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The Scottish Retail Consortium tells us that footfall is still 20 per cent below the pre-pandemic level and that serious questions remain about the viability of some businesses.
It used quarter 1 of 2018 as the most recent stable period, as it was pre-Brexit and pre-pandemic. Brexit uniquely affects UK relationships with the EU, whereas we acknowledge that the pandemic is global in its impact.
Might it take two, three or five years to get back to where we were pre-pandemic? I understand that you want to be able to be clear about dates and times, but that is really hard.
The Scottish Parliament information centre reported that, pre-Covid, the local government revenue settlement as a proportion of the Scottish Government revenue budget had decreased by 2.6 per cent between 2013-14 and 2019-20.
Now that we have ministers and the Government inside the bars looking out the windows, they are seeing how bad a place we were in pre-Covid, and it is even worse now.
As is necessary with virtual meetings, we will take questions in a pre-arranged order. I will start with the first questions before asking each member in turn to ask questions.