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How many FMs have you undertaken for framework bills?

That leads on to the perennial challenge that always comes up with this committee, which is the need for a much more strategic long-range look at public sector finance. That is often expressed as the need for multiyear funding.

Do you anticipate that you will have any discussions with the UK Government, given the critical dependencies that you have set out, in the sense that one needs the other? Do you anticipate that you will be able to have discussions with the UK Government and/or the Treasury?

As you alluded earlier, your report refers to working with a debt to gross domestic product ratio of 90 per cent as a normal baseline, as against the startling figure, if it was all public investment, of 289 per cent. That figure, more than anything—I know that it is the OBR’s figure—makes clear the need for private investment as well.

Does your report accentuate the fact that the volatility in the public sector funding environment will have a direct influence on the confidence of private sector funding to come to the fore? Am I correct in that assumption?

I apologise for not joining you in the room. I have to leave early and did not want to disturb the flow of the meeting.

I want to ask a framing question that will support some of the later questions. We know that we have had increased inputs into the education system in general—average spend per pupil for primary and secondary has gone up, there are more classroom assistants, and so on—yet there is still a perception of a lack of support for pupils with ASN. I am, as you are, mindful of the increased demand, but I would appreciate your reflections on why that perception persists, despite the increased inputs that we have had for a long time.

I think that you fairly reflect the new, post-pandemic environment. My follow-on question is this: given that the perception of a lack of resources persists, for the good reasons that you have set out, what actions are you going to take to manage perceptions and ensure that people start to see that things are in train?

I accept that you are where you are.

Earlier, Jonathan Waite made a comment that intrigued me. I hope that I am being accurate when I say that he said that the bill allows Revenue Scotland to tax anyone in the supply chain if a non-registered site is used. Am I correct in saying that?

I had not even appreciated that the surveys were done by third parties and that they were not done specifically to gather data. Even within that, there is a range of different variables.

I understand why you might do this, but is it wise to proceed without having fleshed out the question of whether there will be any implications of that? If someone is going to be taxed as part of the supply chain, there will surely be a situation in which they might object to that and open a dispute, which is important because, as Michael Marra noted earlier, Revenue Scotland will be able to offset an outstanding amount of tax if there is no dispute. I am interested in the detail of how that is going to work.

Good morning. Thank you for joining us. I have a point that picks up on what Liz Smith said earlier about a finance bill. I listened to what you said, minister, about the implications, the complexity and so on. Before I start on my substantive questions, I will make an observation that a finance bill would benefit the Parliament because it would require all the MSPs to talk about and understand the financing. At the moment, I would gently suggest that this committee is viewed with some disdain by some parliamentarians who have no need to worry about where the money is coming from, but I think that we all need to do that. That is my tuppenceworth. I do not necessarily need a response.

I will move on to my first question. I understand why data is not collected in company returns, because I have completed them, but I think that HMRC seems to have gotten off incredibly lightly. I want to drill down a wee bit on the survey’s approach. We know that not all quarries are registered. Therefore, the survey must have interrogated only those quarries that are registered. Can you give me any more data on how many quarries were polled, what the percentage rate of return was and, therefore, what your confidence level is in that return? Some hard numbers from the data would be helpful.

How confident are you in the figure that you have given?