Seòmar agus comataidhean

If you have not done any economic modelling, how do you know that that statement is true?

And that is a cost.

That leads me on to the second question that I mentioned in my opening remarks, which is whether we can afford the running costs of a national care service. I have already highlighted the example of staff availability and, arguably, skills availability in the staff to run it. I would like to hear your reflections on that.

The other point that that raises relates to the prevention strategy. It would be interesting to work out how you arrived at your 1 per cent basis and what that will mean in terms of savings. I am still quite uncertain about that, because you are going to have to make efficiencies over what we are currently delivering. That is the whole point of this—I get that—but can you help me to understand the prevention strategy a bit more and how it pertains to costs and benefits?

I think that you have made my point for me. I suspect that the committee will continue to be interested in the relationship between cost and economic benefit. The wider macroeconomy frames whether we can afford this, so the economic benefit is utterly vital. Because of how the process operates, it is somewhat removed from the committee, which is an issue that has been brought up before. Notwithstanding the moral benefit, which you make a good case for, I am on the basis of the figures—which I thank you for reminding me of—less convinced that the economic benefit will be sufficient, given all the cost uncertainties. That said, you have done a lot of good work on that.

The point that I am trying to make is that—

Well, this is a fundamental issue.

The committee has spent a lot of time evaluating costs. I have conceded to your staff that I recognise the work that has been done on costs, and I concede that point to you, too. The nature of a framework bill means that such work is needed—and we have had lots of discussions about that—but I am probing the economic benefit. If you have done lots and lots of work, why have we not seen lots and lots of work? The committee’s confidence is underpinned by this, so given that you have said that lots and lots of work has been done on the economic benefit, I think that seeing that work might have given us further confidence.

Thank you for pointing out that detail in the business case, but the obvious point is that any normal assessment would look at the extent to which economic benefit outweighs the cost. Given the numbers in the business case, I accept the rationale and the caution that you have applied—and I agree with that; I think that it is the right approach—but, even from just talking through those numbers, I think that it is abundantly clear that the margin between cost and benefit is significant.

One of the challenges here is to ensure that, in the bill itself, there is a delicate balancing of the rights of the victim and the rights of the accused. Having that as a necessity as part of a risk-based approach would go some way to doing that, although, as you concede, it might not be perfect. Am I correct that your point is that it should be intrinsic to the bill?

On a point of clarity for me, while I accept what the minister is saying about the ambiguity in the context of amendment 189 itself, has she done any further thinking on the principle of the victim’s right to be kept informed, particularly for a very traumatic thing, as is done in other areas? Is she therefore suggesting that further consideration will be given to that principle in time for stage 3, or is the Government discounting the principle altogether?

Sorry to interrupt. What you are articulating increases my confidence level that you have taken on board what we said before. Those are all examples showing that, but the issue is the basis on which you will proceed. To go back to Liz Smith’s point, even from a well-estimated framing, the continued co-design means that there is the significant potential for cost overrun, unless you have us breathing down your necks saying, “You said this. It’s going to be that.” I have heard a million times, in another life, people saying, “We thought it was going to be A plus C plus E, but, actually, the person over there has made a very good point about G”, after which they go away and look at it again.

That is the critical risk factor for the costs that you are outlining. I have seen that kind of situation in private industry, where people have taken the approach that you are, which is a function of complexity. They have said, “Right. There’s going to be a fixed budget. That is it; end of.” Then, as managers come in and change, they might entertain the idea that option E looks quite interesting, but that approach would require them to de-scope and take things out because of the fixed budget.

Ultimately, despite my crediting you with doing all that work, we have no control over the end cost. Therefore, perhaps the question is whether anybody has said that, allowing for an inflationary uplift, which we cannot control, and potentially for other variables, they will put a fixed cost on that. For me, that would be the real test of how much extra work you have done.