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I think that the Law Society said, “Yes, but other taxes might not align directly.” That is true, but I suppose that it cannot be beyond the wit of you and the Parliament to design legislation that takes account of that. Would a finance bill allow for the sort of scrutiny that you would want as you continue with the offsetting approach?

What do you all think about establishing the offset of taxes as a principle? I accept what is being said about the relatively small number of Scottish taxes, but is there merit in the principle that one tax can be used to offset another, on the basis that we can anticipate further taxes being devolved in the future?

How did I know that that comment was going to come up? Thank you, convener. [Laughter.]

I want to ask about a couple of interrelated areas. The previous panel expressed some concern about offset—or set-off, as I think you describe it—and called it heavy handed. The point that I made to them was that a principled approach is surely being established in anticipation of further taxes being devolved in order to ensure that, where people owe tax, we are able to claw it back. Am I correct in that assumption?

Thank you.

Maybe it does. I am not trying to get to any slam dunk; I am genuinely trying to understand. You have given me more helpful insight, although I suspect that I have further to go to bottom out some of this stuff. Thank you.

That is helpful. Thank you.

I have just one small question, which arguably follows on from those of the convener and Michael Marra. Mr Doak, in your submission, you noted that

“Significant behaviour change is unlikely unless the Scottish Government decides to change the rate drastically, and even then there isn’t an obvious supply of alternative materials available.”

I know that Mr Marra has been touching on this, but I am still not sure that I have a clear sense of it. Mr Marra made a good point about red chips and aggregate that is specific to Scotland, but I am still not clear on the detail of different aggregate types and what overall potential price increases they could stand, although, as everyone has said, there are no plans for that on the table.

I wonder whether you could help me understand a bit more. As you point out correctly, English producers might be keen to exploit any substantial rate increases in Scotland; we all understand that. However the devil surely must be in the detail. I know that we have danced around the issue a bit with two separate questions, but if you could help me understand a bit more, that would be helpful.

You are talking about secondary aggregates. That is what I was misunderstanding.

Good morning. I will follow up on a point that Liz Smith made. I have raised with the Deputy First Minister a question about inefficiency related to the annual budget process and significant in-year changes. It seems to me that that must incur a significant amount of sunk costs in redoing and repositioning things, and so on. Am I right in having that perception, and is it also your perception?

You have set out what I thought, and very clearly. I suppose the point that I am making is that there is a cost to the inefficiency. If you were working in a law firm, you would itemise every hour to say what goes to this client and what goes to that client. Have you ever considered collecting the cost of inefficiency as fiscal events occur, and of late notification? A number being put on that inefficiency could very well be quite compelling.