Chamber and committees

Professor Heald, you mentioned the need for a UK-wide discussion around taxation, which I absolutely agree with. I accept that most national tax powers are reserved. We do not have the power to create new national taxes in Scotland, but we do have powers over income tax, land and buildings transaction tax, non-domestic rates and so on. We can also create any new local tax that we wish to—we can create new taxation powers for local government. Does the resource spending review offer an opportunity to have a discussion about taxation in Scotland? That would perhaps not be as comprehensive as what you are looking for UK-wide, but should we attempt to discuss taxation in Scotland in the context of devolved constraints?

I am in my second parliamentary session. Your point about 1991 valuations reminds me that that tax system is based on valuations from a time before I was born. I hope that that illustrates how tragically out of date the system is, because I am not nearly as young as I once was.

In essence, you are saying that it would be useful to have that discussion about tax, but my take on the first part of your answer is that it should not necessarily be part of, or simultaneous with, the spending review.

Does Emma Congreve have any thoughts on how we could take forward a discussion on taxation? I ask that in the context of the significant challenges that we will have to grapple with in the spending review. I find it very hard to imagine how we can close the gap, as such, purely through savings—purely through cuts—so it is essential to have a discussion around taxation, either simultaneously with or perhaps in the immediate aftermath of the spending review. Therefore, it is just a question of the scope of that discussion. I would be interested in your thoughts on that.

Thanks. I have just one final brief question. Professor, there is a line in your written submission that jumped out at me, which is that the resource spending review should be

“a planning ... not a bidding document.”

I understand that to essentially mean that—correct me if I am wrong—you are saying that the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy should ensure that all her Cabinet colleagues do not come back with a dozen different papers saying, “Here’s why my portfolio can’t be cut and needs more money”. If you were giving advice to the finance secretary on how to ensure that that does not happen, what would you say to her?

Thank you. That is all from me.

I am conscious that I was asking a supplementary question, convener, but can I just ask one more follow-up question?

That was useful. Thank you very much.

The point about the Government’s potential to introduce emergency legislation if the existing legislation is not sufficient was part of our discussion with the previous panel about the importance of parliamentary scrutiny and wider public scrutiny of legislation. Those of us who were there at the time were quite proud of the process that we undertook for last year’s two bills. Emergency legislation vastly limits the opportunities for both parliamentary and public scrutiny—indeed, both your organisations had very limited opportunities to contribute to those pieces of legislation. Is it not a better process to proceed through the use of legislation that is not emergency and time-limited legislation, so that parliamentarians and organisations like yours can thoroughly scrutinise and amend it if necessary? Is that not a preferable approach to an emergency one?

Another point that you have quite rightly made is that, in legislating on a permanent basis in areas such as human rights, we need to think of not just the current Government or the current composition of the Parliament; we need to think that anyone could be in power in the future. Does that not equally apply to the other organisations that we are talking about?

We discussed with the previous panel the fact that there was very good partnership working with universities, colleges, student accommodation providers and so on last time round. We cannot guarantee that the next time round, but we can guarantee that Governments will always be held accountable by the Parliament and, ultimately, the public. However, it is much harder to hold to account a private provider of student accommodation, particularly in an emergency situation. If it is about a balance of where the power lies, is it not better to have that power with a democratically accountable Government rather than a private accommodation provider, even when we do not know who the individuals will be and what their motivations might be?

Do you think that the Government’s intention in bringing this legislation forward is to be able to make decisions wholesale at the granular level that you are talking about? My assumption about the intention here is that the partnership approach that we have pursued up to now would be the preference, but it cannot be guaranteed that every partner will be co-operative in the future. The universities themselves were a very good example of that level of co-operation with the Government, while some of the private student accommodation providers were not. Surely it would be better for the Government to have the ability to intervene at a granular level, with the intention of doing so not wholesale across the country, in every institution and every instance, but in those instances in which someone is not co-operating, whether it be with local public health teams, the local authority or the Scottish Government directly. We cannot guarantee that everyone will want to take a partnership approach next time, so surely the Government needs the ability to intervene at a granular level if and when necessary, even if it is regrettable that that is the case.