The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-10430, in the name of John Swinney, on appointments to the Scottish fiscal commission.
16:23
I am pleased to seek Parliament’s endorsement of the Scottish Government’s plans to establish an independent Scottish fiscal commission, as well as Parliament’s approval of my nominations for appointment to the commission.
In doing so, I thank the Finance Committee for the very thorough inquiry that it held into proposals for the creation of a Scottish fiscal commission after I announced my intention to establish such a body in evidence to the committee in May 2013. The committee’s report has informed the Scottish Government’s thinking on the issue. I record my thanks to the committee for the role that it has played in scrutinising my nominations for appointment to the commission.
The creation of the commission is another important milestone in the journey to enhance Scotland’s fiscal powers. There is widespread international recognition that independent fiscal commissions play a vital role in ensuring the robustness and credibility of a country’s fiscal framework. I believe that there is similarly wide consensus across the Parliament that the Scottish fiscal commission will be a significant and welcome addition to Scotland’s fiscal framework.
The commission will play the key role in providing independent scrutiny of Scottish Government forecasts of receipts from land and buildings transaction tax and Scottish landfill tax, and in further assessing the economic determinants that underpin forecasts of non-domestic rates income in Scotland. That will provide Parliament and the public with assurance about the reasonableness and integrity of the Scottish Government’s tax forecasts, which will underpin a proportion of the expenditure that is to be set out in our draft budget for the first time this autumn.
The commission’s remit provides a proportionate response to the relatively modest devolution of fiscal powers under the Scotland Act 2012. We will keep the remit under review, and I intend to review the commission’s role in relation to the Scottish rate of income tax prior to its planned introduction in April 2016. It is my intention that the commission’s scope will expand in line with Parliament’s tax-raising and borrowing powers.
I intend to propose legislation within the present parliamentary session to give the commission a basis in statute, but it will initially operate on a non-statutory basis.
I am strongly of the view that it is critical to the commission’s effectiveness that it is independent of the Scottish Government, and that it is seen and understood to be so. I have taken actions to secure the independence of individual members and the structural and operational independence of the commission while it operates on a non-statutory basis.
On the independence of individual members, I willingly accepted the Finance Committee’s recommendation that Parliament should have a role in scrutinising my nominations for appointment to the commission. I will also make appointments for single fixed terms. The purpose of that is to ensure that at no stage will the chair or members of the commission feel in any way restricted in the commentary that they can apply to the Government’s forecasts, because they will not have to consider in any way their eligibility for reappointment for a further term in office. The fact that individuals will serve only one fixed term is a significant foundation for the fiscal commission’s independence.
As I explained to the Finance Committee last week, the chair and members of the Scottish fiscal commission will be subject to a code of conduct based on the “Model Code of Conduct for Members of Devolved Public Bodies”, which was approved by Parliament in December 2013. That will ensure that commission members are subject to the highest standards of conduct expected by Parliament, including procedures for registering and declaring any potential conflicts of interest.
The commission will also be structurally and operationally independent of the Scottish Government. It will provide reports to Parliament and to the public on the reasonableness of tax revenue forecasts that have been prepared by the Scottish Government. It will decide what analytical and secretariat support it requires and from where it will obtain that support. Crucially, Scottish Government analysts will not be seconded to work for the commission. The University of Glasgow will provide an independent base for the commission, and I am grateful to the principal of the university for his support in that regard. I will ensure that the commission is appropriately resourced to fulfil its functions by providing a modest budget that it can deploy to support its work. As I indicated to the Finance Committee last week, if the commission comes to me to indicate that it believes that it requires resources beyond my initial estimate of an annual budget of £20,000, I will consider that sympathetically to ensure that the commission has at its disposal the resources to properly exercise the functions that it has been allocated.
The commission will have three part-time members, one of whom will serve as chair. I have nominated three highly respected, skilled and authoritative individuals to serve on the commission and I invite Parliament to approve those appointments on the recommendation of the Finance Committee.
I have nominated Susan Rice to serve as chair of the commission. She is a distinguished member of Scotland’s business community and will bring a wealth of commercial experience to the commission. She is a chartered banker and the managing director of Lloyds Banking Group Scotland; crucially, she is also a member of the court of the Bank of England, chairing the bank’s audit and risk committee, which demonstrates her ability to operate at a senior level in the private sector. Through her wide interests, she will be able to bring to the work of the commission an accomplished record of private, public and third sector service into the bargain.
I have also nominated two renowned academic economists, Professor Andrew Hughes Hallett and Professor Campbell Leith, to serve as members of the commission. Both have been instrumental in much of the thinking across the world on the establishment of fiscal commissions, which has been relevant in supporting the work of individual Governments as they have established such bodies.
Professor Hughes Hallett is jointly professor of economics and public policy at George Mason University and professor of economics at the University of St Andrews. Professor Campbell Leith is professor of macroeconomics at the University of Glasgow and, along with Professor Hughes Hallett, is an academic authority on fiscal commissions and fiscal rules.
In considering my nominations for appointment to the commission, I gave full consideration to the potential for conflicts of interest to arise or be reasonably perceived to arise between membership of the commission and other offices or roles held by the nominees. Particular attention has been drawn to Susan Rice and Professor Hughes Hallett’s membership of the Council of Economic Advisers.
It is important to recall that the individuals whom I have nominated to serve on the fiscal commission are individuals with formidable and broad expertise who have been involved in multiple functions in a number of areas. They have built up those reputations and records of service based on the integrity of their actions at all times. I have been at pains to demonstrate to the Finance Committee the very clear separation of role and function between the commission and the Council of Economic Advisers. In relation to the responsibilities of the Scottish fiscal commission, the Council of Economic Advisers will have no role or locus in scrutinising, at any stage, the Scottish Government’s fiscal forecasts.
There can be no doubt that those three individuals will, together, form a strong and independent Scottish fiscal commission that can be relied on to hold the Scottish Government to account for the tax forecasts that we publish in our budget documents.
I move,
That the Parliament endorses the Scottish Government’s plans to establish a Scottish Fiscal Commission to provide independent scrutiny and reports on tax forecasts prepared by the Scottish Government and supports the recommendation of the Finance Committee that the Scottish Government nominations to the commission be approved.
16:32
Members on the Conservative benches welcome the setting up of the Scottish fiscal commission. An expert body that scrutinises and challenges Government forecasts can only be a good thing. Sometimes, Governments of any stripe have a natural optimism bias. It is helpful for that optimism to be scrutinised, which allows it to be challenged carefully.
All three of the nominees put forward by the Scottish Government are more than qualified for the roles for which they have been nominated. They have the knowledge, the relevant experience and the skill set required to do the job. That is not in doubt—it was never in doubt—and I agree with the cabinet secretary’s comments about the nominees.
On this side of the chamber, the issue is that the independent Scottish fiscal commission will have only three part-time commissioners, yet two out of the three nominees also currently serve on the First Minister’s Council of Economic Advisers. In our view, there is a potential conflict, and certainly a perception of conflict, between an advisory role on the one hand and a scrutiny role on the other. Two of the three nominees would be simultaneously—that word is important—advising the Scottish Government on economic levers via the Council of Economic Advisers and challenging and scrutinising the Scottish Government on the application of at least some of those economic levers via the commission.
It is worth looking at the work of the existing Council of Economic Advisers. It is a fairly small body with only nine members, and its meetings are attended in every case by the First Minister and in almost every case by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth. I have looked at the minutes, and it is clear that there is regular engagement outside those formal meetings between members of the Council of Economic Advisers and the Scottish Government and, in particular, the office of the Scottish Government’s chief economist. How regular the engagement is, we do not know; we just know from the minutes that it is regular.
Some of the items on the Council of Economic Advisers’ agenda come extremely close to the work that the fiscal commission might do. For example, according to the minutes of the meeting of September 2012, the cabinet secretary talked about a progress report on the 2013-14 draft budget, and
“The proposed approach was discussed.”
That happened two weeks before the draft budget was presented to the Parliament. It is highly likely that the Council of Economic Advisers, when presented with a draft budget, would want to consider items of expenditure and revenue. In future, it will no doubt want to consider non-domestic rates, the Scottish landfill tax and the land and buildings transaction tax.
“Economic levers” is a standing item on the Council of Economic Advisers’ agenda. It is one of only three core areas of work for the council.
The council is a powerful body, which clearly has influence. The minutes of another of its meetings say:
“The Chair ... noted the welcome progress by the government in responding to its input”
on matters that included the setting up of a Scottish fiscal commission.
The new body, which will have a challenge function, needs to be, and needs to be seen to be, completely independent of Government. In his speech, the cabinet secretary himself said that the commission needs to be “seen and understood” to be independent. In our view, that will be difficult to achieve when two of its three members are holding advisory roles with the Government.
The equivalent body in London, the Office for Budget Responsibility, has faced criticism about its independence, specifically from the Scottish Government, and, even more specifically, from the cabinet secretary, who said on the record to the Finance Committee:
“given that that arrangement operates on the basis of secondment from the Treasury to the OBR, there is a justifiable degree of scepticism about how far from Government the office is.”—[Official Report, Finance Committee, 8 January 2014; c 3515.]
That is what the cabinet secretary said when a back-office function was shared between the Treasury and the OBR. What we are talking about is the decision makers and heads of the Scottish fiscal commission holding at the same time advisory roles with the Scottish Government.
Of course the Scottish Government can use its majority to force its proposed approach through the Parliament, but it has made an error in suggesting that there is no perception of a conflict. There is a perception of a conflict if someone is advising on Monday and scrutinising on Tuesday, especially when two out of the three members of the commission would find themselves in that dual role.
I invite the cabinet secretary and the Scottish Government to reflect carefully on the amendment and on the arguments that we have made.
I move amendment S4M-10430.2, to leave out from “supports” to end and insert:
“considers that all three of the Scottish Government nominations to the commission are of a very high standard; believes however that appointments to the Council of Economic Advisers and the Scottish Fiscal Commission should not be held simultaneously; supports the nomination of Professor Leith, and further supports the nominations of Lady Rice and Professor Hughes-Hallett, subject to their standing down from the Council of Economic Advisers.”
16:38
I am pleased to speak on behalf of the Finance Committee in this debate on the establishment of a Scottish fiscal commission and the appointment of Lady Susan Rice, Professor Andrew Hughes Hallett and Professor Campbell Leith to serve on the body.
The establishment of a Scottish fiscal commission was put to the committee by the cabinet secretary in May last year, and in November and December the committee undertook an inquiry into the options for the establishment of such a body. We heard evidence from a range of economists and individuals who have experience of fiscal bodies. The committee’s consideration benefited greatly from the experience and expertise of those witnesses, and I place on record our appreciation of their contribution.
One issue that we addressed was the requirement that formal safeguards be put in place to protect the commission’s independence. Among those safeguards is the way in which appointments to the commission are made. As members know, we have an established process for public appointments in Scotland, which is regulated under legislation and overseen by the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland. The cabinet secretary agreed with the committee’s recommendation that appointments be regulated in that way when the commission is established as a statutory body.
In addition, given the nature of the body, the view of the committee and of the Government is that the Parliament’s consent to those appointments is required. The Parliament should, in giving that consent, have regard to the Finance Committee’s recommendations.
The committee’s report takes account of oral and written evidence from the nominees and the cabinet secretary. The purpose of taking evidence was to provide Parliament with an opportunity to consider the professional experience and competence of the individuals who have been nominated for appointment. As they are the first appointments to the commission, the evidence assisted the committee to understand more about the issues that commission members will need to consider before commencing their work, including the specific remit of the commission, which they will be required to fulfil, and staffing and analytical resources.
The committee’s report highlights the importance of transparency in the commission’s commentary on the Scottish Government’s forecasts. The committee takes the view that any provisional forecast on which the commission comments should be provided alongside the final forecast along with an explanation of any differences between the two. That will be important in ensuring that members of Parliament and interested observers are able to understand the interaction between the commission and the Government. Crucially, it will show how the Government’s forecasting may be revised in light of, or be informed by, the commission’s commentary. It would be helpful if the cabinet secretary could respond to that recommendation when he sums up.
I turn to the evidence that the committee took from the nominees. The range of issues that we explored included the individuals’ previous experience; what they view as the immediate priorities for the commission; and how the commission should operate, particularly with regard to demonstrating its independence.
The nominees each brought an individual perspective to those questions, which is of course expected, as a collective view cannot be reached until the commission has been established. The development of the commission’s remit and agreement on a memorandum of understanding are still to take place. The committee looks forward to continuing its scrutiny of those matters and contributing on them; the Government recognises the committee’s role in that regard.
The nominees were asked about any other roles or connections that they have that may give rise, or may be perceived to give rise, to potential conflicts of interest. None of the nominees identified any such conflicts. However, some members of the committee expressed concern about members of the commission also being members of the Council of Economic Advisers. Gavin Brown has raised those issues in his amendment and in his speech today, and other members may explain to the chamber any concerns that they have. However, I emphasise the committee’s shared view that all three nominees have the relevant professional expertise and competence to enable the commission to fulfil its role.
The committee’s recommendation, as set out in the report that we published last week, is that the nominees should be appointed. All members of the committee supported the appointment of Professor Leith, and the appointments of Lady Rice and Professor Hughes Hallett were supported by a majority of the committee’s members.
Members will have picked up from my remarks that there is still work to be done—including on important issues—in establishing the Scottish fiscal commission and in building the credibility of its role. The committee looks forward to engaging with the commission and the Government as the process continues.
16:42
I welcome the creation of the Scottish fiscal commission, and I am very pleased that the Finance Committee and the Parliament will have a role in deciding who should sit on it. That approach is different from the process for the Council of Economic Advisers, which the First Minister appoints, and emphasises the degree of hard and formal independence that is required of the fiscal commission.
The Finance Committee emphasised the importance of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s principles of independence, non-partisanship and transparency, and stressed that the commission must be seen to observe those principles as, without that aspect, the public would have no confidence in the commission’s research or its findings.
In view of all that, the Government should surely be alarmed at the number of people, including distinguished economists, who are unhappy about people sitting on both the fiscal commission and the Council of Economic Advisers, irrespective of the merits of the individuals involved. Bill Jamieson, in an article that has been widely read, said:
“Does it not smack a little of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds?”
Many people, including members on the Labour side of the chamber, have come to the conclusion that the fiscal commission should be independent not just of Government, but of the Council of Economic Advisers.
The central mystery of the debate is why the cabinet secretary thought that it was necessary to appoint two people from the Council of Economic Advisers, thereby miring the fiscal commission in controversy from the very start. He has admitted that there are dozens of eligible and distinguished people who could have served: Professor Bell, Professor Ashcroft and Professor Jeremy Peat all spring to mind. There is suspicion—I will not put it more strongly than that—that the Government is more comfortable with economists who perhaps have a closer relationship with its position.
The fiscal commission will provide independent scrutiny of revenue projections and it will assess the economic forces underlying receipts, as the cabinet secretary reminded us. That initial role will expand. Now, and in the near future, it will be impossible to have the hard separation that the cabinet secretary suggests between its work and the work of the Council of Economic Advisers.
The cabinet secretary said in committee that there were no occasions on which the Council of Economic Advisers had offered advice on taxes. I do not know whether that is true, but it is quite a surprising statement because one would think that advice on fiscal levers and policies, as well as the consequences of certain taxation decisions, would be bound to come up in the Council of Economic Advisers. If such issues have not yet come up, they will do so soon. In committee, the cabinet secretary offered to exclude certain areas from the council’s remit, which is a tacit admission that overlaps could emerge.
Today, the cabinet secretary said that the nominated individuals have a multiplicity of different functions, but only two that relate directly to Scottish economic and financial policy. There we have the conflict between the advisory and the scrutiny roles that Gavin Brown emphasised. Although the cabinet secretary seems to be oblivious of that potential conflict, Susan Rice, to her credit, is not. In committee, she said that she was aware of the possibility, that she would deal with it and that her role on the fiscal commission would take primacy. She has made clear her willingness to choose and that she would choose the fiscal commission role. Andrew Hughes Hallett should also be asked to make a choice between the commission and the Council of Economic Advisers.
If Gavin Brown’s amendment is rejected, the fiscal commission will get off to the worst possible start: mired in controversy and without the standing and credibility with the public that are central to the concept of an independent fiscal commission.
16:47
Many Scottish National Party members care about the perception of conflict of interest in politics and in Governments. Indeed, from 1999 to 2007, the SNP rightly held the Government to account on exactly that issue. Mr Swinney often led the charge; he often had a point.
Gavin Brown’s sensible amendment identified the core problem in the Government’s approach to the appointments. I admire Susan Rice. I would appoint her, too, were I in the cabinet secretary’s position. However, in passing, I say that such appointments are entirely devolved, so the Government could have sought to appoint two women and a man, or even three eminent female financial experts. Had it chosen to do so, then the balance of women versus men appointed to public positions would have improved. Sadly, that will not be the case.
I do not know the other nominees but, from what I read, I share the assessment of Gavin Brown and Malcolm Chisholm that they are eminently qualified. However, that is surely not the point. Members of the commission should not be advising the Government on economic policy on the one hand and scrutinising Government forecasts on the other hand. That, by any realistic interpretation, creates a perception of a conflict of interest.
I am disappointed by not just that issue, but the commission’s remit and resources. Scotland has a highly centralised financial state. I have argued for a tartan office for budget responsibility for that reason. The UK Government got it right: it divorced economic and financial forecasting, which can be manipulated by politicians from central Government. It established the OBR. The OBR is not a friend of any UK chancellor; it is not meant to be. The OBR provides an independent assessment of the nation’s books for not only the Government, but all representatives and policy makers, and you and me, Presiding Officer. No such emphatic independent assessment is made of the Scottish Government’s financial performance.
Scotland needs that approach. We need to judge how best to spend taxpayers’ money. Consider free personal care for the elderly. Some of those who have studied the finances say that it is not affordable in its current form, while the Scottish Government says that that is not the case. Instead of such rhetoric, should decision making by ministers and the Parliament not be based on fact? A tartan OBR would provide fact unadorned by political spin and manipulation.
When Scotland gets past the autumn referendum, I would rather that the Parliament looked again at not just the appointments, but the limited, narrow and restrictive remit of the commission. I welcome Mr Swinney’s earlier remarks that he will review the remit.
By any standards, the boss of the OBR, Robert Chote, is an informative commentator. We should want the same or, indeed, better for Scotland. The finance secretary says that he does not want the commission to step on anyone’s toes, but many people outside the Parliament suspect that he is thinking about only his own feet.
I also struggle with the Government’s argument that the commission will have such a limited role that it can be lightly staffed, through a university, and can have a negligible budget. Revenue Scotland is being set up with all the panoply of the law and with resources and civil servants, even though it will administer a small number of taxes. The contrast appears to be striking.
This Parliament has not got the financial scrutiny of any Government right, not just in the past seven years, but since 1999. It is an area that is ripe for reform. The Government had a real opportunity to create a body that would deliver scrutiny and accountability across the nation’s finances. A future Scottish Government could do so much better. It could believe in healthy, robust and independent checks and balances. I would be pleased to support such an approach.
I urge the finance secretary to reconsider, to beef up his proposals and to make his appointments ones that we could all support, on a cross-party basis, because no potential for a conflict of interest would arise.
16:50
Last week, we debated the changes to the written agreement between the Finance Committee and the Scottish Government on the budget process, which were made necessary by the devolution of two taxes. The land and buildings transaction tax and the Scottish landfill tax will be important considerations in budget setting and budget scrutiny. The Scottish Government will publish its forecasts for the revenue that will be raised by those newly devolved taxes, so it is vital that we have a body that can scrutinise those forecasts. That will be the role of the fiscal commission, which we are debating today.
The fiscal commission will only fulfil its role as well as its personnel allow it to. In that regard, I want to endorse the cabinet secretary’s three nominees. Susan Rice, the prospective chair of the commission, has worked in a range of senior roles in the banking sector since 1986. Before that, she worked in academic management in America, and she is currently a non-executive director on the court of the Bank of England, as well as undertaking a range of other work. In the evidence that she gave to the Finance Committee, I was struck by the depth of her commitment to the concept of public service, which too many people overlook or are quick to dismiss in an increasingly cynical age. I believe that she is committed to the commission for the best of reasons, and I believe that she will be an effective and engaging chairperson.
Andrew Hughes Hallett and Campbell Leith are two eminent economists with different but complementary backgrounds, and both will be excellent appointments to work with Susan Rice on the commission.
It is unfortunate that some members believe that two of the nominees face a conflict of interests by virtue of their role on the Council of Economic Advisers, but I do not consider that to be the case. First, I observe that the Finance Committee took considerable time to prepare a report on the establishment of a Scottish fiscal commission and that nowhere in that report did we make a recommendation that restrictions should be imposed on who could be appointed to the commission on the basis of their membership of another entity.
Secondly, I believe that, in the evidence that they gave to the committee, all three nominees not only gave an undertaking that they would act independently; they demanded that their independence be respected. I think that we should take that in good faith.
Thirdly, we should recognise that, by virtue of their expertise, all three nominees are bound to be in demand to sit on other bodies. The perception of a conflict of interest might always be there, but that does not mean that there is one.
We should also recognise that the fiscal commission will have a very different role from that of the Council of Economic Advisers. I thought that Malcolm Chisholm slightly misinterpreted the cabinet secretary—who I am sure will speak for himself when he closes the debate—when he suggested that the cabinet secretary had offered to restrict the role of the fiscal commission. I think that the point that he was making was that he has already done that by following the recommendations of the Finance Committee’s report. Again, I do not believe that there is a conflict of interest between membership of the two bodies.
In addition, all the nominees will serve for a single term, so they will not be beholden to the cabinet secretary to be reappointed. That further emphasises the fact that they will operate independently.
We should recognise that the cabinet secretary has taken on board some of the concerns that some members of the Finance Committee expressed about a perceived conflict of interest. He says that members of the fiscal commission will be subject to a code of conduct that will deal with the registration of interests and conflicts of interest as they arise.
For those reasons, I do not believe that there is a conflict of interests. Given the excellent nature of the nominees before us, I believe that we should back the creation of the fiscal commission and the nominees to it.
I call John Swinney. Cabinet secretary, I would be obliged if you could finish by 5 o’clock.
16:54
Right, Presiding Officer.
I am delighted to conclude this afternoon’s helpful debate. Mr Brown has done us a service by lodging an amendment that addresses and communicates the nub of his concerns. Amendments are often used as cover for other comments, but Mr Brown has lodged an amendment that fairly sums up the issues that he has marshalled. He has set out fairly in the amendment the credibility of the candidates I have suggested for nomination, has remarked on the strength of those candidates and has focused on his concerns about the perception of a conflict of interest with membership of the Council of Economic Advisers. That is helpful, because it crystallises the debate so that there can be no doubt about the issues.
I will make four points to the Parliament that capture why the Parliament should be assured that the correct thing to do is to support the motion at decision time. First, the Government has put forward—I have nominated—three candidates of eminent capability with a breadth of experience and a demonstrable reputation of integrity and challenge in all the work that they have undertaken. I do not think that any of that is disputed by anybody in the Parliament. Indeed, Mr Brown made that point very clear in his comments today and Mr McMahon made it very clear in his comments to the Finance Committee last week. We have candidates of undisputed capability and strength of reputation for office in the Scottish fiscal commission.
I certainly do not disagree with what the cabinet secretary has just said, but I am still genuinely puzzled, with all due respect to those individuals and their great abilities, because there are, as I think Mr Swinney admitted, dozens—certainly a large number—of equally eminent economists. I am genuinely puzzled as to why they were overlooked and this controversy was created.
Without naming individuals, I say to Mr Chisholm that I do not think that anybody comes along as a potential candidate for the role without complicated connections to other areas of work that they might be involved in. However, all such people protect their integrity and reputation for independence by the way in which they conduct themselves in exercising their responsibilities. That is the strength of the three candidates that I have put forward.
Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention?
If Mr Harvie will allow me to make some progress, I will try to let him in in a moment.
My second point is really a point of disagreement with Tavish Scott. I decided that the Scottish fiscal commission should have a very focused remit, looking to challenge only the fiscal forecast that we made in relation to the taxes concerned. I said that a different view could be taken of a much broader role. I was very clear about that with the Finance Committee and, if I have read its report correctly, I am in tune with the Finance Committee on this point because it wants the body that I suggest and, with respect, not the one that Mr Scott suggests, however valuable that might be. The focused remit is crucial and the fiscal commission will have an exclusive responsibility to challenge the fiscal forecasts of the Government. There will be no opportunity for the Council of Economic Advisers to intervene in that process at any stage.
My third point is about the location of the fiscal commission in the University of Glasgow with independent support and away from the Government. I have been quite clear—again, this addresses Mr Scott’s point—that if there are resourcing issues, I will address them to the satisfaction of the commission.
Fourthly, the individuals are being appointed for one single term only. They will be free to say what they like about my fiscal forecasts and will be able to challenge them in any way that they would like, without fears about reappointment.
The existence of the Council of Economic Advisers implies that the Government will, from time to time, accept their economic advice. Can the cabinet secretary tell us how he would bring real objectivity to the task of scrutinising the impact and the potential consequences of economic policies that were at least partly the result of his own advice? How can that be done objectively?
That is what the Parliament is here to do: to challenge the view and decisions that I take in relation to the economy. I am crystal clear that the Scottish fiscal commission alone will have the power, opportunity and resources to challenge the fiscal forecasts that I make in relation to the budget, and to do so in the interests of good public scrutiny.
The Government has put forward three candidates of eminent capability. Their appointment has been endorsed by the Finance Committee. I invite the Parliament to support those nominations and to ensure that we have a fiscal commission that can properly, fully and effectively hold the Government’s forecasts to account, ensuring that the public debate in Scotland on that aspect of our budget process is enhanced as a consequence.
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