Chamber and committees

Why did the Scottish Government opt for a four-year implementation period, despite there being evidence that the chemical was having poor effects on the environment?

Looking at the shorter term—I hate the term “challenge”—but how much of a challenge will it be to address the funding pressures in the 2025-26 budget cycle?

As a matter of interest, what are the interest rates on the resource borrowing and so on? Do we have figures for that?

So there is no, say, three-month period in which the rate is fixed—it is literally borrowing by borrowing. It is different in that way.

It seems to me that it should be possible to link borrowing to either one project or multiple projects, because there must be some correlation between what you are borrowing and what you are spending it on.

Indeed. Private finance initiative projects that will mature over the next year or two could carry a certain amount of capital costs, depending on which options are taken under the agreement. They could be quite substantial, and it would be good to be able to see them coming down the line.

Is there any sign of a link between the increased borrowing and the decrease in availability of financial transactions?

You touched on the UK budget. There are still many uncertainties over how that will work when it comes to how much we will get at the end of the day—or how much will be taken away after it has been given to us. Is there any indication that it will alleviate some of the pressures, or will it simply be absorbed by pay rises that will not contribute to public services?

In response to Jamie Greene’s question, you talked briefly about how the decisions of the Scottish Government to balance the budget feed into policy priorities, and how that is evidenced. If I remember correctly, you said that there is no evidence as to whether that is happening. How will the Government handle the issue? Clearly, there will be budget pressures right across the board, no matter what the UK budget contributes. Is the Government aware of that, and will it work out how to align those cuts?

In response to a question from Jamie Greene, you spoke about Government borrowing, including the extent to which the Government can borrow and has borrowed. I am more concerned about the financial pressure of repayments and interest payments. In 2023-24, the total for loan repayments was going to be £217 million, which compares with £160 million in 2022-23. If I am interpreting those figures correctly, they are just for the loan repayments and not for the interest—no, I see that, in fact, they include the interest as well as the loan repayments. That is quite a big increase—£57 million. Although it is not much as a percentage of the whole budget, it adds to the pressures that the Government is under. How affordable is it to fund resource expenditure in particular from borrowing?