Chamber and committees

It is probably a little bit less, if you are talking about revenue funding, unless somebody has the figures to hand.

If you look at the figures for the first half of this year—

Absolutely.

Prior to Covid, we had the digital boost scheme, which I think has come up at the committee previously. It consisted of low-level or entry-level support for digitalisation.

We have now moved to consider how far we can support businesses and the public sector—there being a big question around productivity in the public sector, too; in other words, it is a big contributor to productivity—through artificial intelligence, for instance. For some businesses, adopting or working with AI will be second nature, whereas it will be extremely foreign for other businesses. Richard Lochhead is leading the AI Scotland programme to support businesses.

You are absolutely right—I think that there is a lot more agreement here than otherwise—but that begs the question about the how.

For definition purposes, I see the NSET in terms of its six pillars, and I see those six pillars as being for the entire economy directorate. We could use our economic strategy as a proxy for the NSET.

This is what I communicate to all our enterprise agencies and anyone who has the responsibility for delivering our economic strategy: we have to focus on the Government’s priorities as stated in the NSET. Some of those have the climate approach inherent in their stated aim. It might be more difficult to see how skilled work is specifically a climate objective, but it is still critical to us getting to our net zero objectives.

Those objectives are going to have to fit within the carbon budget and the financial budget. We have set out our economic strategy, and that is what I expect all parts of the public sector to be delivering. They will all have to fit into a financial budget and carbon budget.

The financial budget is a challenge every year. We always want to do more than we can do, and that can also be applied to the carbon budgets. Every year, there will always be more that we want to do than we can do, but we have to fit into the carbon budget.

We are at the early stages of the financial budget process. I have a long list of things that I would like to see, but I doubt that I will be able to get every single one of them into the full cost. We try to deliver as much of it as possible. That means that we have to prioritise, and we can prioritise only within our stated aims.

The process is quite clear. Both budgeting processes run in parallel, and I know what we need to achieve within our six stated aims, and those budget processes need to deliver on those aims within the envelope that we will have, but the envelope is not unlimited.

Gillian Martin has laid out our approach to the climate change plan, and we also have the advice from the CCC on carbon budgets.

There are two steps to take. First, the company must declare that, to the best of its knowledge, its products are not being used in such countries. It is a self-declaration process. Secondly, the enterprise agency must engage with the company to understand the full details. I will not give you the joy and delight of having me express a view in committee on a hypothetical application, because a very important process has to take place.

I will answer the question, but I caveat all this by saying that I am recused from decisions on this matter because of an entry in the register of members’ interests in relation to accommodation provision, through family members. I am intimately familiar with all the arguments about the visitor levy, as a Highland MSP. The Government’s position is that, through engagement with local authorities and businesses, a number of points have been highlighted about the implementation of the levy.

If my memory serves me right, when the nature of the levy was consulted on, it was about 50:50 with regard to who was in favour of percentage rates and who was in favour of flat rates. Highland Council, for example, wanted neither—it wanted a tiered flat rate—and, in the past, the Scottish Tourism Alliance has publicly favoured a tiered flat rate. The Government has been open to exploring the implementation of changes that have been requested by local authorities and industry. The challenge is finding a legislative mechanism to do that, because time is very tight over the next six months.

There is an appetite—a willingness or a keenness—to find a route to offer local authorities the option of levying a flat rate rather than a percentage rate. The question is the means. There is quite a sensitive conversation around how to link that with housing, which is why I imagine that that did not happen through the Housing (Scotland) Bill. Generally, tourism businesses do not want to see the levy used for what they believe are statutory obligations on the state; they want to see the funding being used to improve visitor facilities. There is openness on the part of the Government and there are very active conversations happening with industry and local authorities to look at how we do that.

No, I do not think that it would be sensible to have a moratorium instituted by the Government, because this has always been a local tax, so it is a matter for local authorities. I believe that the feedback to the consultation from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities—again, I am going into the deep recesses of my mind—was that it did not come out unilaterally in favour of a flat rate. Some local authorities, such as the City of Edinburgh Council, are keen to make progress with the current arrangements, but others, such as Highland Council, want neither a flat rate nor a percentage rate—they want a tiered rate. In other words, I do not think that a moratorium from central Government is in the spirit or the letter of this policy or legislation.