Chamber and committees

I realise that my final point touches on a reserved matter. We had a briefing from Oxfam and Christian Aid, among others, about the vaccines getting to poorer countries around the world. One of the figures that they gave was that only 7.1 per cent of people in low-income countries have received even one dose. The gap between them and us is huge. Those organisations argue that it is not just about the existing companies producing more vaccines; developing countries should be allowed to produce them themselves through intellectual property rights being waived. Can the Scottish Government do anything to push that agenda along?

Thank you—that is helpful. The Deputy First Minister shows exemplary behaviour in the number of tests that he does. Sadly, however, not everybody in society is taking as many tests and getting the same feedback. Nevertheless, I appreciate your answer.

More generally, is it fair to say that the bill is about saving money? Most legislation leads to money being spent. The key point is that the NHS would be severely damaged if it had to pay full compensation for people’s loss of wages and all the rest of it. The bill will ensure that £500 is paid only to those people who need it most.

I will follow up on that point. I will not ask you whether we are sending too many young people to university, but am I right in saying that, if we sent fewer of them to university and had more working, and maybe doing apprenticeships, that would—although it might have a more damaging effect in the long term—boost the economy in the short term?

I take that point, but it seems to me that the issue is having an effect on our budget in the short term, although I accept that it will all come out in the wash in the long term. Previously, we had the Scottish-specific economic shock—I hope that I have got those words right—which was really a timing issue between your forecasts and those of the OBR. I simply wonder whether we are seeing the situation in reverse at the moment, with the OBR having made, in October, an optimistic forecast for the UK of 6 per cent, and you predicting, in December, growth of 3.8 per cent. Is this just a timing thing, or is it a mixture of timing and reality?

I have a question for David Eiser that follows on from some of the issues that have already been touched on. I do not know whether you heard the previous session, but I quoted a SPICe report about GDP growth rates in the calendar years that are coming up. The Fraser of Allander Institute’s prediction, which I think it made in September, is that growth will be 4.8 per cent, whereas, in December, the Scottish Fiscal Commission predicted growth of 3.8 per cent. Those figures are just within Scotland. The OBR has predicted growth of 6 per cent, which appears to be at the highest end at the UK level. It is higher than the Bank of England’s prediction, for example. Do you have any further thoughts on that?

Earlier, you said that, if the OBR is being a bit optimistic and the SFC is being a bit pessimistic, it will come out in the wash in a few years’ time. I get that. That is not exactly what you said, but it was roughly that.

The problem for us is that, in the short term—the next one, two or three years—those forecasts affect our budget, so we could end up making savings that we would not need in the long run because everything would come out in the wash and the economy would, in fact, recover. Is there not a problem if one forecast is cautious and another is optimistic?

There would be short-term pain for long-term gain.

Yes, that is right.

I think that schools still think that way in a sense. Earlier, I made a comparison between my nephews. I do not want to provide too many personal details, but one of my nephews went to university and it will take him some time to earn wages, whereas my other nephew did not and is earning very good wages. In the short term, that helps with tax. Are we emphasising going to university and getting academic qualifications too much, at the expense of practical apprenticeships such as those in engineering and so on?

Thank you for that. I do not want to spend too much longer on the subject, but I highlight that one of my nephews, who is aged 22, did not go to university but has done extremely well and has bought his own house.

The main point that I want to discuss concerns the GDP growth rates. We have an interesting paper from the Scottish Parliament information centre that contains predicted growth rates. Those predictions have been made over a relatively short time, but I accept that timing might be part of the issue.

According to the paper, the Scottish Fiscal Commission’s prediction is for a 3.8 per cent growth in GDP in 2022; the Fraser of Allander Institute’s is for 4.8 per cent; the Office for Budget Responsibility’s is for 6 per cent; the National Institute of Economic and Social Research’s is for 4.7 per cent; the Bank of England’s is for 5 per cent; and HM Treasury’s is for 5 per cent.

The OBR’s prediction seems to be a bit of an outlier, as it is quite high. It was made in October, which was only two months ago, and your prediction is more recent. Can you say a bit more about those differences? Obviously, the issue has a real effect on our budget, and the OBR’s prediction seems very high.

I am interested in what Graeme Roy said about differentiating between what we can and cannot change, and in some of the comments about productivity, which is probably more the work of the Economy and Fair Work Committee—I think that Michelle Thomson also sits on that committee.

I still wonder about productivity. Putting two crew members on a train is less productive than putting one on it, but doing so increases safety, enables the collection of fares and so on, so productivity is not always an issue. Is tourism a sector in which it is harder to have good productivity, because a good hotel has more staff and looks after people better? I am not sure.

Where I am going with this is that we cannot control the population, in one sense, but we could control it with immigration. Out of all that we are talking about—productivity, skills and population—is population the biggest issue? Is that what is holding us back?