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As much as other members may describe the negotiation as a process in which the UK Government has the whip hand, it involves a two-party signatory agreement where one party can withhold agreement and say that “Until we get more of what we want, we are not going to agree to it”. Although, as David Phillips described, one party might, for very sound reasons, be reluctant to go in a particular direction, it is a two-party agreement.

That takes me to the issue about how rushed some of this feels towards the end. It is a long-term process but it seems like we are now locked into what is described as an agreement for more than 50 years on the basis of trying to deal with a short-term issue in terms of borrowing capabilities to deal with a £1 billion black hole of the Scottish Government’s own making. Is that not part of the risk in the way that the Scottish Government has dealt with this? It has focused on short-term budget priorities and how it can get through this budget year, and has locked us into a process for 50 years as a result.

I believe that the principles that we have talked about in the committee this morning about the devolved institutions in Scotland having economic responsibility to focus more on how we grow the economy and how we get money in people’s pockets to generate the taxes to provide the public services that we need are right, but it is fair to say that, over some years, the institutions have had a good shot at trying to develop robust mechanisms to project and deliver some mechanism by which VAT assignment might be achieved. It does not feel to me that that work is bearing fruit.

When we took evidence about this from HMRC in private, I was less than convinced by its ability to produce reliable forecasts on the basis of survey data and some other indicators alone. There is obviously a stream of activity that it is funding and supporting with a view that this is continued Government policy. I think that we could reasonably ask whether that is money that is being well spent.

My general, broader opinion on that is that I agree with David Phillips about the need to ensure that we have a focus on a broad economy that takes a different form. Rather than taking a very narrow view of one part of the tax base, we need to understand the role of people who are not earning high levels of income, whether that be wealth, whether that be people who are living in relative poverty, whether that be pensioners, students or people at the bottom end of the income scale. We do need to think about how the Government incentives are structured properly to do that. It does not feel to me that this is a practical means to do that at the moment.

Are you aware of any discussions between colleagues in your local authorities and Zero Waste Scotland or the Scottish Government about where the figure has come from? Has that detail been set out?

I am conscious that the waste management process in your various councils has changed dramatically over the past decade. You have been through a lot of change processes over that period, and you have described some of those and the changes that you have made.

In layman’s terms—perhaps we will not get a figure—do the costs that have been set out feel realistic? Given your experience of change management and the cost of making those changes, do the costs feel realistic to you?

That is useful. My next question is about the distributional effect. Given what has been said, we do not have clarity on that or an understanding of it. As a Dundonian, I have sympathy with Mr Devine in relation to the challenge of collecting waste in a local authority that has the tightest boundaries in the United Kingdom and where 50 per cent of properties are flatted. Has the Government given any indication that it recognises those challenges? Has there been any discussion with the Government about that?

Kirsty McGuire, you mentioned the savings that you thought might be realisable in relation to littering. In Dundee, street cleaning has been cut to the bone. There have been several rounds of cutbacks as a result of the £6 billion that has been taken out of local government funding over the past decade across Scotland. Is it realistic to think that we can scale back those services any further? There will always be some level of residual waste, even if we take coffee cups out of the equation. It does not seem as though we have a service that it is up to scratch at the moment in many parts of Scotland, let alone if we consider the idea that we might be able to scale it back further. Are those the kind of areas in which you have identified that savings could be made?

Okay. Paragraph 48 also sets out some details about the extended producer responsibility scheme. As the convener touched on, that is one area in which there will be an income stream to try to offset some costs. Are you aware of any discussions about the scale of that income stream—how much money might come in—and how it would be distributed across different local authorities?

That will be important.

Mr Jack, you alluded to some of the challenges that might exist in reclaiming fines in areas of deprivation. Is there any recognition of the need for the challenges of reclaiming fines and achieving behaviour changes in areas of deprivation to be recognised in the financial structures?

The financial memorandum sets out that there will be costs of £227,000 across three years for a local authority. That seems to me to be a vanishingly small figure. In his first answer, Mr Devine said that he was looking at capital investment of between £1.5 million and £2 million, as well as five to 10 additional staff, to set up one waste management centre, but the allocation is £227,000 across three years. Is that realistic?

There has been no clarity so far. Kirsty McGuire is shaking her head. You do not know whether the money will go into the block grant or whether there will be a fund—