Chamber and committees

I am going to go against what I said about being pressed for time and ask you to highlight those three core principles.

It is helpful to get that clear, because we were wondering whether the core principles were about poverty and climate change.

We move on to the financial resilience of local government.

It is good to hear about those behind-the-scenes processes.

I will now bring in Miles Briggs on a topic that the cabinet secretary mentioned earlier, in relation to capital.

Thank you for that detail. Questions on both those areas are coming up, so we might get into that a bit more.

I come to multiyear settlements, which have come up pretty much every year since I have been sitting in this chair—and for decades previously—and every time we have pre-budget scrutiny conversations. The aspiration to have multiyear settlements was set out in the Verity house agreement. How important is it that this year’s budget provides some indication of multiyear funding? I start with Katie Hagmann.

Pam, before you go on to your next question, I want to ask a brief question about ring fencing and teacher numbers. How do you approach the situation in more rural and island areas where, in a community that is struggling to keep its population, the closure of the primary school can become its death knell? It is almost as if we have two issues moving in different directions. On one hand, the school’s numbers are dropping, so the council wants to close or potentially mothball it, while, on the other, the community is waking up to the need to keep the school open. How do you discuss that sort of thing? If we moved away from setting teacher numbers, might that be a problem in some situations?

Did you want to come in, Emma?

That would be great.

Miles, is your question on capital investment?

Thank you for that.