Chamber and committees

I am not in a position to speak to that in any great detail, so could I come back to the committee with an update on compulsory sales orders? That would perhaps be in the context of the green industrial strategy and some of the reform work that is going on in planning right now, because it is not independent of the aims in the programme for government around masterplan consent areas and so on. It is all kind of part of the same world, so it might be useful to come back with more substantive information.

That is quite a remarkable way of turning a positive that we can all get behind into a negative.

We need to drill down into those numbers, and I have asked for more robust granular data, for example on where people are settling. Willie Coffey raised the point about our rural communities; I mentioned in my answer to him that we have been talking about National Records of Scotland’s forecasts, which, in essence, plateau over the next 40 years, with significant drops in rural areas and significant increases in urban areas. Those figures disrupt that general trend.

Looking at Scotland’s public services right now, my greatest worry is that it is the very people whom we need who are the most excluded by our current immigration and visa systems. That is the bottom line. Last week, Russell Findlay raised the issue of delayed discharge, which a number of people have concerns about. The big problem with delayed discharge is the workforce: right now, we know that far more people could be in the country who are excluded from it on the basis that they do not earn enough or are not considered to be skilled enough by the UK Government. That is quite an affront to them. I know that many of us entrust loved elderly relatives to such people.

On Monday, we heard that there are massive housing sites in Shetland that are ready to go, but the big problem is workforce. Quite a number of Europeans used to work in Shetland, in the construction industry in particular, but private sector construction businesses have told me that they have all now left to go home.

I agree that we have to drill down into the figures. The population figures that were published yesterday are a cause for celebration, but I would like to see higher levels of inward migration, and I think that visas have a role to play in that. I am assuming that those figures would have been collated prior to the most recent clampdown on visas and immigration.

We do not see the data in advance of it being published. It was published yesterday, I believe, and we have discussed it internally in Government. The ask has been for there to be a more granular drill-down so that that detail can be shared across cabinet secretaries and across portfolios to allow us to better understand the implications of it. I imagine that Angus Robertson would be able to return to the Parliament with more data. It is helpful to understand what is motivating people to move to Scotland and how we can build on that so that we can motivate more people to do that.

I also think that the rhetoric is important, for two reasons. First, I confess to being really disheartened when there is a constant drumbeat of negativity in our political discourse about why people should not move to Scotland. In general, what we hear from the Opposition is that everything is rubbish; points are made about tax and so on. I think that we forget that that has a negative impact on whether people want to move to the country. I have often heard it said that the negative rhetoric about tax is more off-putting than the tax itself. That has certainly been the case over the past few years. The NRS figures are interesting because they represent positive rhetoric about Scotland that we can all get behind, which, I would hope, would encourage other people to move to Scotland.

Secondly, how we respond is important. The Government is proud and delighted that there has been an increase in migration to Scotland. We want Scotland to be a welcoming place for migrants and immigrants. Given what other parties are saying about their concerns about immigration, it is so important that we stand together in Scotland and say to immigrants, “We welcome you—we want you to come here.” We recognise that there is a moral imperative for us to welcome people to Scotland; more than that, we recognise that it is an unashamed economic imperative that we do so.

If our problem has long been emigration, I hope that the way that we respond to the recent figures will reverberate across our political discourse and, perhaps, further afield, to illustrate the fact that we want people to make their home here.

Let me make a stab at that and then hand over to Richard Rollison.

That has been a very pressing issue since the Scottish National Investment Bank was established. Prior to the bank’s being established, there were extensive conversations with the UK Government and the Treasury about whether there could be any unique flexibilities for the bank within the fiscal framework. A lot of work was done to build cross-party support so that the UK Government could have the confidence that it was not a political play but was about supporting the bank on those flexibilities.

One of the big flexibilities that the bank would like to have is the ability to carry over budget across financial years. Any investment house will make decisions irrespective of where they fall in the financial year, but the lack of flexibility to carry over that is built into the fiscal framework means that, if we are nearing the end of March, there is a really difficult decision to make as to whether to accelerate an investment decision and, in the process, to carry a lot more risk, or to wait until the next financial year and carry even more risk because you do not know what the budget will be.

We have been working with the bank to consider what further flexibilities might be afforded from within the Scottish Government budget, but it is extremely difficult to see how we can do that without additional flexibility from the UK Government.

Richard—I will hand over to you for the better answer.

I do not know whether any of my officials want to respond to that. It remains our intention to return the business to the private sector. We will update Parliament at the appropriate time if a proposal is received that represents good value for the taxpayer and continues to deliver benefits to Scotland and the local economy in Ayrshire. I am conscious, in these quite sensitive periods, of the need not to say anything that jeopardises either the commercial element or overspeaks in a political context.

Great.

We are still examining all options to bring forward new projects and employment opportunities at Grangemouth, entirely because of the economic impact that Michelle Thomson has just outlined. That is where the joint working between the Governments to consider viable options for the future of the site, including the feasibility of transforming it into a low-carbon fuels hub, comes in.

Along with support from Petroineos, the Scottish Government and the UK Government are very much willing to support options that will achieve the aim of trying to maintain, or almost increase, the economic activity that goes on at Grangemouth. We want Grangemouth to retain its position as Scotland’s foremost industrial site well into the next decade and beyond, and the UK Government is committed to exploring routes to supporting the next stages of all those options via the national wealth fund.

I appreciate that that is not a substantive answer on what happens next, but I absolutely share Michelle Thomson’s view that we cannot take our eye off the economic impact around labour and the support for our energy mix.

I keep a close eye on the accounts for Prestwick airport. The most recent ones were published on 16 November 2023 and show a continued positive picture, with the airport posting a profit in 2022-23. I do not know whether we have a specific date, but the next year’s accounts are due for publication some time in late autumn.

Glasgow Prestwick has developed as a specialist airport and has carved out a niche in a competitive aviation market. I do not think that it should necessarily be competing with Glasgow; it should continue carving out that niche. We would not intervene in commercial decisions that are taken by the airport, but I would want the management to consider all potential business opportunities in order to maximise use of the airport’s assets.

It would be more appropriate to put that question to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, but I am very conscious of the impact on the businesses and organisations that I represent at the Cabinet table. His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has done work on the impact on behaviour, particularly on net migration to Scotland. I also believe that statistics on population were published yesterday, and it is important that we take them into account, too.

My answer is yes, the Scottish Government keeps behavioural impact under review. Indeed, it must do so, because the Scottish Fiscal Commission models the behavioural impact of every tax rate. It often bypasses people—though not this committee, I am sure—that the Scottish Fiscal Commission, when it puts together its figures for what it assumes the Scottish Government will raise through a particular income tax change, models the behavioural impact. As you will see, the SFC’s tables model what the Scottish Government is set to gain if all things remain equal, and what it will actually receive, taking behavioural impact into account.