Chamber and committees

Thank you. I think that I followed some of that.

Another point that you make—I mean “you” in the plural, as I am not sure who will want to answer this question—is that the energy price guarantee and the business equivalent, which is the energy bill relief scheme, will impact on inflation by reducing it, while the £400 energy rebate that everyone is getting will not have any impact. I had not realised that that distinction exists. I do not know whether we are splitting hairs here, as we were over capital and revenue expenditure, but will you explain why the two things are treated differently?

You finish that paragraph in your report by saying that it leaves

“the public finances more vulnerable to future shocks or swings in market sentiment.”

What goes into market sentiment? Is that about confidence in the Government or the country?

First, I apologise for being late. I will not blame the buses or the trains. I am sorry that I missed the first couple of minutes of questions and answers, and I hope that I will not duplicate anything that was said then.

In the foreword to your report, you go over the timescales for this year’s forecast, and you make the point that it has been a little different from normal. It took, I think, 16 weeks instead of the usual 10. Can you confirm whether we are now where we would have been had we not had all the changes of Government and so on? Have they had a material impact on your forecasts?

You make the point that the tax burden will rise from 33.1 per cent to 37.1 per cent of GDP. I am interested in your use of the word “burden”. It suggests a slightly negative connotation, which I am not sure that you intended. How does that figure compare with the position in other countries, particularly in Europe? Is it much the same?

That was very helpful. It has also been mentioned that the debt stock has a historically short average maturity. Why is that? My understanding is that that makes it more susceptible to interest rate changes.

That is helpful. I picked up on the word “burden” because the committee recently had a conference on taxation at which we discussed the way in which we talk about tax and trying to make the public more enthusiastic about it.

Another figure that you have come up with is that debt is rising from 84.3 per cent to 97.6 per cent of GDP. We also talk about interest rates, which are currently well below inflation. Traditionally, however, one of the reasons for raising interest rates would be that a country’s currency is struggling; presumably, the higher the debt, the more questions there are about the currency. Should we be concerned about the 97.6 per cent figure or should the fact that it is planned to come down again reassure us?

Thank you. I have a couple more questions that touch on things that have already been mentioned. The first is on the health impact and the suggestion that investment in health might get people back to work. Is there any concern about long Covid and, indeed, the effects of Covid, hospital waiting times and all the rest of it? Is that having an actual effect on the economy?

You have given me a few answers, so I could ask 20 supplementary questions. I will take the issue of training as an example, because one person who spoke to the committee told us that they felt that, as they got older, their employer was less and less willing to send them on training courses and therefore their information technology skills were not up to speed. The thought of going back to that might be difficult, especially for someone who has had a break for a couple of years during Covid. What you said about Age Scotland working with employers to do a bit more on training older workers is encouraging. Do you think that the issue is widespread?

I have slipped just beyond the 50 to 64 age group.

You mentioned flexible working once or twice, but we have had a mixed picture from witnesses. We have heard some good examples. There was a young guy who had health issues who works for Tesco. He cannot handle big crowds, so his employer has got him working at night. That struck me as good, and he is really happy about that. However, we heard from an older lady who had had a break from work—I am not sure whether she was furloughed—and who, as a result of health issues, being older and perhaps having caring responsibilities, wanted to go back to work in a slightly more flexible way than she had worked previously. However, her employer—I cannot remember whether she worked in the private or the public sector; it might have been the public sector, actually—was totally inflexible. Basically, the employer said that she had to come back 9 to 5, or whatever the equivalent was. Can the Government do more on that, or is it really just up to individual employers?

Yes. When you say “fair work”, the thing that jumps to mind for most people is a living wage, but it is correct to say that fair work includes quite a lot more than that, including flexibility.