Chamber and committees

It is on page 6, in answer to question 6.

Could you clarify that? I thought that we had that information—for example, I thought that we knew that social security costs about £1 billion.

I will leave that issue for now; I am sure that we could explore it further.

Professor Bell, you make the point, although others have made it as well, that if we grow the economy, that will help with other priorities. Is that definitely the case? To take an extreme example, if a lot of new businesses started and they were all incorporated and all paid dividends, they would pay corporation tax and tax on the dividends, but we would get the money only if there were employees or self-employed people paying income tax. The nightmare scenario would be that we could grow the economy substantially and get no extra money in Scotland.

Thank you, convener—I was going to ask about that, too. Would Universities Scotland argue that 80 per cent of our population should go to university?

These days, there is a lot of talk about means testing for personal benefits such as the winter fuel payment. Should we also try to do that with businesses? It strikes me that some small businesses are incredibly profitable while others are struggling. I see the same in the hospitality sector, where some appear to be doing very well and others are very quiet. If we have limited money, should we target it at the businesses that are struggling?

You are kind of underlining my point. If, for the next few years, the UK Government was to give a 5 per cent pay increase to everyone, we would be under huge pressure to do the same. If it gave 2 per cent, as had been thought, it would be different. It is almost impossible for us to plan further ahead.

I do not know whether either of the others wants to come in on that point.

That is another issue.

I could explore that further, but we are a wee bit pressed for time.

I have one other question for any of the witnesses. One of the plans for the current year is to take more of the ScotWind money out of the reserve that it sits in. Do you think that there were alternatives to that, or was that just something that we had to do?

Some people feel that we are already sending too many people to university and that we are short of skills such as plumbing. I have a nephew who did just a year at college but earns very good money through fixing wind farms.