Chamber and committees

The point remains that it is clearly an advantage for first-time buyers if their competitors basically have less money to compete with them.

I realise that you do not want to stray beyond your remit, but a lot of constituents who are in the private rented sector and definitely do not want to be in it come to me. They are there because it is the last resort for them. They cannot get an RSL house and they cannot afford to buy. Anything that moves the balance a little bit towards the first-time buyer and away from the private rented sector, even if it is only 2 per cent, has to be a good thing for my constituents.

We have covered quite a lot of ground already, but I will just go over one or two points again. To take some figures as an example, if a second home buyer or somebody who intends to buy to let has a budget of, say, £104,000, at present that would be £100,000 for the property and £4,000 for tax. If we put the tax up to 6 per cent, that would mean that that person has only £98,000 to pay for the property and £6,000 for tax, roughly. Therefore, the house price comes down by £2,000 and competitors, such as first-time buyers, will be advantaged because they will have to beat a lower figure to get the property. It seems obvious to me that this will benefit first-time buyers. Is my logic roughly correct?

On another angle, we asked where the money should come from otherwise to make up the difference—I think that it was £34 million—and one or two of the people who responded to us broadly said, “That is nothing to do with us.” How do you respond to somebody like that?

When I was younger, it was almost assumed that, if a person had a reasonably decent job, they would try to buy a flat and perhaps then a house. That was quite normal. However, I am afraid that that has changed. There are various reasons for that. As Ross Greer said, one is that people from cities who want to be second-home owners can go to rural areas—for example, those from Glasgow can go to Fife—and outbid local workers who are not on a great salary. In cities, the problem is that young people cannot compete with people who are buying to let, so anything that we can do to redress that balance and help younger people who are struggling to get on to the housing ladder has to be positive. This is only a small change—we are talking about 2 per cent, which is not a big deal in many ways.

That is positive. It is good if MSPs keep in mind that, if we save a bit of money in our staffing budgets, that money is available to be put into the national health service or something else.

Are you looking at another emergency budget review before the end of the year?

You mentioned the UK Government. If it ends up settling with health workers for more than it is currently offering, that will mean a knock-on benefit for us—is that right?

That clarifies the matter—thank you.

On income tax specifically, I know that Liz Smith and the Conservatives would like to have no tax, or very little tax, but you are proposing an increase of 1p; other people would say that you should put it up by 2p or 3p, which would give us just a little bit more money. Can you explain why you chose 1p rather than more or less?

Have you considered, or would you consider, a more radical change, so that instead of just a 1p or 2p increase, we look at having more bands—for example, 21 per cent, 31 per cent, 41 per cent and 51 per cent—instead of the current jump from 21 per cent to 41 per cent?