I was on the floor of the House of Commons on Wednesday to witness the Chancellor deliver his Budget, hoping to hear measures that would support investment, jobs and economic growth in North-east Scotland.
Instead, we were left trying to establish whether the UK Government had just pulled the rug from under one of our region's most important energy transition projects.
Following the Chamber's statement expressing our anger at the apparent withdrawal of grant funding for Acorn, I received calls from Martin McCluskey at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and Melanie Ward at the Scotland Office.
Both were adamant that the government was not walking away from Acorn. The funding, they insisted, remained available. What had changed was the mechanism: instead of a £200million grant, support would now come through loans or equity investment to move the project towards a final investment decision.
That distinction matters. But so does the fact that Acorn appears to be the only UK carbon capture project facing such a change in its funding arrangements.
When I challenged both ministers on what this meant for North-east Scotland's supposedly just energy transition, I was repeatedly reminded that the government had approved Jackdaw last week.
Jackdaw was a welcome and overdue decision. But approving one project does not absolve ministers of their responsibility to deliver the wider investment programme our region has been promised.
And the timing could scarcely be more significant, coming just 24 hours after the Scottish Government gave the green light to the new Peterhead power station, a development closely linked to the future of carbon capture in the region.
Meanwhile, the confusion within government was laid bare when Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander appeared to offer a rather different assessment of Acorn's prospects.
He spoke of “significant challenges” around the technology's market readiness and commercial arrangements, suggesting that ministers had reached “important judgments” about the project.
So which is it? Is Acorn a strategic national priority with £200million of government backing still in place, or a project whose future is now being openly questioned by the Scottish Secretary?
Businesses cannot invest, recruit and plan for the future against a backdrop of contradictory messages from different parts of government.
I made clear to both Martin and Melanie that the Chamber would far rather work constructively with ministers to get the Scottish Cluster moving than spend our time publicly highlighting policy failures.
Both agreed to meet with us to take that discussion forward, and we will hold them to that commitment.
But the wider point remains. North-east Scotland cannot deliver a just energy transition on warm words, shifting funding arrangements and occasional project approvals.
We need clarity, consistency and, above all, decisions that unlock investment.
After everything this region has contributed to the UK's energy and economic security, that really should not be too much to ask.