2. To ask the Scottish Government whether it consulted Elon Musk as part of its R100 programme. (S6O-02641)

I have never spoken personally to Elon Musk. Maybe that will happen one day. Who knows?

Starlink, which is a subsidiary of SpaceX, which was founded by Elon Musk, was one of the many companies that we engaged with when preparing to launch our reaching 100 per cent Scottish broadband voucher scheme. However, at that time, it chose not to register. We have, however, continued dialogue with Starlink and other providers, and all parts of Scotland are now capable of accessing a low earth orbit satellite broadband connection commercially.

That confirms that the Scottish National Party Government is dependent on the controversial American billionaire and his low earth orbit satellites to deliver its manifesto promise on R100.

The truth is that the R100 programme is still going, when it was supposed to have been completed two years ago. The Government itself admits that thousands of people will not benefit from R100 until 2028. Is the Minister not even just a little bit embarrassed that he is now using Elon Musk as his latest excuse for failing to deliver the SNP R100 programme on time?

I am not sure whether members noticed, but it was Mr Rennie who raised Elon Musk—not me, as the Minister responsible for connectivity in Scotland. I was simply answering his question.

I can say that access to superfast broadband in Scotland has increased by 46.8 percentage points in the past 10 years. That compares with 29.8 percentage points across the rest of the United Kingdom in the same period. We are making really good progress in Scotland, which also benefits Mr Rennie’s Constituency. Of the 30,680 premises in North East Fife that have benefited, 28,368 are capable of accessing speeds of 24 megabits per second and above. The R100 project is also rolling out to most of Scotland.

We are, in order to understand what it will mean for Scotland, also speaking to the UK Government about the £8 million that it has announced will be invested in satellite connections.

Despite telecommunications legislation being wholly reserved to Westminster, the Scottish Government has made more than £600 million-worth of investments through the R100 contracts. Can the Minister provide an update on engagements with the United Kingdom Government to extend Gigabit Networks to Scotland’s rural communities, given that telecoms are the UK Government’s constitutional responsibility?

The Scottish Government continues to work closely with the UK Government to prepare for project gigabit activity in Scotland, which will, of course, offer even faster connections. That has the potential to build on the transformational impact of R100 and continued commercial activity.

Of course, we continue to urge the UK Government to be more flexible in its approach to funding for project gigabit and to ensure that sufficient funding is available to deliver across Scotland, where many of the connection costs can be higher than is the case in other parts of the UK.

In September and October this year, the Scottish Government and Building Digital UK carried out a pre-procurement market-engagement exercise with broadband infrastructure suppliers to gauge the level of market interest in bidding for new gigabit-capable broadband contracts in Scotland.