production, but crude will still be refined—we will be offshoring our carbon production by refining crude somewhere else. That is the overall reality.

The main barrier to hydrogen is potentially the offtake. That was also mentioned earlier. The Scottish Government is investing in the development of green hydrogen, and has a fund for that, as does the UK. I am pleased to hear that the two Governments are starting to work closer together to develop that. The main issue is offtake. If there is no offtake, the site will not develop hydrogen.

I totally accept that the UK Government is not moving quickly enough on SAF, and that we will end up importing far too much of it, as we discussed at committee last week. However, I put it to you that the Scottish Government needs to ensure that the site at Grangemouth is utilised to its fullest extent. The level of capex to develop the facilities from scratch probably goes beyond what we would find possible. Therefore, to decarbonise, we will have to utilise the site to its fullest. What support does the Scottish Government need to provide to ensure that that happens?

Good morning, cabinet secretary. As we heard earlier, the wider impact of the closure on the decarbonisation programme is, as I would argue, the opposite. There is a carbonisation, if you like, with the offshoring of refining and the importing of the refined product into Scotland. To combat that—this follows on from Murdo Fraser’s questions—we need to develop the site. It is a major industrial hub and one of the biggest in Scotland. Ineos is already working with blue hydrogen, and the previous panel talked about potentially going into green hydrogen. We have also talked about the development of SAF. However, one of the biggest barriers to the development of hydrogen at scale is the initial capex that is required to develop the size of site that is required. The infrastructure is there, as are the skilled workers.

Something else that Ineos said this morning that came over loud and clear to me was that Government policies, decisions and support will need to move much more quickly to allow the jobs to be there for the workers who are going to lose their current jobs. You said that you are already creating jobs. I spoke to a recruitment company that is currently stripping out the oil and gas sector in the North Sea, and it is almost exclusively going abroad. We need to move more quickly on that.

What is the Scottish Government doing to ensure that we develop the site into a hydrogen hub, a SAF hub and an import hub?

I have a final small question on an issue that has been niggling away at me for some time. Did the hostility that seems to be being heaped on the oil and gas industry at the moment have any impact on the decision-making process?

Thank you.

If you were to play back an earlier part of the meeting, you would find that one of the witnesses said that they could increase capacity at Grangemouth and use that at other sites in other areas.

We are behind the curve on the development of hydrogen and offtake in this country, but we have a huge opportunity. Yes, currently, production takes place at the site and the offtake is at the site, but it was mentioned that the capability is there—with the right policies and the right support—to develop more for other areas.

Just to be clear, the blending level is around 10 per cent currently but it could go up to 20 per cent. Is that right?