Chamber and committees

Like the Scottish Government, my local council, Falkirk Council, has been affected by the economic chaos that the Tory-led Westminster Government has overseen. Inflation, in particular, is a huge issue, which has a resultant impact on the cost of delivering key services and capital projects.

What further fiscal flexibilities is the Scottish Government considering for councils as they, too, struggle with the latest wave of Westminster austerity?

It is a pleasure to follow my FPA committee colleague and to hear contributions from everyone who has spoken today. It is refreshing to have light rather than just heat. Many very valuable observations have already been made about the committee’s report, so I shall simply make a few additional observations.

One of my biggest concerns is the flat capital budget. The Scottish Fiscal Commission points out that that is a real-terms cut of £185 million due to a lack of UK Government funding and the impact of inflation. I again emphasise that capital funding is vital for investment in long-term infrastructure improvements and for research and development spending. Typically, Governments will borrow to invest, yet in that matter the Scottish Government has significant restrictions where the UK Government has none. Our unbalanced devolution provides full powers to cut spending but vastly inadequate powers to borrow in order to invest.

I want to raise an issue regarding the data that we have on the Scottish economy. In some areas, such as inflation, we are entirely reliant on Office for National Statistics data for the UK. In relation to understanding our economy, we also have inadequate data on the differential impacts of policy by gender, which is an issue that the Deputy First Minister will know that I continue to pursue with some vigour. In other words, if we are to see more strategic and long-term financial planning, which the committee has rightly called for, it would be purposeful to have all the data that is needed for us to do so. Therefore, rather than a focus on measures that serve no specific policy-making purpose, such as “Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland”, I would welcome a focus on identifying areas such as the Scottish inflation rate and how our economy serves women as well as men.

There are other areas that could benefit from additional focus. For example, in giving evidence to the committee, Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli pressed the case for serious thought to be given to ensuring that growth results in an increased tax take. One aspect of spurring growth is that it will do more to encourage entrepreneurship and, in that regard, will do much more to support women entrepreneurs who face structural barriers. With that in mind, I look forward with interest to the forthcoming report by Ana Stewart and the tangible Government actions that I hope will arise.

Last week, at the University of Glasgow’s Adam Smith event in Parliament, the Deputy First Minister talked of the importance of empathy and understanding the concerns of others. Smith also wrote of the importance of the rule of law. None of those things is served by the extent of corruption in the UK, where, each year, hundreds of billions of pounds in criminal assets is allowed to be laundered through the City of London—that is vastly more than the entire annual budget of the Scottish Government.

Former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi has been exposed yet again today, with more revelations about his tax affairs and the threatened use of abusive lawsuits to silence Dan Neidle. Even worse, thanks to openDemocracy, we now know that the Treasury under Rishi Sunak helped Putin’s Prigozhin, when supposedly under sanctions, to mount a targeted legal attack on a London journalist.

There is a financial cost to corruption and a lack of ethics, and it does not just remove money from our gross domestic product. Ultimately, it results in fewer doctors, teachers and nurses, and it presents a risk to Scotland’s global brand of probity.

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with local government about any impact the prevailing economic conditions are having on the delivery of local services. (S6O-01820)

I would like to know from both of you what your top two asks are of us, as a committee, in two scenarios. A lot of what we have talked about today has recognised the very real challenges that we have with data and with the economic climate and how it feeds into people not getting the multiyear funding that they would like. Recognising that constraint, what are the top two things that you would like to put on the record? Alternatively, if money and control were no object, what would be your top two asks?

Thank you so much for coming along. It has been an absolutely fascinating session.

Long Covid was mentioned at the start of the meeting. It would be useful to understand a bit more about the context and, in particular, about the complexity of that issue. We know that it is extremely complex and that a multitude of presenting symptoms are being categorised. A lot of work is being done on that front. Long Covid has certainly moved quite a number of people into the category of being disabled. I want to get a sense of your opinion of the complexity. I am very struck by what has been said thus far about data collection and disaggregation. Will you flesh that out for me?

That is not going to happen.

I do not know the data sets in their entirety, so it is hard for me to say that something is missing. That, perhaps, speaks to the problem, because if we do not collect the data routinely, we will not be able to see the complex patterns. In principle, I am asking you to, as a minimum, commit to undertaking a review of when data is disaggregated by gender—and, critically, when it is not—and you could then return to us with a compelling reason why it should not be.

As I said, we all await that report with great interest and anticipation, and, having had Mark Logan before the committee last week, I have high hopes for it.

I have a follow-on question. Are you able to make it compulsory for any agency that receives money from the Scottish Government as part of its fair work agenda—or, indeed, any other business initiative—to routinely collect data disaggregated by gender? I have asked about that a number of times in this committee, so I can tell you categorically that they do not routinely do that, which I find quite shocking.

Two examples spring to mind. I asked whether a business agency routinely disaggregated its research data so that it could understand the breakdown by gender, and the answer was that it did not. I also asked a commerce and development agency whether it routinely did that, and I received the same answer. I would expect that to be done, as a minimum.

I suppose that what I am asking is whether, regardless of Ana Stewart’s review, you agree that, as a minimum, any agency that receives money from the Scottish Government should routinely gather and disaggregate that data.

I completely agree. I agree that it is complex and that it is a case of being careful what you wish for, particularly when it comes to early-stage industries. However, we should look at such an approach with an open mind and stress that agencies will have to do so, too, as a way of shifting the dial. Mark Logan, who appeared before the committee last week, was clear about the fact that the initiatives that are under way are good in and of themselves, but what he emphasised, and what drives me, is that we should start to plant the trees that will effect structural change. Unless we ask such hard questions and start to look much more firmly at conditionality in areas in which we can be clear about, or at least make a good assessment of, the outcomes, we will carry on producing worthy reviews—I agree that reviews such as the Stewart review are worth while—but we will not shift the dial.