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You mentioned divergence in benefits, but we are seeing another huge divergence in growth and tax income. Do you feel that the Scottish Government is doing enough to understand the reasons for the divergence from the rest of UK, and are there plans in place that you can see to tackle it? Does anybody want to have a go at answering that?

I have another question. There is a huge difference between the population in Scotland and that in the rest of the UK. Has there always been a big difference historically, or is that a new thing that has been coming through in the past few years?

I go back to the projection of a 16 per cent fall in Scotland’s population compared with a fall of only 2 per cent in the rest of the UK—I think that that is what you said, Professor Roy. You also mentioned the analysis that you have done on how that could impact the economy, but I guess that that is done based on the powers we have at present. The committee is considering additional taxes, powers and devolved finance—as Ross Greer mentioned. Has any analysis been done that could inform the committee, as it considers those additional powers, on what that demographic change will mean to the Scottish economy in future?

In the past, we have discussed how things such as air passenger duty, fuel duty, VAT and—potentially—pensions could be devolved. I imagine that there would be a huge impact on the Scottish economy if there were a demographic change that meant that our working population was much smaller and we had a larger number of elderly people. Do you know of any data that could help us as we make decisions?

You mentioned the issue of when people retire. Is there a big difference in that between Scotland and the rest of the UK?

I guess that the Government needs to come forward with policies to encourage participation and increase the rate.

What checks or pushbacks would there have been on local authorities when they put forward their plans for new facilities to find out whether they had gone to private providers to see whether they had capacity that could have been used instead?

Following on from John Mason’s question about the flexibility that parents have, I believe that they have the flexibility to use a local authority nursery or a private childminder, but we heard last week that parents themselves might not realise that they have such flexibility. Can the Scottish Government do anything more to make parents more aware that they can mix and match local authority and private childcare?

Thank you.

So you are confident that private providers got an opportunity to present what they could provide to local authorities.

Would you say that the feedback from private providers that that awareness is not there is unfair criticism?