I thank the minister for the advance copy of his statement. I am glad that he began by recognising some significant—indeed, world-class—successes of Scotland's economic development strategy, such as the proof of concept fund. I was intrigued when he said that some of the recent criticism of Scottish Enterprise was justified, while some of it was not. I wondered whose criticism he thought was justified and whose was not. I presume that his own criticism falls into the first category, but I wonder whether Mr Neil's criticisms, for example, fall into the other category.

Today Mr Swinney came to the Parliament not to praise Scottish Enterprise but to bury it—or, at least, to dismember it radically—or so we had been led to believe. The Scottish National Party manifesto said clearly:

"We will ... consult on proposals to transfer responsibility for local enterprise delivery to existing local authority Economic Development Departments."

The Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism confirmed what that meant when he said to the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee:

"We have a strong aspiration for the LECs to be merged with local government."—[Official Report, Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, 27 June 2007; c 16-17.]

What, then, is the cabinet secretary's reasoning for moving away from that commitment and aspiration? Does he really consider a single meeting of 100 stakeholders to be a complete, rounded and comprehensive consultation on such an important issue? What consultation has been undertaken with stakeholders in the tourism industry, given that the cabinet secretary has announced today a change to the operation of VisitScotland, as part of the centralisation of the enterprise network into regions? Finally, what are the Government's plans for inward investment and Scottish Development International, which is a joint venture between the Executive and Scottish Enterprise that is responsible for Scotland leading the United Kingdom in inward investment, especially in research and development projects?