Chamber and committees

I will move on, because colleagues want to come in. In paragraph 144 of our report, we requested

“an update on when the Scottish Government will seek to schedule a parliamentary debate”

on the long-term sustainability of Scotland’s finances. The response says:

“The Scottish Government continues to support a debate ... on the long-term sustainability of Scotland’s finances as confirmed by the Deputy First Minister on 3 October 2023.”

That was five months ago, but we still do not have a scheduled date.

Let us be honest—some of the debates that we have had in the chamber have not exactly been thrillers. I have been in the chamber many times when the Presiding Officer has said, “I will allow the member a very generous six minutes,” because there is no great enthusiasm to speak. Debates that could last an hour are being extended to two hours and 20 minutes or whatever, whereas debates such as the one that we have requested, which are important, are not being scheduled.

There is a lot more to cover, but we have a full house, so I will open up the discussion to colleagues.

Our second agenda item is to consider the Budget (Scotland) (No 3) Bill at stage 2. There are no amendments but, under standing orders, we are obliged to consider each section and schedule of the bill and the long title and to agree to each formally.

We will take the sections in order, with schedules being taken immediately after the section that introduces them and the long title last. Fortunately, standing orders allow us to put a single question where groups of sections or schedules are to be considered consecutively and, unless members disagree, that is what I propose to do.

Section 1 agreed to.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

Section 2 agreed to.

Schedule 2 agreed to.

Section 3 agreed to.

Schedule 3 agreed to.

Sections 4 to 11 agreed to.

Long title agreed to.

Welcome to the eighth meeting in 2024 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. We will consider the Budget (Scotland) (No 3) Bill at stage 2 today. However, before moving to our formal proceedings, we will take evidence on the Scottish Government’s response to the committee’s report “Budget Scrutiny 2024-25”.

We are joined by Shona Robison, the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance. The cabinet secretary is accompanied by Scottish Government officials Dr Alison Cumming, who is the director for budget and public spending; Ian Storrie, who is the head of local government finance; and Lorraine King, who is the deputy director of the tax and revenues directorate. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting.

Last Friday, members received copies of the Scottish Government’s response to our report. Before we move to questions from the committee, I invite the cabinet secretary to make a short opening statement.

That leads me on to something that I was not going to ask about, because other colleagues will probably want to come in on it. You have talked about whether reliefs will be retained in England. A lot of people have asked about whether the council tax freeze will be baselined into the local government settlement. Will that be the case?

That would be very welcome, and the sooner it could be introduced, the better.

Enterprise is obviously an issue. If one were to read the response without actually looking at the budget, one would think that everything was pretty hunky-dory in terms of the Government prioritising enterprise. However, what is said in the response is not really reflected in the budget figures. For example, in response to paragraph 102, you said:

“we have prioritised funding for the enterprise agencies to the extent possible given the extremely challenging settlement.”

You said “to the extent possible”, but I am looking at a 15 per cent reduction, which is pretty harsh. If we look at the overall settlement, the Scottish Government’s budget has not been reduced by that. The committee is of the view that we need a widening and growing tax base, which you refer to in other areas of your report. It seems to me and colleagues that 15 per cent is a pretty severe cut at such a time.

Thank you for that.

In paragraph 95 of our report, we raised concerns about the affordability and sustainability of the social security budget, which is growing inexorably. I am not making any comment as to whether that is a good thing or a bad thing; I am just looking at the finances. One thing leapt out at me in your response. You said that

“the Scottish Government will ensure that there is budget cover within the overall Scottish Budget envelope”

to cover social security. Is the Government saying that the social security budget is sacrosanct in that, regardless of how demand grows—or reduces—the Scottish Government will meet it?

Flexibility is, therefore, important. One of the things that the local authorities in my constituency raise with me directly is inflexibility in teacher numbers. We know some of the politics behind that, but North Ayrshire Council has 1,000 fewer pupils than it had four years ago and now has a ratio of one teacher to 12 children. It says that it is madness to spend additional money on new teachers when it already has more than enough teachers. It would rather spend the money on educational psychologists, support staff and so on, which it cannot afford to do because it is forced to spend the money on teachers.

That issue is also affecting other local authorities across Scotland. The money may be ring fenced for education, but local authorities should surely have the flexibility to decide the appropriate way to spend it locally.

RSPB Scotland has around 80,000 hectares of land, much of which has agriculture activities on it. It has said that, historically, the CAP performed poorly

“in terms of directing spend appropriately and offering best value for public money”.

It has said that, if we take the bill forward, we should look at cost benefits, that there have not been any alternative approaches, and that it has

“seen nothing from Scottish Government that suggests such cost-benefit analysis of a range of reform options has ever been undertaken.”

As I have mentioned a couple of times, it looks like a steady-as-she-goes financial memorandum, rather than an opportunity to make significant changes and to look at where we get the best value for money. What work is being undertaken to ensure that we get the best bang for our agricultural buck, given the commitments that we need to fulfil in the years ahead, not least with regard to the climate?

I appreciate that, but this seems to be a case of “steady as she goes”. Is there no thought about how those administration costs could be reduced so that more money could be invested directly in agriculture itself or in innovation for climate change reduction? It seems to me that there is an excellent opportunity to make changes to reduce bureaucracy and to improve efficiency and delivery. I am a bit disappointed that we are just keeping the money the same and that there seems to be no ambition to reduce that by even 5, 10, 15 or 20 per cent. The overall budget for the next financial year has a 4.5 per cent reduction, but there seems to be no consideration here of a reduction in admin costs.