Chamber and committees

Did you have a budget for the proposed centre?

It strikes me that we are looking at a few moving targets at the same time, so let us focus. Assuming that your centre does not go ahead—

—and assuming that research should be linked to the bill, if £30,000 is not enough, can you put a figure on what kind of budget it should be?

It would be helpful if one of you could give us that figure. That is great.

That is at UK level, then.

Each?

Right, okay. Thanks very much. That is helpful. Ms Kenyon, do you want to comment on any of that?

Professor Macdonald, you have twice mentioned research. I think that you were a little bit critical of the budget that the IIAC has and the fact that its members have to do so much at night and that kind of thing. As I understand it, the bill proposes £30,000 a year as a research budget. I am new to this committee and the subject, but that strikes me as a very small amount. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Can you give us a figure for that?

The second of the bullet points on the Smith commission says:

“The devolved Scottish budget should benefit in full from policy decisions by the Scottish Government”.

Is the assumption there that, if Scotland varies from the rest of the UK, that is entirely Scotland’s responsibility and it is under our control, for better or for worse?