Chamber and committees

Jackie Baillie says that she shared them again this year.

Daniel Johnson wants to come back in on that.

Amendment 1, in the name of the cabinet secretary, is grouped with amendments 2 and 3.

Yesterday, you wrote to give members an update on Covid-19 omicron business support, on which you have also answered a written question from me. In your letter, you outlined all the money that has been allocated across more than a dozen sectors—from hospitality businesses to museums, galleries and heritage and even the weddings sector. You said:

“Decisions on the allocation of the remaining funds will be confirmed shortly following analysis and consultation with affected sectors on how it can best be targeted, particularly in light of requests for funding to focus now on recovery work.”

Thank you for yesterday’s letter. When can those decisions be expected?

I think that we could have guessed that.

Welcome to the fourth meeting in 2022 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. Daniel Johnson joins us remotely and should indicate that he wishes to join the discussion by typing R into the chat function in BlueJeans.

We will consider the Budget (Scotland) Bill at stage 2. Before we turn to formal stage 2 proceedings, however, we will take evidence on the Scottish Government’s response to the report on the Scottish budget 2022-23. We are joined by Kate Forbes, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy. Ms Forbes is accompanied by Scottish Government officials Dougie McLaren, deputy director, budget, pay and pensions, and Ian Storrie, head of local government finance. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting.

Members received copies of the Scottish Government response yesterday. Before we move to questions from the committee, I invite Ms Forbes to make a short opening statement.

There is, of course, a huge, quite magnificent vacant site with a deepwater port that has good grid, road and rail connections at Hunterston, which I am sure would be excellent for manufacturing turbines

I refer you to paragraphs 67 and 68 of our report. In paragraph 67, we state that the Government

“faces challenges in managing its budget where there is a limit on the funds that can be carried forward”.

You have already touched on that in some depth. In your response to the committee’s report, you said that you

“agree with the Committee’s assessment on the challenge in balancing the Budget within a reserve limit which represents less than 2% of our funding, and which falls every year in real terms.”

Will you explain the claustrophobic impact that that has on the Scottish Government when trying to develop an effective long-term budget, given the reducing effect of that reserve because of inflation?

I will not probe any further on that. However, I am sure that I speak on behalf of colleagues around the table when I say that we will be really interested in reading the Official Report of this meeting, given the recent discussions back and forward on the £120 million.

Daniel Johnson has a question about unallocated business support.

Those are all the questions from the committee.

I have a question that follows on from those asked by Ross Greer and John Mason and from the heavy criticism that was made of the cabinet secretary’s choices during the stage 1 budget debate. During your discussions with the opposition parties, did they come forward with fully costed alternative budget proposals suggesting where budget lines should increase or decrease to fund their demands, or did they just ask for increased spending, regardless of the limitations set by the Scottish Fiscal Commission?