Chamber and committees

Hold on—I will ask all my questions in one, because I want to let members in. I am trying to give everybody one hit.

Secondly, your submission says:

“Fundamentally one of the core issues that must be addressed here, is appropriately resourcing funding to local authority services”.

The issue there is that, unless you mention specifics, the Scottish Government will just say, “Well, we think it is adequately resourced.” We may or may not disagree with that.

I turn to disinvestment. Age Scotland came to a previous iteration of this committee, of which I was also convener, when Callum Chomsky—or Callum Chomczuk, I should say—was in your role. He said that Age Scotland would support an increase in the age at which people get concessionary travel from 60 to 65, although John Swinney did not agree with that at the time. Does Age Scotland still support that view?

I am sure that other members will want to explore that issue further.

I will move on to Laura Mahon. Alcohol Focus Scotland also provided an excellent submission, which makes one or two suggestions that could be implemented without spending money. An obvious one in relation to prevention is increasing the unit price of alcohol. The submission talks about

“a public health supplement to non-domestic (business) rates, applied to retailers licensed to sell alcohol and linked to volume of sales”

and the

“creation of a new local public health tax that applies a levy to the sale of alcohol in the off trade”.

How do you see such policies being delivered, if they were to be implemented? How much money would they raise? Have you thought through exactly what you mean by “volume of sales”? Would it be 5p for every bottle of spirit or something per meterage? Will you explain how such policies would work, if the Scottish Government decided to take them forward?

The next item on our agenda is consideration of a note from the clerk in relation to the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament working group to improve budget information on climate change. Members have received a paper that contains background information on the group, along with a joint letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy and the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport setting out proposed next steps.

Members are invited to note the update in the letter and the fact that the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee will be taking the lead on this piece of work.

I ask the clerk whether she has anything to add to the information in the paper.

Thank you for that. Members seem to be in agreement that we note the letter.

As the next item on our agenda is consideration of a work programme paper in private, I now close the public part of the meeting.

There would obviously be an issue in respect of large and smaller retailers, but I note that you are also seeking hypothecation of that money. That is not really what we do with taxation; taxes usually go into a big pot, and then ministers decide how to spend them. There are consequentials that might go straight to the national health service, for example, because that is a political decision that tends to be made. Is it “hypothecation” that you are looking for?

I fully appreciate that, but do you produce for the Scottish Government forecasts of what specific tax levels could mean for the block grant adjustment, so that the Scottish Government has a clearer focus on what the result of a tax policy might be?

That allows me to neatly segue to your letter to the committee of 8 July, in which you indicated that the Scottish Government had started work

“to support a potential multi-year Resource Spending Review concluding in the autumn.”

Where are we with that now? Is it on schedule, and will it be informed by the fiscal framework?

I thank our witnesses very much for their very interesting presentation and for answering our questions.

I am sure that the clerks will let you have it. We only received it at 7 am this morning, so I am sorry for throwing that question at you.

First, has any progress been made on the review of the fiscal framework? There has been real difficulty in getting the UK Government around the table. Of course, we hope to have the review by the end of the year.