Chamber and committees

Sure—come in now. Don’t worry—you will still get to say your bit on tax in a couple of minutes.

We will come back to some of those things.

I am sure that Catherine Murphy would agree with that.

We will move on, because time is marching. The point that Ross Greer made is very pertinent here. If the Scottish Parliament was to agree to many of the increases in taxation, they would have to be implemented from April, because we would have to do that under the Scotland Act 1998. We face funding pressures of £1.7 billion in the current financial year. How do we deal with those pressures given the financial straitjacket that the Parliament has?

I will come back to you on that point before too long.

Before you move on to that, on what timescale would we be able to deliver such savings?

Thank you. I note that, in your submission, you have said:

“For vulnerable clients with complex needs there is simply no substitute for local, face to face advice in person from a trusted, empathetic adviser”.

Despite the push for digitalisation, I am 100 per cent in agreement with that, not least because I was a Citizens Advice volunteer way back in the 1980s.

Before I let in Catherine Murphy, I must give Liz Smith’s apologies, as she has had to leave the meeting to attend a funeral.

Thank you. Are there any other points on the issue?

Thank you. Before we move on to transparency, I will bring in Alison Douglas.

I could not agree more. I have worked in the third sector and the private sector; when I was in the private sector, there was a staff suggestion scheme—and it had almost no impact. It asked things like, “How can the company save money and do things better and better?” I suggested that the company should incentivise people so that they got a share of the savings. The company then introduced a scheme where employees could get up to 10 per cent of what they saved by doing things more efficiently; it was then absolutely inundated by suggestions, because there was a reward for the people making them. Obviously, they were not all implemented, but that incentive stuck with me.

Only two other folk have said that they want to comment on tax—David Lonsdale, again, and Clare Reid—but if anyone else wants to speak about tax, please do.

Incidentally, David, I found it curious that in your submission you said that you want to reduce

“the number of local authorities, rates assessors, quangos, and planning authorities.”

I do not want to go into all of that, but I found it bizarre that you want to reduce the number of rates assessors because there is already a chronic shortage of them. How does not having people to assess properties help?