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As I said at the outset, there is no doubt that meeting the 2026 target will be challenging using the measures that we can currently access. However, as the commissioner said last week, we should not be entirely hung up on the 2026 target and do things that are predicated purely on that. We ought to be looking to the longer term and things that can be embedded in the approach that will enable us to hit the 2030 target and ensure that it is part of the landscape.

It depends on what we can do on the data-sharing issues and how quickly we can launch some of the measures but, realistically, 2026 is challenging. However, I believe—in fact, I am certain—that the mindset of everyone who is involved is to be absolutely focused on attempting to meet that target and that, beyond that, they are 100 per cent focused on delivering the 2030 target.

As I said at the outset, our job is to assist the institutions and to give them the tools that they need to achieve that target. I cannot stress enough the constructive way in which everyone is working to that end.

We are about to move on that once we get a formal letter. I will write to you and advise on that. It could be done pretty quickly. I do not think that it will become onerous and require structures to be put in place.

Of late, I have been doing a lot of work to engage with other Governments and countries in relation to international students as we look to derisk the situation and attract students from other countries, which is not easy, given the circumstances. We have been exploring what the perceived impediments are with them. Housing and accommodation come up quite a lot.

I met a group of students last week at Edinburgh Napier University who were talking about the difficulty in finding accommodation. Having said all the positive stuff that I have said about universities today, I think that there is something there. Universities are looking to attract students, whether they are international or indigenous, but in doing so they are perhaps blind, to an extent, to the ask that then falls on the student around accommodation. The other day, I heard about international students who face particular challenges with regard to deposits on properties, with landlords looking for additional deposits.

There is quite a lot in that space. Universities deal with that. The purpose-built student accommodation review steering group made a number of recommendations. I am not directly involved in that group, but I am very alive to the issue.

I am guessing that the student from Angus is not a constituent of mine, or I would have heard of that case by now. That is a pretty extreme example, but the problem exists, particularly for some of our smaller institutions that do not have a lot of student accommodation, if they have any at all. There is therefore an expectation that the students find somewhere to live in areas where it is really difficult to get accommodation.

I am not going to sit here today and say that we have a magic wand with which to address the issue, but I am very much alive to it, because universities have a bit of responsibility in that space. You are right about widening access. The challenges that widening access students might face are more acute. We have been encouraging universities and colleges to work more closely with local authorities on the options

If it is okay, I will add the issue to the agenda for the next widening access forum so that we can have a discussion with the universities about that particular challenge.

There is, I believe, a university court meeting next week, and we anticipate that engagement internal to the university—and very initial—on the shape of the recovery will begin next week. You will appreciate that, as I said last week in the chamber, the SFC will, alongside that, have sight of the draft proposal and will be feeding into that and any future iterations of it. That will give the SFC a fuller understanding of the issue as well as the ability to influence and encourage the university in the direction of ensuring that, whatever the direction of travel might be, it returns the university to a sustainable footing.

The challenge here is that this is an individual and autonomous institution, and it is not for ministers to comment directly on its activities. What I think requires to happen is an open and frank dialogue with the staff and the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ who represent the area that the University of Dundee is in. There has been dialogue with both up until now, but it has not been as open and detailed as all those parties would have looked for, perhaps for understandable reasons. From next week onwards, we need to see a much more open dialogue. The convener, who has asked some questions today, has alluded to this, but if there are questions for the Government on this, we are here to answer them.

As I have said, the figure of £15 million reflects an underspend that was available under financial transactions. The SFC budget was increased to that level to give it the flexibility to respond to the situation. It was not a figure that was plucked out of thin air, which I think is what you are alluding to—it was entirely linked to the amount of financial transactions that were available.

I am not aware of a costing, and I have not sought one, because I am not looking that far down the road. At the moment, I am looking at whether we can implement it. However, I am happy to look into that and write to the committee on it.

Right now, we are not clear on the scale of the challenge at, for example, the University of Dundee. On the wider point, we are aware of action that is being taken by individual institutions to address some of their challenges.

We can sit here and bandy around views as to how that has come about. We can talk about international student recruitment and the policies of the previous UK Government; we can talk about the level of teaching funding that has been provided by the Scottish Government; and we can talk about employer national insurance contributions, energy bills and so on. There are a number of contributory factors, but for a number of our institutions, the simple fact of the matter is that they grew rapidly on the back of significant increases in international student recruitment, which, for whatever reason—I suspect that we do not want to get into that today—contracted. They are finding themselves with nothing like the income that they had, but with the same cost base, and they are taking action to address that.

I recognise that that can be painful in some instances, with job losses, but that is how they are acting. We have never said—and I have certainly never said—that the £15 million was deemed to be a solution to all of this. It was never presented as that.

Which of my colleagues should I drop in it, do you mean?

The SFC will set the criteria for the use of that funding. It is not a fund; it is funding, and it is at the SFC’s disposal. I anticipate that the SFC would allocate any funding based on need, and I suggest to you, based on the evidence that we are all aware of, that the University of Dundee has needs that are substantially greater than those of any other institution.