Chamber and committees

I do not think that amendment 6 would be completely unreasonable if Parliament had full control over finance, which we do not. All roads lead to Westminster, as Wes Streeting said during the election campaign.

I am quite sure that the cabinet secretary would wish to support the amendment in other circumstances. Of course, under her watch, devolved benefits have increased by more than inflation recently. However, we have to recognise that the UK Treasury still holds the purse strings. There have been some surprises of late, and there might be more to come, given that the Prime Minister has said that things are only going to get worse.

The reality is that the cabinet secretary and I have no idea what future block grant provision will look like. We would be asking the Scottish Government to ensure that everything rose by the rate of inflation, not knowing whether we would get the block grant required to be able to do that. That is a simple fact. I point out again that, as a supporter of the union, Mr Balfour is quite happy for the UK Treasury to hold those purse strings. I am not, but, while we live in that world, the amendment puts the cabinet secretary and the Scottish Government in an almost impossible position, because they do not know what future financial provision there will be from the UK Treasury.

I recognise that the amendment was lodged before the UK Government’s decision to slash winter fuel payments. In itself, amendment 5 means an extension to the social security system, which I am not against.

Mr Balfour talked about mitigation. Again, I am not agin mitigation; we have mitigated a lot of cuts in the Parliament previously. However, it annoys me when advocates for the union, such as Mr Balfour, come here with the expectation that the Scottish Government should be able to extend, expand and mitigate when the resources are not coming from the UK Treasury. Let us face facts. The cabinet secretary is going to have to deal with some of these issues, knowing fine that £160 million that she expected has now been pulled by the UK Treasury.

I get the points that Mr O’Kane and Ms Clark have made about further exploration of all this; it needs to be done. We also need to be blunt with the UK Treasury about the scenario that we now face.

Ms Clark talked about consequentials. I believe that we should always interrogate consequentials to see what can be done with them. In this case, however, we are facing negative consequentials, with £160 million being pulled out of the Scottish Government’s budget with a snap of the fingers. That is not good enough.

I think that committee members, instead of talking about expansion right now, have to look at the cards that we have been dealt by the UK Treasury and the Westminster Government, and recognise that we cannot mitigate the impact of every single decision, in particular when £160 million has disappeared just like that.

Will Mr Balfour give way?

We do not mirror everything that is happening south of the border. For example, look at the investment in the Scottish child payment and the fact that benefits here have risen above inflation, which has not happened south of the border.

However, we also have to deal with the realities. As I said earlier, Mr Balfour is a supporter of the union. That is up to him, but he also has to recognise that the actions of the UK Treasury have implications for spend here in Scotland. When £160 million disappears, that does not leave much room for manoeuvre, and it certainly does not leave any room for the expansion of benefits or for further mitigation. I think that Mr Balfour has to deal with that reality.

But that decision making has an impact on the Scottish Government’s fiscal position, Professor Roy.

The point about clear signalling is important. Is it sometimes difficult for clear signalling to be given, because the views of the Scottish and UK Governments often diverge? Is it often difficult to give clear signalling when, in some areas, Government has not made the moves that would attract investment? Let us take the example of hydrogen production. The lack of movement from the UK Government on regulation of the storage and transportation of hydrogen is obviously an impediment to investment. That clear signalling that you talk about is not there. How do we improve that?

Professor Roy, given divergence and differences between the two Governments—for example, you highlighted the differences between investment in peatland and in forestry—how do we ensure that there is clear signalling from both of them? Does the UK Government have to allow flexibility in the fiscal framework to ensure that we get a bigger bang for our buck in the move to net zero, UK-wide, by investing in Scotland, so that we can achieve some of the things that the rest of the UK cannot?

There is, of course, another alternative, but you will not be able to comment on that either.

Thank you very much, Professor Roy, I will not take the opportunity, on the 10th anniversary of the independence referendum, to talk more about the other pathway.

Thank you, Professor Roy. You are selling Aberdeen very well—better than some of the folk from the area, who often take a much more pessimistic line.

Professor Bell, I want to concentrate on planning, policy and data, because it is extremely important that we get those aspects right. Earlier, we discussed the transferability of skills. Aberdeen and the north-east are awash with immensely skilled people. However, you said that skills development in the area has come too late. How do we change that at UK level, as far as investment is concerned? How can we also get it right at Scotland level, so that we manage the just transition and do not put folk from the oil and gas industry, and others, on the scrap heap, as happened to the miners a number of years back?