Chamber and committees

I am sorry, Diane. You were cut off in mid-flow.

Okay. John Mason, can you remind us what you were asking about?

I will suspend the meeting.

I am pleased to hear that.

The first colleague to ask questions will be our deputy convener, Daniel Johnson, to be followed by Michelle Thomson.

In your presentation, you touched on the long-term insights briefing, which you said is produced at least once every three years. One of the key points of that is that the public can contribute to future decision making, helping the country to collectively think about and plan for the future. I realise that the act was only passed in 2020, and we have had the pandemic since then, but is there any evidence or are there any signs that that has transpired or is starting to happen?

I will ask only one more question, then I will open out the session to colleagues round the table. On Sunday, a book called “How Westminster Works ... and Why It Doesn’t” by a man called Ian Dunt was reviewed in The Sunday Times. It was interesting that the review talked about a technique that the civil service at Westminster has called boxing-in. That is a situation in which, allegedly, civil servants give ministers four or five options, all but one of which are completely bonkers, and one of which is sensible, in order to try and channel the minister into taking a particular decision. The article pointed out that Liz Truss broke that technique when she was Prime Minister by always going for one of the mad options. Generally speaking, it is a serious issue, because it means that ministers are corralled in certain directions. Does that take place in New Zealand? Do you have experience of that?

The overall story is critical, because it is quite clear that Governments need to look very seriously at what is likely to happen. One of the things that grabbed my attention was the fact that, over 50 years, we are looking at a 72 per cent increase in output but a 218 per cent increase in health expenditure. The good news is that we are all going to live longer, but the bad news is that it will be a lot more expensive to treat us because of new and more expensive treatments, the introduction of technology and so on. Governments north and south of the border have to take serious cognisance of those developments.

In the report, there is a very interesting graph that shows that there will be divergence in population numbers. Figure 2.4 shows that, over 25 years, there will be a 31 per cent increase in Midlothian’s population but a 16.2 per cent decrease in Inverclyde’s population. You say quite clearly that you did not look at population numbers by local authority, but it is interesting that National Records of Scotland is predicting a 2.5 per cent increase in the population over that period, whereas the SFC is predicting a 0.5 per cent increase. That is obviously a difference of more than 100,000 people across Scotland. Can you explain why there is a significant difference in the figures that have been produced by the SFC and National Records of Scotland?

Yes, indeed.

In your submission, you said that net in-migration of 19,000 a year is not that significant, but if only 48,000 babies are being born, that figure would be quite significant—it would be about 27 or 28 per cent of the total. The net figure for the number of people who left Scotland in the 50 years before devolution was 2 million, but we had a much higher birth rate then. That is why the population remained static. It is only because the birth rate has fallen so significantly that we have this situation. If we still had the out-migration that we had then, we would be in real bother.

At paragraph 5.14 of the report, you say:

“The bulk of the sustainability risk is with the UK Government”.

At paragraph 5.15, you say that, in that scenario,

“the UK Government would have a deficit in its primary balance for almost all years of the projection. The deficit would gradually grow, reaching 11 per cent of GDP by 2071-72.”

The UK Government will clearly have to take corrective action, which will obviously impact on Scotland.

James Black, the Scottish Government interacts with a lot of organisations outside the Scottish Parliament. From speaking to a former minister, I understand that there is a sense of great weariness among some of those organisations that they are consulted almost to death but do not necessarily see the Government taking forward what they want within the timeframe they are asking for. That weariness perhaps comes from feeling a lack of real participation. Is that something that you have found? How can it be improved?