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No, not as far as I am aware. I think that you were in government during most of that time, Fergus, so you would be aware of any decisions taken there. You will remember as well as I do some of the difficult discussions that we had around the Cabinet table about budgets; as is the nature of budgetary processes, we had to balance the competing priorities. At different times, different projects will have greater immediate priority than others, but it is always about trying to balance and achieve the objectives that we have set.

That is an excellent observation. I know that we are talking about the A9, but that point is one of the things that is quite difficult conceptually for people to get their heads round, including people in Government at the time, but also very real across a whole range of issues. In the national health service, for example, the period in which elective treatment was shut down had a significant multiplier effect in terms of what it takes to recover that position.

On everything else, including the A9 project, it takes more time to catch up with such things than the period of the pause, for a variety of reasons. It is not that people are sitting round and not trying to get back on top of things; it is just the way that such things work. On a whole range of things and in many walks of life, the recovery period from the Covid experience will be much longer than the two years-plus of Covid.

Again, I am happy to set that out in more detail. My written submission covered the period when I was the Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities, not First Minister. I am not asking for more requests for information but, if it would be helpful to set a bit more of that down in writing, I will do that for the committee.

In summary, as First Minister, you have an overview. The day-to-day responsibility for making sure that things are being done as they should be on any project, as is the case on the A9 project, is with the relevant cabinet secretary. As First Minister, although I was not copied into everything, I was copied into significant briefings or submissions on things, and I would ask questions and get more involved in periods when I thought that there was a need for it. That is how these things generally work.

The A9 would have featured from time to time in Cabinet discussions—Fergus Ewing quoted from a Cabinet minute a wee while ago—and, at particular moments, the cabinet secretary would have brought things to Cabinet. I do not have all the papers in front of me, so I cannot say exactly when that would have happened with the A9, but I would be happy to provide more information on that if it is appropriate.

I will answer the question quite carefully and seriously, because people will have heard me during my time as First Minister readily apologise for things that I think merit an apology. I also think it is important not to reduce the value of an apology by saying these things simply to get out of a tight spot. I am sorry that we will not have dualled the A9 by 2025. I regret that, and I think that people in the Highlands have every right to feel the way that they do about it, not just because the target was set and not met, but because the nature of the project and the reasons for making the commitment to dualling the A9 were so serious and involved safety. The loss of life on the A9 is a matter of deep regret for everybody. I think that those feelings are justified.

I want to be clear, though, that I do not accept that we failed to meet that target because we just did not bother and we were not trying to meet it. The 2025 target was set for the right reasons and we were committed to it. I was Deputy First Minister at the time that the target was set by Government, so I am not trying to escape responsibility. Then, I had no direct involvement in the A9. However, when I look at it now, I would ask myself whether we were as candid as we should have been with ourselves, as well as with the public, about just how challenging it would always have been to meet the target, even with the fairest of winds.

My second point, which I have made already, is that a number of things happened subsequently that were not foreseen or even, in some cases, foreseeable, which meant that it was even more difficult to meet the target. I will be careful in what I say here: I am not sitting here saying that I am sorry that we messed up because we just did not bother trying to do this. I am sorry that a whole range of circumstances, many of which were beyond our control, meant that we were not able to deliver on that target.

I absolutely understand the feelings of people in the Highlands about that. I am no longer in government, but that is why I think it is now so important that the project is completed according to the revised timescales that have been set.

I think it can be squared pretty easily, actually, drawing on what I have just said. I do not know how many of the papers you would have seen personally at the time, but at that point, we were not in a position where we had decided whether we would definitely use private finance, because we did not have a clear private finance route, or opt for publicly funded straight capital provision.

The situation at that point was that, had we gone down a private finance route, the 2025 target would not have been capable of being met, but we had not closed the door to the design build capital funded option. If memory serves me correctly, it was only at the end of 2022 or thereabouts that it became clear that there was no route to a 2025 target being met. With any kind of target, as you get closer to it, there is a diminishing prospect of it being met, but, until that point, there was, at least in theory, a route to meeting the 2025 target. That closed off around the end of 2022 or 2023. Clearly, there were other factors at play around then as well.

Let me try to answer that as best I can, perhaps in a general sense. On any particular points, I am more than happy to look at the paperwork after this meeting and come back with specific answers in writing, if that would be helpful to the committee.

I will say two things in general. First, it is not the case that the issues with the A9 were down to the Greens’ involvement in the Government. People can read the Bute house agreement for themselves to see that the commitment to the A9 was not affected by that agreement. As First Minister during that time, I can say that that was not the case.

With the caveat that I will look again to see whether I can throw some light on other issues, my second point is that we are talking about a period when our revenue and capital budgets were under significant and growing pressure. Members of the Parliament have heard statements that various finance secretaries have made during recent times about the need for savings and the need to reprioritise. We all know the reasons for that. The overarching reason is the funding challenges that we have been confronted with in relation to the on-going work to try to find ways to make progress on sections of the road through either direct capital or a private finance model. In my view, the funding challenges are the overarching reason. However, as I said, I am happy to go away to see whether there are further comments that might be helpful.

I will do my best to respond to that question and, in the course of today’s session, to answer questions as fully as I can.

My starting point is to agree with your starting point: I do not think there is any smoking gun or anything deeply sinister for the committee to uncover. Clearly this is from my perspective, but I do not agree that there was a diminution of focus and drive behind the A9 project. During my time as First Minister, the two sections of dualling that have now been completed were completed, and there was, and there continues to be, an incredible amount of work to progress things.

In preparing for this session, I have had the opportunity to go back and read all the relevant paperwork—I thought that I had left behind reading Government papers when I stood down from Government. When the 2025 target was set back in 2011, we were absolutely committed to it, in good faith. The question in my mind now—this will undoubtedly also be a question in the committee’s mind—is whether there was sufficient rigour and openness about just how challenging a target it was. When I look at it now, it is clear that, for the target to have been met, we would have to have had a fair wind on every aspect of the project that we were embarking on. Of course, we did not have a fair wind on every aspect of it. I have no doubt that we will come on to some of the issues, but, for example, the 2014 change of classification of the non-profit distributing model, austerity, Brexit and the pandemic all had an impact.

We encountered a situation of great complexity. We talk about the A9 being a single project, but it is actually 11 major projects in one. A lot of effort went into some of the preparatory stages. One example is public consultation. I do not want to sound as though I am underplaying the challenges, but I think that one of the achievements is that, unlike the situation with the Aberdeen bypass, we have not ended up getting caught up in endless legal processes through challenges and public inquiries.

That is my observation. With any such project that has not been delivered in the timescale that was initially set, it would be appropriate to look back, at an appropriate time—this committee’s deliberations will be part of that process—to see whether there were stages or points at which things could have gone quicker than they did. However, I think that we have progressed the A9 with drive and determination; it is simply that we have encountered significant challenges along the way. Although some of those challenges were foreseeable in a project of such a scale, many of the others that were encountered were not foreseeable at the time that the 2025 target was set.

I think that my reputation—it is for others to decide whether this is accurate—is that I was possibly more of a hands-on micromanager than my predecessor.

I have already made both the points that I would make in response to that question, so you will forgive me if I repeat myself.

First, until that point, the advice to Government was that there was a viable route to 2025. That was the advice, but that viable route depended on capital provision being made available, which was a significant challenge. It is not the case that we were, as you say, just being dishonest.

My second point is one that I made in my first answer to the convener. When I look back on that period, I think that we should perhaps have been airing this more publicly. I certainly think that that is a reasonable question to pose, but if we were guilty of anything at that point, it was of trying our hardest to find the route to 2025, and—I am happy to concede—perhaps taking too long to accept that that was not possible. If that is the case, it happened for the best of reasons.

My condolences and heart go out to every single person who has lost someone on the A9 or who knows someone in that position. The dualling of the A9 has been a priority for the Scottish Government. It has encountered significant challenges; it was always going to, but there were some additional ones. I do not believe that we are sitting here today because Government did not give the issue enough priority, but there is absolutely no doubt that priority must be attached to it until the commitment is met. To go back to Fergus Ewing’s question, I am absolutely of the view that the Government has an obligation to ensure that the revised timetable is now met—and met in full.

I will just leave that there.

Where he is absolutely right is that, in the period around the financial crash and after that, infrastructure was a central priority of the Government. Infrastructure is always a priority of the Government but, in terms of the economic situation that we were facing, trying to drive economic activity through infrastructure projects was absolutely a central focus, and Alex was absolutely pushing that.

As I say, I think that my reputation is probably that I was more of a hands-on micromanager than my predecessor was. I would be involved in issues that needed to be resolved or pushed on. Cabinet secretaries would come to me and I would go to cabinet secretaries where there were issues or where I thought that things were not moving fast enough. That is the nature of how Government works on a day-to-day basis.