Seòmar agus comataidhean

The tax working group that the Government has put in place is looking at the increase in the higher rate, which has already been discussed. According to the SFC’s modelling, that will raise £128 million, if we look at the static costings, and, if we take account of behavioural effects, that goes down to £92 million. On the change in the top rate from 46p to 47p, Professor Heald mentioned that the static costing was £32 million and that, after behavioural effects, it was £3 million. Could you say a little about what you think the reason for that is? One of those measures loses 90 per cent of its value, while the other loses a smaller percentage. Could you explain that?

Do you have confidence in those numbers?

As a panel, you have illustrated some risks that you think are coming. Professor Heald mentioned that, if we teach higher-earning public sector workers to avoid tax, in essence, the more people will have to be involved in where our income might come from. There are real risks in the longer term.

Overall, that £92 million is going into a black hole of nearly £2 billion, which is the figure that we are looking at by 2027-28. Given the risks that you have illustrated, do you think that it is worth it?

None of this accounts for behavioural effects that are external. That is the kind of messaging that you are concerned about when it comes to attracting breast cancer oncologists to NHS Tayside, in a very competitive international situation in which candidates could have multiple job offers.

What about the gearing and the relationship between the UK and Scotland? The performance of the Scottish system will always be looked at relative to the performance of the UK system, whatever the constitutional settlement is. How exposed are we? We have talked about the different measures of our demographic trends in the SFC projections, which are a key factor in that. Within those assumptions, are we more exposed than other parts of the UK?

Scotland’s more dispersed population is one of founding principles of the Barnett formula, from which we benefit as well, of course. Thank you.

The two examples I used—Philip, sorry, I recognise that we are jumping about a little bit—were about people reducing their hours in the first instance. Some GPs are not working full time and are therefore contributing to massive capacity issues in GP surgeries. That has been a general trend. In the proposals that you have put in place, have you thought about whether increasing those taxes would result in people reducing their hours in key core services essential to help poor people in Scotland?

The other question was about attracting international talent, such as breast cancer surgeons in Tayside, who—

I will take one step back to the questions that the convener was pushing on. Your response on tax rates was that, essentially, you believe that the jobs involved are sticky. There are two other issues in that. I was speaking to doctors yesterday at general practitioner surgeries in Dundee, and they were telling me that they do not have a head count problem but that nobody works five days, so they have a massive capacity problem and cannot deliver. That is a trend in the workforce anyway. Will the changes in the differential tax rate that you propose not impact on that?

The other thing that I have problems with in Dundee is attracting breast cancer oncologists. You will know that breast cancer rates for the poorest women are much, much worse than those for richer women, so this is actually about poor people. That is an internationally competitive sector, and we are finding it difficult to bring people to Scotland to do that. What modelling have you done or what consideration have you given to whether it is more likely that I will get breast cancer oncologists in Dundee to help those women if we increase those tax rates?

Any colleague, but I think—

Mr Sousa, you said in your submission:

“if one assumes that the UK Government will take action to avoid the public finances continuing on an unsustainable path, the Scottish Government’s funding gap looks very different.”

There is a gearing issue here, is there not?