Chamber and committees

Grand—thank you. That is a useful clarification. That was my bad.

I appreciate that. My question is to the cabinet secretary. Would it not strengthen the bill if we were to specify that the committees were directly accountable to the board rather than to the organisation as a whole? If we do not specify that in legislation, it is an operational decision for the organisation to make. I would not trust our current qualifications agency to make such a decision. We all share the hope that the new body will have a better culture and will not make decisions similar to the SQA’s. If we put it into primary legislation that the two committees are directly accountable to the board, would that not strengthen accountability?

I do not propose listing everybody who should be consulted. My point is that the requirement is to consult only with the SAC. It would be helpful if qualifications Scotland was required to consult stakeholders in the system more widely. That does not mean consulting every stakeholder on every issue, but it would give the organisation a clear mechanism or impetus to at least be able to evidence that it has consulted regularly on key strategic issues with whoever the relevant stakeholders might be. As you recognise, that has been a challenge for the SQA.

I do not think that everybody who is sitting round this table would agree that it does, or that it does so effectively. I am therefore proposing that the provision is strengthened to be a bit more specific on the need to consult and engage, but not to be specific about who that would be with and the mechanisms that should be used.

I have a brief question on the charters. Sections 10 and 11, on creating the charters, require qualifications Scotland to

“consult such persons as it considers appropriate.”

The subsequent section, which is on review or revision of the charters, contains no requirement for consultation; qualifications Scotland would be empowered to do that unilaterally. Should the position in the earlier sections not be replicated so that there is a requirement for any review or revision of a charter—any new version of it—to be consulted on?

Thank you—that is much appreciated.

Thanks very much. I will return to the PFG, which the cabinet secretary presented a pretty rosy picture of. You argued that the inclusion is implicit rather than explicit, and you seemed to indicate that that was a deliberate choice. You made the point that the First Minister’s four priorities match the outcomes in the NPF and of course they do, because they are all very agreeable. The only reason why somebody would disagree is if they were a climate science denier; beyond that, it is all agreeable stuff.

However, it was a significant omission that the single most important document in the Government did not refer to the framework that the Government uses to measure whether it is building the kind of society that it wants. Would it not be easier to come here and say that that was an oversight and that it will not happen again?

I have a couple of questions about the national performance framework and local government finances, but before I get to them, I would like to follow up on Michelle Thomson’s lines of questioning, which I found interesting.

First, on air passenger duty—or air departure tax—and the subsidy control issue with regard to lifeline routes, are you able to confirm whether the new UK Government agrees, at least in principle, on the need to resolve that? We need to deliver on something that we all agreed to devolve 10 years ago, but we also need to protect support for the lifeline routes.

I will move on to the other areas that I had planned to ask about. First, on local government finance reform, the joint working group with COSLA has not met since the Government changed back in April. Should we read much into that? Why has it been so long since that group last met?

I absolutely agree on that. On exactly that point, what is your expectation for outcomes by the end of this parliamentary session on local government finance reform? Is there an ambition to have made a decision by March or April 2026 on council tax revaluation, a replacement system or additional new powers that are entirely separate? What is your expectation of where we will be? How much will have changed by then, or how much will at least be in motion by then, recognising that some of the reforms would be multiyear and quite complex ones?