Chamber and committees

My view is that it should be a long-term endeavour. If you start playing around with a process and a structure that is working, you jeopardise the medium to long-term aims and objectives.

In the past few weeks, the First Minister has said—I reiterate it this morning—that you cannot continually raise tax. He has been clear about that and I have no hesitation in endorsing that position.

Secondly, we also need to be led by evidence. Having held the finance brief before, I am very conscious of the need to be led by evidence, because there is an important role for feedback, consultation and personal experience. I take the examples that you have shared very seriously. You have referenced individuals whom I know and engage with.

The evidence from His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which could never be accused of being anything other than an independent and respected statistics-based organisation, is quite fascinating. It has published the fact that, on average, more than 4,000 more people are coming to the country than are leaving it. Therefore, we need to look at tax in the round, and we also need to look at what else attracts people to move to, live in and work in Scotland. It has to be evidence led. Four or five years ago, we said that the Council of Economic Advisers would be constantly reviewing what the behavioural change might be, and we now have HMRC publishing these figures.

The third point—you will think that it is obvious why I am saying this—is that, when it comes to tax, the Scottish Government has very limited means of raising additional revenue because of the way in which tax has been devolved. There are non-domestic rates, which contribute enormously to public revenue, but income tax is the primary one. The levers around income tax, as you will know, are extremely limited. When setting a budget, the Scottish Government has very few levers available for changing tax or raising revenue. That is why my role and the committee’s role have never been more important, because economic prosperity and economic growth are absolutely essential if the Government is to be able to continually reinvest in our public services. Clearly, 14 years of quite challenging finances being given to the Scottish Government do not help either.

Although I accept the date point, in every single one of the Government’s budgets, when it has done anything on tax, the accusation has been the same. The HMRC information covers the period in which Opposition MSPs have been saying that the behavioural change will be enormous, but HMRC is saying that that has not actually played out in the detail.

Things are already different. Things are already different in the nature of our engagement—

Wellbeing is still very much a focus, and that is not because I get emotional about it. However, if you read out my job title at the beginning of the meeting and included everything that used to be in it, that would form an opening statement in itself. There was an opportunity to have very clear job titles, particularly as there are many different areas in my brief.

On obstacles, I have asked the team to look at examples of good practice and to try to replicate those across every experience that businesses or workers have with any form of government or public body. For example, two investments were made the week before last, in Sumitomo and Haventus. I am not sure about the extent to which this is appreciated, but I am very struck by the fact that those businesses can go anywhere in the world. They can choose any jurisdiction to invest in in a global economy. So why invest in Scotland? They can speak for themselves, but the feedback that we got was that they found a receptive public sector, a willingness to work with them, and an ease in getting answers and going through processes. I would like to see that replicated in every experience that external investors have when they choose where to invest and, indeed, when Scottish businesses are trying to grow and develop.

I know that the new deal for business group has reconvened the regulatory review group, which is chaired by Russel Griggs. That is looking at how every portfolio of Government—from public health to the environment to education—interacts with the economy and businesses’ experiences, basically. That is my mission. You asked about what making the economy grow and removing hurdles means. My point is that we should make the positive experiences consistent right across every experience that a business or an inward investor has.

—as though NSET should not be embedded right across Government. It should be. There is no part of Government that does not have a relationship with the economy.

If this is our ultimate master plan for what we want to do with the economy, then it would deeply concern me if you reduced it to a budget line. What would that mean, for example, for technological innovations in the NHS? Are they not linked with exciting economic opportunities? What would it mean for the transport budget, when investment in transport systems has a clear impact on productivity, which is one of NSET’s aims? You cannot tackle child poverty without investing in employability, which is also one of NSET’s aims. Therefore, it would be extremely short-sighted—and I would be very disappointed—if NSET became about trading blows over what the budget is. It is actually about whether we are achieving our aims throughout the entirety of what Government can do.

—and I have just said that I would like NSET to be embedded right across the board. I can talk to you about the economy budget, but, by choice, I am not going to give you a figure for the NSET budget. It is utterly irrational to reduce the Government’s overall plan to just one budget line, as if you have to then ignore employability, investment in technology and all the other things that are happening in the economy. The Opposition frequently suggests that there is not a cross-Government approach to the economy, yet your question is directly asking me to create more silos and more separation between different parts of the Government.

This year’s budget has shown that, even with a difficult budget settlement, we have absolutely prioritised the Scottish National Investment Bank because we know the work that it has been doing in the economy.

There were £174 million of financial transactions in this year’s budget, as well as £2.8 million of resource. The cut to financial transactions has been more than 60 per cent. Ultimately, those must be repaid, because they are not a form of straightforward grant funding from the UK Government. The two areas that benefited most from financial transactions were housing and the Scottish National Investment Bank. We have done our level best to protect those areas, but both of them have had challenging settlements.

The Scottish National Investment Bank is on a journey. It always aimed to become self-resourcing and is still on that journey. The bank is going through Financial Conduct Authority processes, which gives an opportunity to attract other private investment. Lastly, if and when that is needed, the bank will also receive additional investment from the Scottish Government for particular shared objectives, such as the ScotWind process.

I will continue to engage with VisitScotland on its strategy, but I think that it has a very important role to play beyond just marketing.

Over the years, I have been very involved with campaigns on information that needs to be shared with visitors—often, before they arrive. For example, on account of a number of road fatalities, I have been very involved in a “Keep left” campaign, trying to remind drivers who might not be familiar with doing so to drive on the left. My first point is that VisitScotland has a hugely important role to play in that regard.

Secondly, how does VisitScotland ensure that areas in tourism hotspots—where there is quite serious congestion in a few different locations—are not overwhelmed? There are hundreds, if not thousands, of acres that visitors could go to instead.

Thirdly, before visitors come, there is a need to be prepared, with accommodation, transport and so on.

VisitScotland should work with content, whether that is user-generated or its own, but it needs to go beyond just marketing.

I ask Fran Pacitti to come in on the specifics of any sale process, if that is okay.