Chamber and committees

I sense that you are laughing. I apologise if that was an unfair question but we will follow it up with the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy. My understanding is that the UK Treasury says that the health and social care levy is included in Barnett consequentials but we do not have a sense of the exact amount. Is that correct and is it the assumption that you make?

Does risk diminish the appetite for change? Does taking a risk with differential tax policies inhibit behaviour?

I have another small question. Mention has been made of demographics and the anticipated reduction in immigration. I appreciate that Alasdair Smith said that the demographic situation had much bigger implications than the reduction in immigration, but from your modelling, do you have any sense of the reduction in tax take from the reduction in immigration? I think that Dame Susan Rice mentioned a figure of 50,000. What does that cost the Government in tax take? I do not know whether you model that or whether you just have basic numbers. I am not sure who would be best placed to answer that.

A lot of the levers that you might choose to use reside at UK level. Those include macroeconomic policy, a bunch of taxes, borrowing—which Scotland cannot do—and immigration. When you look at the current Scottish budget, is it your assessment that the Scottish Government is doing the best that it can with fairly limited fiscal levers? I do not want to put words in your mouth—I am not trying to do that. You can put your own words to it. I am asking the question because this committee and the Economy and Fair Work Committee have consistently agreed that, post-2008 and post-Covid, radical policy choices are required, yet this meeting has brought out the limitations on the Scottish Government when it comes to macroeconomic policy and levers.

This links back to the idea of asking what I would be doing if this were me. No matter what I thought of, we cannot do it. We cannot do any of the radical things that I thought of. You are both experts and I am merely a committee member. I would appreciate your thoughts.

If you are looking for optimism, you have possibly come to the wrong place, convener.

We have covered an awful lot of what I wanted to explore. Sometimes, politicians play the game of thinking, “If it were me, what would I do?” I have been thinking about lots of things. For example, we could make all of Scotland a free trade zone but, oh no, we cannot do that. We could attract lots more entrepreneurs into Scotland, to go back to the digital line, but, oh no, we cannot do that. We could pick up on George Osborne’s old phrase about the “march of the makers” but, as the convener pointed out, there has been a 9.7 per cent cut in capital expenditure.

Having said that, I accept Graeme Roy’s comments about public sector consolidation and focusing on key sectors and the move away from oil and gas. One thing that this session has been very good for is looking at the wider perspective. Graeme Roy talked about structural issues. I do not think that we have talked about those enough in the committee. How are the structural issues in the UK economy holding Scotland back? I fully accept that there are structural issues in the Scottish economy but, looking at the macro picture, how are UK structural issues holding Scotland back?

I am looking at you, Graeme.

I congratulate the cabinet secretary on making such an outstanding budget statement, given the severe challenges that have been created by the, to be frank, incompetent UK Government.

The cabinet secretary has rightly put economic recovery at the heart of her budget. As she is the first female to hold her post, I want to ask her about issues that are of concern to many women in business. What can be done to ensure that there is a more granular understanding across government of the economic impact on women of Covid, Brexit and so on? What can be done to ensure that women are not discriminated against in seeking business funding for start-up companies?

An issue has been escalated to me in my capacity as the convener of the cross-party group on music. The Scottish commercial music industry task force wrote recently to the UK Government to highlight its concern that only £9 million of £40 million that was committed to in Barnett consequentials for culture has been given to the Scottish Government. The minister has referred to that. What discussions has she had with the UK Government about that very concerning situation?

In 1946, two years before the United Nations declaration of human rights was adopted, Eleanor Roosevelt became chairperson of the UN Commission on Human Rights and went on to become the author of the UN declaration. It is remarkable but singularly appropriate that a woman led one of the most important international declarations ever made. In her speech of 1948 in Paris, she said that

“Basic human rights are simple and easily understood: freedom of speech and a free press; freedom of religion and worship; freedom of assembly and the right of petition”

and freedom

“from arbitrary arrest and punishment.”

The words are simple and clear but, regrettably, they remain unfulfilled in many and perhaps most corners of our world, 73 years later. Why, for example, is there still arbitrary imprisonment of the likes of Aung San Suu Kyi, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Zhang Zhan? Why do we still have to struggle to enshrine the most basic of rights? I think that the answer lies in the words of Elie Wiesel, who is a Holocaust survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. It is a problem of profound indifference. Back in 1999, he said:

“The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees—not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity, we betray our own.”

As members may know, I am concerned about the indifference that is shown by some towards the hard-won rights of women. Rights that have always merited some attention but do not compromise the rights of others are coming under increasing threat. Too often, we are all guilty of that; we pursue the rights of those with whom we sympathise but in such a way that we deny or compromise the equally important rights of others. That is not the path to universal human rights. Freedom that is gained by denying freedom to others is no freedom at all and the antithesis of human rights.

Nelson Mandela was one of the most remarkable men to understand the tyranny of seeking to gain power in order to deny the rights of others. His words at his trial in 1964 are as relevant today as they were then:

“I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.”

It is not enough to celebrate human rights day—we need to stop our indifference to the suffering of others, and we need to aspire to be remembered as Eleanor Roosevelt was remembered by Adlai Stevenson:

“She would rather light candles than curse the darkness.”

Gordon—I will come back to my original question, which was about funding operations and your general sense of where businesses are with financing. I also asked about innovation in the sector.

I want to touch on an area that I am amazed has not come up so far—funding and financing. You have given a very articulate description of where you are, but I want to explore a wee bit more how the constraints on resources are affecting your margins, in terms of both your individual businesses and the sector in which you operate, given that many small businesses are already highly debt laden, whether through the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme, the bounce back loan scheme or whatever.

I will also ask about the financing of innovation. Often, SMEs drive innovation, but innovation is perceived to be inherently more risky because it does not have a long-term record. What are your thoughts about how that is financed? I am thinking about all types of finance—not just public sector finance.

What is the general sense of where we are? There are a number of questions. Where are we now? What will we see coming through with small businesses? How many have you seen going to the wall? What about innovation in the sector and financing for that?

I saw Bill Ireland look at me, so he might as well go first.