Chamber and committees

This is obviously a complex area, as you have alluded to. In relation to landlords’ sentiment, you talked about the supply being generally flat at the moment. What about the demand from tenants? Edinburgh, for example, has had the highest increase in rental prices anywhere in the United Kingdom—it was 12.6 per cent between 2022 and 2023. Although supply is flat, demand is rising and therefore, in a perfect market, you would surely assume that more people would enter the market to increase the supply.

Could you work with the Scottish Government to better define what preventative expenditure actually is? When we put it to the Government that social security expenditure is not necessarily an investment or preventative, it said that that expenditure prevents people from living in poverty and therefore is preventative. To try to crack that issue, is there more work that you can do to help to create definitions so that we do not end up unintentionally or intentionally defining expenditure that is not preventative as being preventative?

Finally, if there was any evidence to suggest that buy-to-let investors were leaving the market and that that was constraining supply, would the Scottish Government be willing to look at any form of exemption or reduction in ADS for those who buy properties for the purpose of putting them on the rental market?

You will be aware that there is considerable unease among local authorities about money being passed down to them on a ring-fenced or hypothecated basis. In future, would you envisage that local authorities will have more freedom and flexibility to determine whether that funding should go into roads infrastructure rather than, let us say, an active travel programme?

Good morning, Mr Boyle—it is nice to see you again. You have covered quite a lot of the things that I was going to ask about, but I want to briefly ask about exhibit 4 in your report. You have talked about the importance of preventative spend and curing social ills rather than simply treating them. The left-hand column in exhibit 4 sets out areas of Scottish public spending that have been decreased, and those seem to be in what could be perceived to be preventative or curing areas.

You just talked about mental health and employability, the budgets for both of which have suffered significant decreases in recent years. There has been an increase in the number of people on adult disability benefit in Scotland. Between 2022 and 2024, there was, I think, an increase of 80,000 in the number of people whose principal reason for claiming related to mental health issues. If I were to look at a similar table for another country, would I find that Scotland is now out of step in the way in which we are dealing with those upstream problems? For example, we have had cuts in the enterprise, trade and investment budget, the learning budget, the Scottish Funding Council budget, the active travel budget and, as you said, the mental health budget, yet we are seeing a significant increase in social security benefits. Is that typical for equivalent countries?

On public sector reform, it strikes me that, given the number of Government agencies and bodies, shared services would be one of the ways to go. Is the Government sufficiently committed to providing leadership in relation to making bodies consider how they can remould the way in which they operate services, and particularly back office and corporate functions?

You have identified that there is a lot of data and that there are many other market-related issues. How and when do you intend to review the impact of the changes to LBTT and ADS?

Would it not be better to hold off any further increase in ADS until you have more data and evidence from the review process?

The Royal College of Nursing suggests that

“The financial memorandum is largely silent on the resourcing implications for nursing, despite the Bill establishing a key role for registered nurses in the process”,

and it goes on to argue for a “dedicated assisted dying service”. Is that something that you looked at? If so, why was it dismissed, and what might it cost if it were the direction of travel?

Finally, a number of submissions suggest that you have underestimated the overall numbers who will come forward, as others have alluded to, in the early phase. With regard to the 33 per cent in Oregon who came forward but did not ultimately proceed with an assisted death, the Anscombe Bioethics Centre says:

“This figure of 33% does not represent all those who ‘entered the process’, it represents all those who, having entered the process and been assessed and approved have received a lethal prescription.”

Can you clarify the distinction between the sense that we had that one third did not proceed with the process with the fact that many more could be involved in the early phase of assessment but, having received a prescription, might not proceed with taking it?