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I recognise that—so, there is no direct recognition in the discussions around the bill, or in other discussions, of why those rates are so low.

The convener referred to the fines that might be levied on local authorities for not achieving a particular recycling rate over the long term. The bill increases the challenges in that respect, because Dundee City Council could be fined for not being able to achieve that recycling rate, even though that is a factor of the boundaries that have been set for it by the Scottish Government, rather than being to do with the performance of individuals in the group that you work in. Is there any recognition of that in how the financial aspects of the bill might be dealt with?

Paragraph 48 of the financial memorandum states that Zero Waste Scotland has calculated that the cost of implementing the current code of practice will be £88.4 million. Do you know where that figure has come from?

You are making some well-educated assumptions about where the figure has come from, but that information has not been set out to colleagues. You do not have any detail on it. I see shaking heads.

Given the long-term commitment to this shift that the Government retains, you must have an idea of what the country can afford.

In the past week, we have had headlines about the ferries and the on-going cost increases, with an additional £24 million. Where is the ceiling for that? At what point does it become too expensive?

When you came to the committee on 13 June, I asked about the resource spending review. I asked specifically whether the policy had been dropped, and you said, “Yes.” On 14 June, in the chamber, I asked a similar question. I asked:

“Has the review been killed off ... ?”—[Official Report, 14 June 2023; c 15.]

and you said, “No”. I am quoting from the Official Report, although we might quibble about some of the detail.

This is also, in part, a question of cost control. You have talked about the number of public bodies. One of the key growth areas in the public sector reform agenda is in your core civil service. There was a previous commitment to return the workforce to pre-pandemic levels, from which I think—although I am not sure—the Government has resiled. Maybe you can clarify that: is it no or is it yes? Is that another area where costs have got badly out of control?

For clarity, the resource spending review policy was not my policy; it was the Government’s policy. It was your stated intent, or that of your predecessor, to reduce the size of that workforce. I entirely sympathise that there are areas where it has to increase and others where it has to reduce. My overall point is that you said that we are facing the same headwinds as other parts of the UK, but is the key issue not your Government’s ability to control its expenditure and the difference between what you say you are going to do and the money that we have coming in?

There has to be more discipline on your part, as the person who holds the purse strings on taxpayers’ money, to make sure that we control the costs of government and reduce the amount of waste, because there are several areas where costs are, by your admission, out of control.

There have been some emerging themes in our pre-budget scrutiny. The longer term has come up several times today. In your own words, we have to look “beyond the horizon”. The issue of prevention has come up on many occasions, as has the lamentation of the lack of implementation of Christie and the opportunities that that might have afforded us as a country if we had done more on prevention.

Demos has produced a report saying that we should have a third demarcation of public spending. It thinks that, instead of having only capital and revenue, we should also have a preventative departmental expenditure limit. What are your thoughts on that?

I am in full agreement on that.

I suppose that I am asking, as I was in my earlier question, whether there is a point at which the Government will take a view on whether we have enough money to pay for the ferries.