Good afternoon and welcome to the public session of the 29th meeting of the Finance Committee in 2010. The committee has already considered agenda items 1 and 2 in private, so we now move to item 3.
I record my appreciation to the committee for its flexibility this afternoon in changing times to accommodate my appearance at other committees.
You are a busy minister in terms of the number of committee meetings you must attend today, so we appreciate your appearance before us. I invite questions from members.
At a previous evidence-taking session on the budget, we discussed—with Professor Ashcroft, I believe—the efficiency savings, which I touched on in the question that I asked you in the chamber when you announced the draft budget. Could you clarify on what the 3 per cent baseline for the efficiency savings is based? The suggestion that we heard from some witnesses was that the quoted savings are based on the independent budget review, which had taken a version of the departmental expenditure limit that excluded pay. To what is the 3 per cent being applied?
Essentially, the 3 per cent is being applied across the Government’s budget programme as an assumption of what we consider individual bodies will have to deliver. Some areas of the budget have been reduced by more than 3 per cent, so there are clearly budget reductions beyond efficiency savings. That is self-evident from the material that is in the budget.
Does that mean that you expect individual Government departments and non-departmental public bodies to be capable of delivering 3 per cent of the revenue DEL budget in terms of efficiencies?
Yes.
You mentioned the unitary charge numbers in your opening statement. The figure of 2.3 per cent of the revenue DEL budget in 2015-16 is the proportion of that budget that is taken up by expected unitary charges at that point. You also talk about an additional 1 per cent being top-sliced and a cap being introduced of the percentage of revenue DEL that unitary charges would take. Can we assume from that, that the cap would be set at 3.3 per cent of revenue DEL, or has a separate decision been taken on what the level of the cap would be?
I think that the question of the level of the cap is important, because the sustainability of any revenue-based finance is crucial. If the committee were to ask me where I think the upper limit of a cap could be set, I would say that it would be appropriate for it to be no higher than 4 per cent.
Do you intend that the cap should apply on a global basis across Government or will it be pushed down so that, for example, individual health boards would have caps on their budgets? Would the cap operate at a higher level?
The levels of commitment are now such that a process would have to be put in place to establish that framework. That would have been inevitable in any situation that any finance minister faced. It is a process point whether we hold the cap in a separate budget line or acknowledge it in individual budget lines at health board level or in other budget lines. The key thing is that we establish a level of revenue-financed activity that the Government supports at no higher than 4 per cent.
In relation to your plans for further and higher education, page 140 of the draft budget talks about sustaining the number of core places despite the reduction in funding in 2011-12. Is that the 2011-12 academic or financial year?
It is the 2011-12 academic year.
Has the Government looked at sustainability beyond that same level of funding?
The budget that I am setting out to the committee is for 2011-12. As Mr Brownlee will be aware, this coming week the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning is setting out the Government’s green paper, so that question is best left for him to consider in his statement on Thursday.
I have a brief follow-up question on a different issue. It is a central purpose of the Government to grow the economy, but obviously there has been a reduction in the budget to the enterprise agencies. What, if any, assessment has the Government made of the impact on jobs of the policy decisions that have been taken by the Government in the draft budget?
Mr Brownlee is absolutely correct that the Government’s focus is on improving economic performance in Scotland. That has been an enormous challenge in the past couple of years because of the prevailing economic conditions; nonetheless, it has represented our focus.
Measures that have been announced in previous years include statements about how accelerated capital spending would support, protect or create X jobs, which I presume were based on some sort of multiplier through the economic model of what a given level of capital investment would generate in employment. Has that been done for some of the policy decisions in the draft budget?
Mr Brownlee is correct that, in some aspects of specific economic programmes, we can identify, as a rough rule of thumb, that when we accelerate, for example, £100 million of capital expenditure, it either protects or develops about 1,500 jobs in Scotland. A budget of this nature is slightly different, because we are deploying £28 billion of public expenditure and tabulating all the individual policy choices and changes is slightly more difficult and complex. I can give the example that the reduction in capital expenditure could affect about 12,000 jobs in Scotland, which is why the NPD programme is designed to counter the effects of what would be a negative economic impact if it happened.
Whether we agree or disagree about it, there is a methodology for the capital spend and it can be argued over. Whether we agree or disagree about the substance of the policy decision that has been taken about business rates for large retailers, for example, is there a methodology or aspect of the economic model that the Government uses that allows you to say that that will have an impact by reducing the likelihood that jobs will be created, or by costing jobs?
That would be slightly more difficult to calculate because it does not relate directly to Government expenditure but relates to a series of judgments and assumptions about the actions and reactions of individual private companies. The impact is, therefore, a much more difficult factor to calculate and—unless the chief economic adviser wants to contradict me—it is not one that the Government’s economic model would deliver.
So the Government’s economic model—
Is this your final question?
Yes. I just seek clarity. The Government’s economic model can calculate the impact on jobs of its spending decisions, but it does not calculate the economic impact on jobs of its taxation decisions.
That is correct. I should point out that, on the impact on employment, our estimate is that the efforts to constrain public sector pay, for example, could save around 10,000 jobs.
For clarity, cabinet secretary, how long will the pay freeze last?
We have set out our pay policy for 2011-12. The Government sets that policy annually and we will continue to develop that pay policy work as appropriate for 2012-13.
If there are any negotiations for three-year deals in the coming year, the Government will refuse to enter into any deal for more than one year. Is that right?
That is correct.
Thank you.
Professor Stiglitz has not advised on the detail of the budget, but I have seen material that leads me to suspect that he would approve of the focus on capital expenditure and the measures that the Government is taking. His view would be that they will be beneficial for the economy.
Has Professor Stiglitz given the Scottish Government that view of its proposals?
It is a general view that I have seen Professor Stiglitz express about the importance of capital expenditure for the economy.
What advice is he providing to the Scottish Government?
Professor Stiglitz has agreed to provide advice to the Government on the formulation of forward economic plans and we look forward to receiving that advice.
So that is going to happen.
Yes.
But there is nothing to do with this budget.
Save the fact that Professor Stiglitz has expressed a channel of thinking on economic decision making that is supportive of the direction of the Government’s capital investment programme.
There is a large section in the budget document on the Government’s overall funding envelope. The Government continues to say that the reductions are too fast and too deep. In an answer to a question in the chamber, you expressed the Government’s position that the profile of the reductions should have been longer. However, there is no alternative in the budget document, so where is the Scottish Government’s alternative consolidation profile?
As I have said before, the Government takes the view that it would be desirable for economic recovery if fiscal consolidation were to take place over a longer timescale than the one that the current United Kingdom Government envisages. We take that view because we feel that the private economy in Scotland is still taking some time to recover from the economic difficulties that it has faced—there is some encouraging news, but there are still many challenges—and it is clear that, in the past couple of years, public expenditure has fulfilled an important role in stimulating economic recovery.
Dr Goudie has published two papers giving Scottish Government forecasts for beyond 2020 and modelling the impact on the economy, so I presume that the Government has modelled what the alternative profile would be when it comes to the size of the Scottish budget.
It is quite easy to take a view about public expenditure reducing over a longer period of time and changing assumptions about economic growth, because that would clearly be a product of such a decision. That would enable an alternative model to be identified, which is a perfectly tangible and practical proposition.
Why have you not done that?
We have set out in the budget document our alternative thinking on the budget. We have set it out in some detail in, I think, chapter 4 of the document. That captures the Government’s thinking about how things could be done differently.
However, I think that I am right in saying that it does not have an alternative profile of expenditure for the Scottish budget that we can see. The reason I ask is that, when the Chief Secretary to the Treasury was before the committee, I asked him:
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Minister for Finance and Personnel in the Northern Ireland Executive, the Minister for Business and Budget in the Welsh Assembly Government and I attended a discussion at the Treasury as part of the finance ministers’ quadrilateral meeting in early October 2010, prior to the publication of the comprehensive spending review. The Welsh, Northern Ireland and Scottish finance ministers all made clear to the UK Government their very firm view that the proposals that were set out in the emergency budget document in June went too far and too fast. That view was expressed clearly to the chief secretary, who certainly made it clear to me that day that he had heard what I said. I can only share that information with the committee.
For clarification, were any figures provided as to what would not have been too fast and too far?
We set out clearly to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury our view that what was proposed in the emergency budget was too far and too fast and that we believed that the UK Government should undertake its fiscal consolidation over a longer period of time.
I want to be very clear: were any figures presented by the Scottish Government?
We set out our argument, in common with those of the Welsh and Northern Ireland representatives, that the United Kingdom Government should reconsider its published proposals, which we considered would undertake fiscal consolidation too far and too fast.
Did that argument include any figures from the Scottish Government?
The argument presented the very clear and simple conclusion that the UK Government was undertaking fiscal consolidation too far and too fast.
Would I be wrong if I said that the proposition from the Scottish Government did not include any figures?
You would be able to form a judgment on what was involved by the clear and simple answers that I have given the committee today.
Okay?
I have a further question, convener.
Right, but other members want to ask questions, too.
I would like to ask more questions on this particular point, but I suspect that the convener wants me to move on. Are the budget figures on business rates net of the revenue that you expect to raise from the Princes Street penalty?
The assumptions on business rates in the budget document include the revenue that I expect to raise from the business rates additional levy on retailers, so they include those revenues.
Am I correct in saying that the Scottish Government has a policy position of there being a cap on the increase for the rates bill next year with regard to the poundage, so that the rates will not go up higher than inflation or the retail prices index for next year?
The Scottish Government’s policy position is that the core poundage rate would be no higher than the rate in England. As I explained to Parliament on Thursday, that rate has not yet been set, so I have been unable to set the poundage rate for Scotland. However, I will do so as soon as I possibly can.
Why is there a difference in the policy position in that regard between your Government and the Welsh Assembly Government, which on 1 November gave a provisional poundage and cap on that, on the basis that it wanted people to be aware of what the capped increase could be? Why has the Scottish Government not done the same?
The circumstances in Scotland are that we have a commitment to have a core business rates poundage rate that is no higher than the rate in England. It is a rather difficult position for me to settle when I do not know the position in England—I would have expected that to have been settled by the end of November 2010, but it has not been. So, I am trying to set the business rates at a level that compares with a number that I currently do not know.
If the RPI was set at 4.28 per cent, would that level of increase be damaging for Scottish businesses?
It certainly would be a level that was consistent with the mechanism that has been used for uprating business rates on an annual basis. As I said to Parliament last Thursday, I want to reserve my position on the question until I see what action the UK Government takes on business rates in England.
In your opening statement, you spoke about supporting the low-carbon economy. Obviously, that is contained to some extent in the budget. What impact would there be and what extra leverage would you have if the UK Government were to change the accountancy rules around the fossil fuel levy so that it could be put to use in Scotland now rather than having to wait several years for a green bank?
Clearly, the fossil fuel levy resource would be enormously helpful to us in supporting the development of the low-carbon economy. It represents about £190 million-worth of potential capital investment, which is not money that we need to find from the UK Government but money that is held in a different context. Certainly, finding a mechanism by which to undertake that ability to spend is what this is about—the issue is our ability to spend in a fashion that is additional to our existing public expenditure levels. Such a change would be of significant benefit to the Scottish economy and the development of the low-carbon economy.
If the rules were changed, could you start to spend the money to the advantage of a green economy within the next year?
Without a doubt. We are already allocating resources through the budget to support projects that can be considered to be within the low-carbon economy. By their very nature, such projects would be undertaken. Clearly, in the context of the budget, decisions are taken in the context of many competing priorities. Obviously, if we want to support more projects, or if projects emerge that are of a sound and attractive character, we would want to do more to intensify that effort in a swifter timescale. Undoubtedly, if that additional resource were to become available, it could help to attract further projects and proposals to undertake development in Scotland.
The budget also protects local government share. How was the share divvied up among councils?
That was undertaken by the application of an agreed distribution formula. As Mr FitzPatrick knows, the Government undertook a review of the distribution formula with local government earlier in this parliamentary session. We agreed the conclusions and applied the distribution formula. A population-based mechanism is applied across core revenue finance for local government, as is a maximum reduction in expenditure for individual local authorities. Once that is set, we add in the impact of grants that continue to form a feature of the local government settlement. In that way, we arrive at the draft distribution settlement that I shared with the Parliament on Thursday.
Why did you not consult the large retailers before you hit them with the new levy?
The Government carries out extensive dialogue in the course of its activities with different representatives of the business community. That gives us information on the views and considerations of those representatives of the community. We have to form a view on tax measures, which I have a duty to share with the Parliament. For that reason, I formulated the proposal and announced it to Parliament. I will, of course, discuss it with representatives of the retail community in Scotland.
Do you accept that it might inhibit economic growth if you impose this levy on companies that are themselves large employers in many communities across Scotland?
Mr Whitton is absolutely correct. Those organisations are large employers—and welcome ones, I would say. I acknowledge their economic impact and the economic contribution that they make. They support economic growth in Scotland and their contribution is desirable. I have to formulate a set of budget proposals that strike a balance between raising revenue in a number of different areas and supporting public spending programmes, and I have to support those programmes in a context where budgets are falling in cash and real terms. That sometimes leads to areas where we have to increase taxation.
Given that we are looking at a one-year budget, is it only a one-year increase or is the intention to continue the levy in future?
That would be a part of the business rates framework going forward.
I think you said last week that you were thinking of introducing five bands. Can you tell us what they are yet?
The material was published in the order. There will be five bands that range from 2.5p to 15p, and the 15p band will apply to a rateable value in excess of £2.14 million.
I apologise. I had missed that.
The Government has given Scottish Water a commitment that, during the 2010 to 2015 determination period for the water industry, the Government will provide £700 million-worth of capital investment. Needless to say, the requirement for that investment will vary depending on the stage of particular developments and the cash flow health position of Scottish Water.
Those who compiled the independent budget review document stated in it that no area of Government expenditure should be protected from the effects of the reduction. A number of witnesses who have been before the committee recently, many of whom are Scotland’s leading economists, have questioned why you have ring fenced health in the way that you have. Why do you think that ring fencing health in that way contributes to economic growth?
There are two questions here. The first is about why we have ring fenced health and the second is about what that contributes to the economy.
I imagine that the same argument could be made about higher and further education, housing and regeneration, rail services, enterprise, energy and tourism, but all those budgets have taken a hit. That seems to be rather strange if economic growth is your number 1 priority. Why have you taken a salami-slice approach to those budgets but ring fenced the health budget?
I will leave it to Mr Whitton to explain what his spending priorities are.
I thought that this session was for us to ask you questions, not for me to offer explanations.
I did not ask any questions; I merely made the observation that I will leave it to Mr Whitton to explain his spending choices. I have explained my spending choices and am in the course of doing so to the committee.
But you would accept that, given the way in which you have cut, some people might question whether economic growth is still your number 1 priority.
I have explained the basis on which the Government takes the view that our choices continue to support economic growth in Scotland. What we have done to supplement our capital investment programme is evidence of our aim of developing a strong Scottish economy. I have found £100 million of savings this year to pass over to next year, and there is the investment in the non-profit-distributing model of capital investment, which will help the Scottish economy. Those are tangible measures to support the development of the Scottish economy.
Last week, you made a welcome U-turn on publishing figures for the coming years. Do you have a date yet for when we can expect to see those numbers?
Mr Whitton helpfully indicated that the Opposition thought that a reasonable timescale was publication by the stage 1 debate in late January. I confirm that position today.
Joe FitzPatrick has been roused for a quick question.
Mr Whitton questioned the decision to ring fence the health budget. Have any Opposition leaders or finance spokespeople approached the cabinet secretary to suggest alternative spending proposals?
On all such questions, I want to proceed by respecting the confidence of the Opposition parties in taking forward discussions to reach a conclusion on the budget process. I always take such an approach.
I pointed out that the independent budget review document said that no areas should be protected. I also mentioned the witnesses who questioned whether ring fencing the health budget was wise and sensible.
You have now put that on the record.
Is David Whitton referring to the independent review document from which four or five of the main recommendations were rejected immediately?
It is the same document.
A big part of the budget is 3 per cent efficiency savings. If you do not manage to make those savings, a pretty big hole will appear in what you have described as a balanced budget—in fact, the budget will not be balanced. For reassurance, will you tell us which other Governments—near or far—have managed to implement and sustain efficiency savings of 3 per cent?
The forthcoming financial environment that faces every Government in western Europe will require all Governments to achieve efficiency savings and public spending reductions of the order that I must confront. It is not particularly surprising that we face that situation—plenty of other Governments will have to face up to it.
You will not be surprised to hear that that did not particularly reassure me. I did not ask what other Governments around the world will have to do in the future; I asked what they had managed to do in the past. Do you have evidence from anywhere else that anyone has managed to implement and sustain 3 per cent efficiency savings?
It is essential that we acknowledge that public expenditure will be under severe pressure for several years. Unless we take steps to maximise the value for money that can be achieved from public expenditure, we will not face up to those challenges without severely impacting on the quality of services that members of the public expect.
You think that you will be able to do that without losing a single job.
You will be familiar with remarks that I have made to the committee many times. At the end of the spending review period, I fully expect public sector employment to be lower than it is today. I have accepted that unreservedly.
That is what interests me. Some of the figures on which you have relied contain savings that have been made in local government, for example, which allegedly exceeded the targets that it was set. However, it managed to do that at a time when its workforce increased, which is quite a difficult trick to achieve. You have explicitly acknowledged that, to achieve efficiency savings, fewer people will be employed in the public sector. There is a bit of a contradiction in that, which I will put to one side, but you can see why people are concerned when they see that, in the past, efficiency savings were achieved at the same time as the workforce increased. Is such a position tenable?
My answer is contained in the important principle that we must ensure that we achieve more from the lower level of public expenditure that we have at our disposal. I cannot see how we can navigate the period ahead without accepting that principle, which must be a widely accepted public sector principle. Implicit in that is that we must accept that we will achieve more with fewer people in public sector employment.
You can see the concern that someone who is currently employed in the public sector may have. If, as a result of your aim to achieve 3 per cent efficiency savings, they lose their job, they may say to you—with some justification—that that was not an efficiency saving but a cut.
The Government has taken an approach to public sector employment that has been welcomed by the workforce. In my experience, the approach that the Scottish Government has taken of providing an assurance that there will be no compulsory redundancies has been a welcome step and has created an environment in which we can achieve greater efficiency in the Government’s operations. It strikes me that we will be able to create such an environment in the period ahead.
In your introduction to the budget document, you say:
There have been cuts in a range of areas. Earlier today, I appeared before the Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee. The fact that I have cut the freight facilities grant is not going down particularly well, but I have done it and have explained the rationale for that. The budgets of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and Scottish Natural Heritage have been reduced. I have also had to take money out of VisitScotland’s budget. We have done so in a fashion that protects the organisation’s marketing expenditure, but it is a difficult decision.
Finally, are you saying that a decision to cut the budgets of SNH or VisitScotland is harder than, for example, a decision to reassess free concessionary travel?
We are getting into the realm of choices. We have to consider the projects and proposals that we think are appropriate as part of the social contract that exists in our society. My view, and the Government’s view, is that the first port of call of any programme to reduce public expenditure should not be universal services that have been built up as a consequence of agreement in the Parliament.
You started your statement by saying that, as always, you would be looking for consensus on the budget proposals. It strikes me, listening to the comments of committee members, that there is certainly a consensus that times are hard. Do the cuts that we are facing mean that it is even more important now to have consensus on the budget?
I have accepted throughout my term of office that, as a finance minister in a minority Government, I have to secure wider agreement to the budget provisions. I have been able to achieve that over the past three budgets and I intend to pursue it for the 2011-12 budget into the bargain.
Could a degree of consensus on certain issues, such as the fossil fuel levy, which was mentioned earlier, and the disputed consequentials, help with negotiations with the UK Government in these straitened times?
Undoubtedly but, even with a consensus, we will not always be able to secure an agreement with the UK Government. There has been pretty comprehensive agreement on the fossil fuel levy, but that agreement has not materialised into an outcome that is workable from the Scottish Government’s perspective.
I appreciate that there are particular difficulties with the capital budget. When we questioned the economists a couple of weeks ago, I asked them what they thought would be the most important change to help the economy next year in its fragile state. Two of them, certainly—and possibly three—mentioned housing. I recognise the difficulties that you face, but would you be prepared to consider housing in the balancing of capital expenditure? As I said, there was a strong view that more investment in housing would be particularly helpful for the fragile state of the economy and would have many other social advantages.
Mr Chisholm makes the completely fair point that there are choices in the budget. The capital budget is of the order of £2.5 billion. Choices are made in that and, if we as a Parliament believe that the housing budget should be higher, we can have a discussion about we address that. The other side of the coin requires us to reduce other budgets to make that possible—I do not mean that in any pejorative way; Mr Chisholm will appreciate the points that I make.
One problem that we have in examining the budget is that we have figures only at level 3. I want to ask you about two lines, one of which is in the housing budget and both of which are to do with energy. The supporting sustainability budget line goes down by £104 million to £83 million, but we do not know any of the detail of that. People are concerned about the energy assistance package and the wider home insulation programme, so could you give more detail? The decline in the budget for energy more generally, which is the biggest decline in your own budget, is more than 20 per cent, from £43 million to £34 million. Again, people do not know what that includes, because we do not have the level 4 figures. It would be helpful if you could say something about those budget lines.
On the supporting sustainability line in the budget for housing and regeneration, at table 8.05, work is being done on a commercial negotiation about the funding support for certain programmes that the Minister for Housing and Communities is implementing. I am therefore not in a position to give definitive information on that; I hope that the committee will understand the reasons for that.
That would be helpful.
I do not disagree with your judgment on health although, as David Whitton said, many of the economists do. You will remember that I asked you about that when you made your budget statement but, in the interests of accuracy, the point that I made was that, in real terms, the health budget is declining. The explanation of that is that the decline in the capital budget offsets the increase in the resource budget, which results in a overall decline in real terms. In the interest of accuracy, you should always make the distinction that you are passing on the consequentials of the resource budget only, not the capital budget.
The point about the capital budget that must be borne in mind is that, last year, the health budget was given an extra allocation of resources to deal with pandemic flu. That resulted in significant expenditure of, if I recollect rightly, £20 million for vaccine acquisition. That was not part of the ordinary capital programme of the health service. Resources were found and put into the health budget for that one purpose. It could never have been described as part of the health budget’s baseline and, if it is removed, the issue that Mr Chisholm raises does not apply.
But the fact is—and we understand the reasons for it—the capital budget in health, as elsewhere, will be under a lot of pressure. That has resulted in, for example, Edinburgh’s new sick children’s hospital having to be funded in different ways, which will have consequences for resources. In that sense, we have to see the capital and resource budget together.
That is correct, and I have said what the profile is of the health resource and capital budgets together when the pandemic flu resources are taken into account. Mr Chisholm is correct about the Royal hospital for sick children in Edinburgh. However, I hope that it is accepted that the Government has gone to considerable lengths to put in place a capital programme that retains as much as possible of our activity in a challenging financial situation.
My final question is about the distribution of money. Cuts by distribution become a more sensitive issue than they were when budgets were increasing. I am merely observing the difference between the approach in health, where as much as possible is being done to protect boards that might lose out under the funding formula, and the approach in local government, where you are going ahead with the formula without any recognition of the fact that we are in a situation of cuts. Both approaches will have negative consequences for my area. I am not saying that we need to have a balance between those two approaches, but it is striking that they are at opposite poles of the available options. You are going ahead with the formula without recognising the difference that the situation of cuts makes, whereas the indication is that the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing is moving slowly because she does not want health boards to lose out in a tight situation, although we do not yet know the distribution for this year. In your portfolio, would it have been better to try to even out the cuts for local government, rather than just applying the usual distribution formula? That formula has had a devastating effect on Edinburgh and an even more devastating effect on Glasgow. Given the current unique situation, would it not have been better to share the pain more equally?
The core part of the distribution formula for local government, which takes into account the potential for very extreme outcomes, is the application of the floor mechanism, which has been applied once again in the local government portfolio essentially to rule out such significant reductions.
There is one final short question from Jeremy Purvis.
Did special advisers draft any of the language in the budget document that you have presented to the committee?
My name is at the front of the budget document, and I approved the entire contents of the document.
Is it all written by civil servants, or did special advisers draft any of it?
The point is that the document has my name at the front of it, and I approved every word of it.
With respect, cabinet secretary, the point is my question.
Well, my answer is that I approved every word of the document.
And was any of it drafted by special advisers?
Undoubtedly special advisers would be involved in the process of developing the document, but every word of the document is approved by me.
I want to be specific on the question whether any of it was written by special advisers.
The document was written by civil servants. It undoubtedly will have had—well, it did have—special adviser input, but I approved every word of it.
Was there special adviser input on any of the figures?
Convener, I do not think—
The cabinet secretary has stated clearly where responsibility rests.
I am giving the committee the very clearest statement that I have personally approved every single detail in the document, and I carry full responsibility for its contents.
That is a very clear answer, Mr Purvis.
Can I ask about the £100 million underspend? If councils or any public bodies ask the Government, because of the winter pressures, to revise its thinking with regard to having a £100 million underspend at present, will the Government tell them that there is no further resource because it is keeping the underspend until next year?
The Government’s spending plans for 2011-12 are underpinned by a degree of what I would call carry-over from this year to next, which I have planned and will be able to deliver. Further underspend may emerge in the course of this year, which may provide me with the ability to shift resources to meet developing needs that arise as a consequence of the winter resilience issues.
Finally, is it the Government’s policy to seek to attract large retail to be located in Scotland?
The Government would welcome large retail to be located in Scotland and has taken many actions, including the creation of a much more efficient planning system, to enable that to come about.
Will the differential tax system for large retail have any impact at all on Scottish competitiveness in that area?
I do not believe that it will.
Does the cabinet secretary wish to make any final comments?
I have no further comments to add.
Being a cabinet secretary in a minority Government is not a happy situation. We thank you for your work, your expertise and your detailed evidence here today.
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