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There has been a very marked increase in the number of framework bills that the Parliament is considering, including major pieces of legislation such as the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill and the bill before us now, the Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Bill. We are seeing them all the time now. I am a relatively new member of the Parliament, having been elected in 2021, but my understanding is that, in years past, such bills were incredibly rare, if not completely unheard of, yet we are now seeing them at the committee almost every month. Is it a fashion that is running through the civil service?

From the bill side—okay.

Is there anything else in the evidence that we have received that you will take on board when you are trying to revise the financial memorandum?

So you are not given any standard ways of presenting financial memorandums. As colleagues have picked up, we are looking at wildly different ways of presenting what should be the same thing. The convener has pointed out that we cannot be in the position of comparing apples and pears. We have a little disagreement between Mr Mason and the convener about how the figures are presented and whether they are material or immaterial, but is there no standardised process that you are presented with to say how you should present the figures?

So you did not adhere to the standardised process.

So, there is a cost to acceleration. That is very useful.

As a broader question, how does this work map on to the SFC’s other work? The commission has set out the long-term fiscal scenarios for Scotland, but Professor Roy said that he has learned a lot from this process, too. Can we expect very substantial updates with regard to the longer-term challenges in the next iteration of your 2050 vision?

That takes me on to section 56, in part 2 of the bill, which is on the power to offset credits and debits. We have received some evidence on that section, which we have touched on briefly today.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland and the Law Society of Scotland both have concerns about the lack of safeguards for a situation in which there is a dispute between the taxpayer and Revenue Scotland about whether an amount of tax is outstanding. Revenue Scotland has confirmed in writing and in oral evidence that that power would be used only when there is no dispute regarding the amount payable. However, that approach is not explicitly set out in the bill, so there is still concern from those who are charged with operating the system on behalf of clients. Does the Scottish Government intend to amend the bill at stage 2 to make that explicit?

My recollection is that that was recognised in the evidence. I would say that the set-off power was well established and reasonable, given the requirement that there is no dispute, which we have already covered.

Revenue Scotland is an organisation that currently runs two taxes and is about to run a third, if Parliament agrees to that. Is it not disproportionate—at this moment in time, in particular—to bring in a fairly wide-ranging power across those areas, given the caveats that I have talked about? We are putting this power in primary legislation. Is there a good reason for that? Should we not be looking at the matter more in the round, as Liz Smith suggested, in terms of a broader issue around tax?

It just feels a little bit like it is something on a shopping list—it is about wanting parity with HMRC over what is a very limited number of taxes. That does not feel to me to be very sensible.

As part of that, I will come on to section 55, which is about automation. We received concerns from the Chartered Institute of Taxation, which made a specific comparison to the Horizon scandal. Obviously, that attracted the attention of the committee, and rightly so. Does the minister want to make comments on that area?

In earlier answers to the convener, minister, you were keen to draw the distinction between the rate of tax and its administration. One of the bill’s policy intents is to support the Scottish Government’s circular economy objectives, but is it not the case that, in the legislation as set out, the only mechanism for pursuing that is the rate itself?