Chamber and committees

Anyone who has read the latest issue of Private Eye will have seen the comments about the alleged shenanigans going on in Teesside, where a freeport is being developed. One of the issues about displacement is that, if there was not a freeport in Leith, perhaps there would be displacement to Teesside. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why Leith was considered as a location.

Let me turn back to David Melhuish. You raised concern about forward funding arrangements. Could you elaborate a wee bit on that?

I will open it up to colleagues around the table, but I have a final question for Derek Thomson and Liz Cairns. You said in response to question 3 that

“Unite would argue that there is a deliberate lack of clarity on whether trade unions will be able to access and organise workers operating within the zones, and to bargain with employers over pay, terms and conditions.”

Who do you think is responsible for that lack of clarity?

I call Jamie Halcro Johnston.

Thank you very much. That concludes questions from the committee. Are our witnesses happy to make any further points to the committee on something that has not been covered? If you feel that we have not asked anything that you would like to mention, now is your chance.

Thank you very much for those final points, which are much appreciated, and for taking the time to give evidence to the committee. We will continue to take evidence on the draft order next week when we will hear from the Minister for Community Wealth and Public Finance and take a decision on whether we ought to approve the order.

That concludes the public part of today’s meeting. The next item on our agenda is consideration of our work programme.

Business might move but, with less than 4 per cent unemployment in Scotland, why would workers move to an area if their wages were to go lower? Would they not just get a job somewhere else? Surely, 75,000 people will not move into those zones to get lower wages. It is not really credible that people will move to accept lower wages in an economy where there already are chronic labour and skills shortages, is it?

That assumes 100 per cent displacement, however, and I thought that the whole point of the green ports was to create new, additional jobs.

A quick wee calculation off the top of my head tells me that, if there are 18,000 top-rate taxpayers, they each pay an average of just under £140,000 a year. That is a very interesting section of the tax-paying public indeed.

You say in paragraph 26 in annex A of the report:

“The variation in tax revenue generated by the highest earners is likely to continue to be a source of significant uncertainty and forecast error, with very limited data available on this group. In the future, HMRC’s MTD project may improve the situation.”

You then say:

“To continue to improve our forecasts, we will focus on better understanding what determines changes in tax revenues of the highest earners.”

That brings us back to page 3, where you mention “points for improvement”. I take it that that is one of the areas that you are talking about in that respect. What specifically will you be able to do, given the paucity of data with which to improve forecasting in this volatile area?

Derek, you talk in your submission about some 75,000 jobs. I have to be honest and say that the numbers seem quite fantastical to me. What are your concerns regarding displacement? When previous Governments have introduced enterprise zones, there have been concerns that they have simply moved jobs from one part of the country to another part. Obviously, that is particularly acute in areas that border such zones, including, in this case, green freeports.