Chamber and committees

If all public bodies need to “have regard to” Gaelic and Scots, to what extent is that reflected in the FM?

I do not want to take over the role of the finance committee, which will examine the FM, but I have a follow-on question. Public bodies must have regard to Gaelic and Scots under the bill. Will that pull in other public bodies to expend some effort in some capacity? To what extent are you certain that all that potential, in terms of having regard to, is reflected thus far in the FM?

In some respects, that brings out the counterpoint that, if public bodies are properly having regard to Gaelic, that should, if they are going through that process in good faith, determine where they do not have exactly that example. They would then need to make provision for that, which could mean incurring extra costs. That demonstrates the point of part of my question. You can give a brief answer just now, but that is the sort of thing that, in its scrutiny, as appropriate, the finance committee will want to tease out.

On a point of accuracy, you are right about what you said about Gaelic, but there is no funding provision at all for Scots, which is one of the concerns that was mentioned. I just wanted to put that on the record.

Good morning. Deputy First Minister, thank you for doing your opening statement in Gaelic—I really appreciate that.

I will follow on from Ruth Maguire’s question before I move on to my substantive questions. In your opinion, to what extent is this a framing bill, rather than a framework bill, that enables advancement of culture, recognition and, arguably, reward, particularly when you look at the early-stage pulling together of all the different Scots that we have?

I welcome the First Minister’s offer to work cross-party, and I hope that he will be able to update the chamber on the costed proposals that the other parties bring forward.

The First Minister has clearly set out the challenging financial climate and the fact that all roads lead to Westminster, but will he agree to look again at using all the ScotWind moneys for day-to-day revenue, as I think that he understands and appreciates the critical need for financial resilience and financial sustainability—something that seems to have been completely forgotten by Westminster?

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. I will pick up on a couple of points that the convener has already asked about. I, too, seem to have a marginal sign of a misspent weekend in terms of going through the bill handbook and specifically looking at what is stated on financial memorandums. The point is about what, not how. To return to Jackie McAllister’s comment about training, I personally would be interested in hearing more detail about the new training that is planned and what gaps you are seeing being filled. It is a specialism, and the committee has twigged that people have not been across this in the way that they should have been.

Thinking about framework bills, which we have also touched on, the permanent secretary made a comment about the use of agile methodologies and how that can impact on the rigour of the numbers that are provided. I want to understand how you manage the risk. In using framework bills, there is a risk that any figures provided, even if we have much better quality of FMs, will be fundamentally out of sync. I would appreciate your comments on how you are addressing that in the light of significant public sector constraints.

Thank you. I want to touch on where we are on the issue of whole-of-Government accounts. In “The 2022/23 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”, the Auditor General said:

“The continuing absence of a full public sector account reduces the transparency and accountability over public spending, assets and liabilities in Scotland.”

It is a fundamental issue. We had a statement of intent in 2016. Where are we now on whole-of-Government accounts?

Thank you. My final question is about an issue on which I want to get a sense of your thinking. I have been doing work to examine the implications, or rather the risks, of looking at some of the work that we need to do to get to net zero in isolation, without taking cognisance of the financial elements. Part of the reason for why we have landed where we have is that while this Parliament can look at the issue from a policy perspective, much of the financial side is reserved. There seems to be a clear mismatch.

I always bring to mind the fact that this is a deeply serious issue. Recently, the Scottish Fiscal Commission, drawing on information from the Office for Budget Responsibility, stated that we can expect the debt to gross domestic product ratio to be at 289 per cent as a result of funding all these projects. How do you think that we will be able to square that off? We will not be able to do it without the money if we end up in a position—as you outlined in relation to the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill, for example—where we cannot move forward. That is one small example, but it strikes me that the issue is one that is not being talked about much. We will not be able to make progress on it without considering the financial structuring and so on.

I have a couple more questions—thank you for bearing with me. I would like to get a sense of things in the light of the new governmental structure and the new ministers—I am thinking, in particular, of Ivan McKee. Have you had any discussions thus far about public sector reform? Have you been given a steer on what he might be looking to do, given that we have all recognised that public sector reform needs to be undertaken? For example, the number of quangos that we have seems way out of kilter with the wider fiscal environment. Have you managed to have any initial discussions about what is intended?