Speeches by Kane.

“Scotland produces world-class potatoes, which are supplied to our iconic fish and chip shops, such as the Real Food Café and the Green Welly Stop in Tyndrum, Vincenzo’s Fish and Chips in Stirling—its fish supper won an award last year—and Corrieri’s in Causewayhead; Robert and Peter Corrieri will retire this year after…”

“T6. Given the recent decline in the number of international students coming to the UK, what measures is the Minister taking, along with colleagues from other Departments, to ensure that universities such as Stirling, which have long benefited from diverse international student populations, remain attractive and accessi…”

“It seems to me that you are using this 2039 as this is when you want it finished. I think that it was the tolerance level for the infrastructure. It feels to me that you are using 2039 as the date that you are aiming for and then you are working back and saying that this is how much—I think that it was 130 cubic metres…”

“I think that the line in the report is “strategic tolerance”. I suppose, to finish that answer, we probably need a better understanding of what strategic tolerance means in this instance.”

“To square the circle, I would hope that that sophistication you have on the frontline also extends to a sophisticated approach to those who are interrogating the targets. Possibly there was a disconnect in the sophistication that goes across those who are scrutinising and those who are actually taking out. Going to my …”

“I would agree with that. It is absolutely right to say that, if you paused at this point, you could say that that is the right decision, but the lesson learned would be then looking back at the beginning of the decision to see what was or was not right then. It is not about criticising the current decision, but about a…”

“It is motivation, so it is an arbitrary target. I do not mean this in a negative way. I am just trying to understand the value of it.”

“I have a final point before I hand back to the Chair. When you say things like that, given your comment at the beginning about this being so dangerous, and when you set targets such as that and give them to us at a Committee level, we start to put a value on these things, because of the way that we are evaluating the r…”

“It was very interesting listening to that. I have a question for David. I am going to quote you from the PAC Report from October 2018, which said, in paragraph 3, “The NDA has not identified the lessons from project cancellations and past mistakes. The NDA has cancelled three projects since 2012 after spending £586 mil…”

“Euan and team, thank you for a very informative visit to Sellafield. It was good to see it and thank you for your candid approach when we were there. David, do you mind if I quickly go back to your opening line that you will never criticise Sellafield for missing targets, given the type of waste and the safety issues? …”

“It is an arbitrary target date rather than an engineering, structural or nuclear safety evaluation of the infrastructure.”

“Going back to that broader issue of targets that we are seeing, what is the value in setting it at all if it can change? What is the value of having a strategic tolerance date of 2039?”

“If you have named it, it must have an importance. What I have heard is that strategic tolerance seems like an important day, but you have said, “It is not really because we can change that”.”

“T8. The Minister may be aware that SSE is supporting more than 1,000 new homes in rural Scotland to aid energy infrastructure development. Does he agree that the SNP Scottish Government’s failure to get a grip on our rural housing crisis is a major barrier to infrastructure development, and will he urge SSE to expand t…”

“Tomorrow marks 29 years since 16 children and their teacher were murdered at Dunblane primary school. In recent weeks, my constituents have raised with me the alarming fact that adverts offering handguns for sale are appearing on technology platforms such as Google and YouTube. Does the Prime Minister agree that techno…”

“Can we explore that a little further? If these are critical systems, what is the barrier to doing more? I take the point that it is disproportionate to use all the resources to do assurance, but if these are critical functions, is it an issue of resource? Would you do more if you had more resource?”

“I suppose you can always get learning from the devolved nations, just as they can learn from the UK Government. As a Scottish MP, I am used to robust and ambitious targets being put in place and then not met. On the 2030 target, there is good evidence of what happens when Government Departments put in place targets tha…”

“We are talking about the public sector and we are a United Kingdom, which has devolved nations, but the cyber threat does not recognise our internal borders. How are you working across the devolved nations to get this 2030 target? Are they included? Is there good co-operation and cross-working?”

“Can I ask about the move to make the public sector resilient by 2030? I think the Committee and the NAO Report note that the Government Security Group has the implementation plan for what it is going to do, but there is no strategy implementation plan that sets out what everybody else is going to do, who needs to do wh…”

“So GovAssure is not going to ramp up in terms of the scale and pace. It is at almost a fixed pace that you are comfortable with for what it does.”