Chamber and committees

How would developing countries cope? They were often slow to get vaccines. Would some of them have struggled in that area?

Thank you—that is helpful. I am sure that the Government is watching this session, but we can perhaps also raise some of those points with it.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here in place of Colin Beattie. It is a privilege.

Energy has been mentioned a few times and I will spend a little bit more time on that. The witnesses and others have made the point that the energy prices, which are largely outwith the UK’s control, have gone up dramatically. That has fuelled inflation and that is damaging the economy. I wonder, and some of the public wonder, whether we are doing energy the best way that we can. As I understand it, Scotland produces five times as much gas as it uses. We are also producing a lot of renewable electricity, which is meant to be cheaper—certainly in the long run—but people are not seeing the benefit of that. Is it something inevitable that we have to accept or could we do energy differently to support the economy better?

I will start with Susan Murray.

My apologies. I realise that I am not speaking to energy experts. Neither am I an energy expert, of course.

Do the other witnesses want to comment on that?

I come to Emma Congreve. Professor Chadha touched on types of support, and that is where I will go next. What kind of support should the UK Government, or potentially the Scottish Government, give, particularly to businesses? I am getting £400, but I am ridiculously well paid, so it seems crazy for me to get that when other people are really struggling. Can you comment on the bigger picture and the local picture?

Thank you for your answer and for your suggestion that I give my £400 away—my colleagues are all pointing at me.

I will push you a little further on that issue, especially where businesses are concerned. Professor Chadha made the point that we want people to become more efficient—that is true of businesses as well—and not use energy that they do not need to use, although some do need to use a lot of energy for a variety of reasons. Do you have any thoughts about how we could target businesses to get that balance right?

My apologies for pushing you on that one. Susan Murray, would you like to come back in on where support for energy costs and so on should be targeted?

You talk about several measures where costings are particularly uncertain, and one of those is around the Department for Work and Pensions and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. You highlight that there are meant to be efficiency savings, but also that there are meant to be more resources to tackle fraud. You say that you sought reassurance from the Treasury, which you quote. Are you satisfied with that? Has the balance between trying to do more and being efficient been sorted?

It seems that there is a degree of uncertainty around that and we will just have to see what happens.

Another aspect that, I have to confess, was completely new to me was the pillar 2 corporate tax reforms, which are meant to yield £2.3 billion a year. Am I right in thinking that they are part of an international effort to sort out corporate tax? Is there quite a lot of uncertainty around that, too?