Chamber and committees

I imagine that cyberattackers make a reasoned guess about how we all behave when we use computers. We are all vulnerable to inadvertently clicking on a link in an email—that seems to be a common route. It seems to me that all systems need the sophistication to guard against that, even when we make those mistakes. Perhaps your colleagues can talk about whether additional protections can be put into systems so that, if we are subjected to phishing and even if we click links, a degree of protection is still available.

Good morning. I want to develop a discussion about how and whether NPF4 deals with not just the vacant and derelict land that Sarah Shaw mentioned a moment ago, but the derelict and abandoned dirty, filthy shops that blight our high streets. A lot of good work is being done in a lot of town centres across Scotland, with communities and councils doing a lot to improve areas and towns, where they can. However, many of my constituents often ask me, “What can we possibly do about the 18 abandoned shops that are blighting our high street?” The properties in question are mainly privately owned.

My question, therefore, for Sarah Shaw and perhaps my Ayrshire colleague Craig Iles is: what can we do about this? Should NPF4 strengthen powers in that respect, or do we already have sufficient powers under planning legislation to deal with the issue through, say, amenity notices?

You will probably recall that, in the early days of the system, even some members of the Scottish Parliament were not coded as Scottish taxpayers—I think that that applied to 45 out of 129 MSPs, which is a huge number to get wrong. Can you give us an assurance that that problem has now been corrected completely and that the 129 of us and our 59 Scottish MP colleagues are being correctly coded as Scottish taxpayers?

I am glad to say that I was not one of those 45 MSPs; I was correctly identified initially.

As we have you in front of us, Mr Davies, will you say something about the audit function that might apply to the UK Government’s shared prosperity fund when it comes in? As you probably know, the European Union structural funds were completely within the scope and under the gaze of Audit Scotland and the Scottish Parliament, but we do not have any details on the follow-up arrangements that will apply for Scotland with respect to the levelling up fund or shared prosperity fund—whatever it is called.

Do you have any information from an audit perspective on where the audit function will rest? We think that the value to Scotland and the Scottish Parliament was more than £1 billion over seven years, but we have no idea whether the amount will be the same with the new arrangements. However, I am asking you specifically about the audit function rather than the politics. Can you share any information with the committee on that?

Okay. Many thanks for those responses.

We know that 54 per cent of Scottish taxpayers pay less income tax than they would if they lived in other parts of the UK. Nevertheless, identifying Scottish taxpayers is an issue for us.

We note that, in 2020, HMRC identified more than 30,000 records of taxpayers who were not registered as Scottish with S codes. In March 2021, that figure rose to 39,000. Why is that happening? A simple calculation might show that that represents £1 billion in earnings being incorrectly taxed. Give us a little flavour of why you think that those numbers are going up so significantly, and what is being done to reduce them?

Is there any estimate of the loss of revenue as a result of the issue? We read in our briefing notes that some employers might repeatedly be failing to apply the S code correctly, but we do not have any information on that. Do you have any? Are there employers who are repeatedly not applying the code correctly? Fundamentally, it is against the law not to apply the code correctly. What are we doing to encourage, let us say, employers to apply the code correctly and legally?

Do you have any indication on when we might know about the arrangements? The committee has been asking that question over recent weeks. Is there any indication as to when we will get some clarity?

I go back to a point that Tony Cain made earlier. Tony, you were talking about the disparity between housing supply in east and west of Scotland, and you mentioned Ayrshire in particular. Is it fair to expect the NPF4 to address that? Should there be a direct link to that issue in NPF4? We are talking about economic development and regeneration, and housing and land supply will generally follow on from that, will it not?

Also, things such as 20-minute neighbourhoods kind of imply that we need a more distributed, balanced economic policy. You were just talking about it a moment ago there. Could I have your thoughts on that issue, and on Ayrshire in particular? Housing development is pretty much booming north of Kilmarnock and Stewarton, but that is not the case for the rest of Ayrshire. Could I have your thoughts on whether NPF4 is the place for us to address those issues?

Thanks for that. I turn to our town centres and how we encourage and promote housing in an urban setting. Panel members will be aware of many of the issues that we can see in any of Scotland’s high streets. How can we address the issue of parcels of derelict land empty, derelict shops blighting the urban landscape?

There is an associated issue, which we heard about from the East Ayrshire Council officials the other week. When trying to encourage housing developments within our town centres, we have to be increasingly mindful of flood risk. That is becoming an increasing problem year on year. Do we need to be pushing for ideas on how to solve that issue if we are serious about redeveloping our town centres and making them the attractive places to live in that we want them to be?