Chamber and committees

In five years’ time, we will be back here and you will be saying—justifiably—the same things, which is that it is important that the Government, whatever colour of Government it happens to be, needs to look longer term but it is not doing so, and that there needs to be a refocus on that.

David Lott, you talked about the cross-subsidy for research, in particular. I have a very simple question. Is there a concern that, if there is a squeeze on some of the funding for research, universities’ focus may well be on the return on investment—on the areas that attract the largest grants—and that some research that might have social good will be deprioritised?

Good afternoon. I have a couple of questions. The first, for David Lonsdale and Vikki Manson, follows up some of the questions that have already been asked. Both of your organisations welcome the recent statement’s focus on economic growth. However, funding for enterprise bodies has been cut over the past few budgets; visitor levies have just been discussed; DRS introduced huge costs to the sectors but was dropped; and there has been the licensing of short-term lets. Regulatory burdens go up. There is also a differential between the rest of UK and Scotland in rates relief. I look for an honest answer: although you may welcome a refocus on economic growth, how confident are you that it will be delivered?

So, would that be about deferring the block grant adjustment?

The Scottish Government—both in correspondence with us and publicly—has said that, in relation to the winter fuel payments, the decision of the UK Government has meant that the Scottish Government has no choice but to replicate the UK Government’s position. That is not true, though, is it? There are choices and options. What are they?

So, the money would still have to come out but, in theory, the Scottish Government could deliver the winter fuel payment as it currently is to the people whom it currently goes to—or would have gone to—but there would have to be reconciliation in two years, or within the two years.

On the spending commitment, I think that the position is that the Scottish Government cannot overspend its budget, but can overcommit its budget, to some extent. There are a number of areas that we can look at—social security is one of them. You said that the gap between income from the block grant and spending is, essentially, baked in. That could lead to serious issues, especially if the gap continues to grow. Even its just continuing to sit at the current level could have serious implications for budgets in the future because, as you said, that will be baked in—every single year we will have to find that additional money.

What size is the public sector in Wales, for example?

As you suggest, it is a question of priorities and what the Government chooses to do. I am not necessarily commenting on that, but there are options.

Do you feel that there is a slight contradiction there? The Scottish Government says that it has no choice but to remove the payment, at the same time as it announces policies on council tax freezes, for example, at political conferences. Those choices exist—it is about what the Government decides in making them.

Finally, as John Mason highlighted, there is the ScotWind money. We might hear in the next few days whether that is going to be used, but it is, nonetheless, available to plug some of the gaps.