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Let us turn to the national test programme. What has the £10 million that has been committed so far this year been spent on? Is more detail available on what the remaining £41 million, which I am pleased to say is now guaranteed, is expected to be spent on over the next two years?

My understanding is that the £51 million is basically to get agriculture into the shape that it needs to be in to continue food production and at the same time meet the demands of the climate change targets that have been set. Are you confident that the programme will deliver that for agricultural production? As the committee has heard time and again, agriculture should be about food production.

You talked about food security being much higher on the agenda. I assume that that means that the conditionality is absolutely going to stay, so that farmers will be encouraged to grow food.

In that case, convener, can we have the UK Government minister for agriculture come to this committee to answer questions on why the Scottish Government has been bypassed?

But that makes it very difficult for anybody considering a long-term project, does it not?

There are direct effects—

At last week’s meeting, we heard from Sarah Watters from COSLA, who said:

“Not only is demand for services increasing because of all the crises that are out there—in social care, business support and all sorts of areas that local government touches—but the cost of providing services is huge because of inflationary pressures.”—[Official Report, COVID-19 Recovery Committee, 22 September 2022; c 2.]

Mairi Spowage referred—before it happened, obviously—to the “United Kingdom fiscal event” on 23 September, saying:

“There will be huge implications for the Scottish budget if the UK Government decides to fundamentally change taxes in England”,

which, as we know, is what happened. She went on to say:

“That could mean ... a boost ... to the Scottish budget envelope”,

but

“We do not know how much detail we are going to get about spending plans, which could obviously have consequentials. There is not only huge pressure, but huge uncertainty ... I worry about whether we will have enough detail to give more certainty to the Scottish Government and local government.”—[Official Report, COVID-19 Recovery Committee, 22 September 2022; c 6.]

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury, to whom I listened this morning, did not provide any more clarity, other than to say that spending decisions will be tight, regardless of the budget envelope that comes to the Scottish Government.

Could you expand on that issue, to help us to understand it?

Last week, we also heard from Dr Lukas Hardt, who is the policy and engagement lead at the Wellbeing Economy Alliance Scotland. He stressed the importance of the Scottish Government’s using existing devolved tax powers to support provision of further services, and said that it might struggle to address inequalities

“within the funding envelope that it has set out”.

He also said:

“I am a bit surprised that such limitations on funding are so readily accepted, given the powers of the Scottish Government—for example, its devolved power over local taxes. There are possibilities for thinking outside the box ... and ... challenging the idea, ‘This is the money we have’.”—[Official Report, COVID-19 Recovery Committee, 22 September 2022; c 5.]

Are there areas in which you are not thinking outside the box?

Do you mean that the UK Government might need to reverse it?

When you say that that tax position will not hold, can you explain what you mean?