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I have a few questions arising from what we have discussed so far, and I suppose that they follow on from the point about the differential structure in the programmes and the references to a flat profile.

I want to come back to Malcolm Bennie with a question, although it might well be a general question for the rest of the panel, too. How are you able to reflect “Events, dear boy”, if you like? I have already mentioned what happened with the refinery at Grangemouth, which resulted in the Falkirk growth deal receiving extra spend—£10 million from the Scottish Government and £10 million from the UK Government—and being rebranded as the Falkirk and Grangemouth growth deal. To what extent was that a last-minute bolt-on response rather than an active, planned part of the growth deal?

Let me play that back for the record, so that I am clear. The projects that were specifically for Grangemouth were already in train, and the Scottish Government’s £10 million is going to them. The remaining £10 million of the £20 million in extra funds arising from the closure of the refinery is in the hands of the UK Government for future energy-related projects, and we do not yet know what those are.

It follows on from a point that my colleague Kevin Stewart made in noting a term that was used. I think that it was a bag full of—

However, PetroChina, with Ineos being at the heart of that, wants to move away now. The Scottish Government has called for a pause in the company’s plans to move to an import-only facility. The company is at the very heart of the growth, and its wish is to close the refinery. That is clearly quite a conflict of interests. In other words, the company is at the very heart of devising the programme that is in its own interests, and I was asking you how you are consciously dealing with that. It sounds to me as if you have not reflected on the idea that there could be, at least, the potential for a conflict of interests, even if one is not currently occurring.

You have commented that the amount of capital funding that is available is much clearer but that the rate at which it can be spent is less clear, because it is front loaded. Does that add to the overall opaqueness?

When I searched your report, I found that you mentioned “risks” in a number of paragraphs, including those relating to the pay bill, pay policy, NICs, the income tax net position, the mitigation of the two-child cap, energy prices, supply chains and interest rate rises. However, from reading those paragraphs, because they are in long form, I did not necessarily get a great sense of what you consider the probability of each of those risks to be and what the impact will be if those things happen.

For example, on page 71, there is a throwaway comment about energy prices and supply chains, and you mention that there could be trade wars as a result of the election of the new US President. If something like that were to happen, that could have a pretty catastrophic impact. Could you give a sense of that impact? Your report is already quite lengthy, but I did not necessarily get a sense of your thinking from reading it, so perhaps you could give us a bit more flavour.

Good morning. Thank you for joining us.

On page 9 of your report, you state that there is

“a material limitation to information available to the Scottish Parliament for its scrutiny of the Budget and in the spending analysis we can do.”

I think that that is in reference to the £1.3 billion resource increase. Following on from Michael Marra’s comments, what is your assessment of the data gaps in the budget that pertain to that statement? What is your general sense about that?

London will always grow strongly relative to everywhere else, so that is a baked-in inconsistency. Anyway, I feel that we have strayed off topic, but thank you very much for that.

For my last question, perhaps you can confirm for me something about rates relief. When we are looking at the reliefs in Scotland compared with what is happening in the rest of the UK, the finance secretary suggested somewhere—unfortunately, I could not find her exact comment; perhaps it was in the question-and-evidence session after the budget statement—that the relief could not be projected or put in place in quite the same way as it could in the rest of the UK because of a material difference. Could you give us a bit more information as to why that was the case? We know that some reliefs have been put in place in rural areas and so on.

I think that my colleague Ross Greer wants to come in on that, so I will leave it there.

Yes—especially in the context of a yearly fixed budget.

I want to pick up on some language in the report that I think is slightly disingenuous—I hope that you do not mind me saying that. You use the term “economic performance gap” in a number of places, and you are making the point that the Scottish Government will raise an additional £1,676 million in income tax but will benefit by only £838 million. My challenge to you is that, if every region of England was subjected to the same fiscal framework mechanism, there would always be an economic performance gap, because of the gravitational economic pull of London and the south-east. That is a function of the fiscal framework. I would appreciate your thoughts on that. I know that, technically, what you have said is correct, but there is a multitude of reasons why that situation occurs.