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Just for some context, you are projecting that public spending as a percentage of GDP will rise over the period, as will the tax take as a percentage of GDP. How does that compare to equivalent western economies at the moment?

Last year, one of the problems that we had with the Scottish budget was the inability to project public sector pay, which led the Scottish Fiscal Commission to come up with one figure that, in the end, was not reflective of the higher figure that fed through. Public sector pay levels are a matter for the Government and the trade unions, but what more should we in Scotland be doing to ensure that we properly project public sector pay, so that our forecasts are robust and we do not end up with very large in-year revisions?

Is this a UK and Scottish problem, or are there similar trends in equivalent economies?

I laboured the point in my questions because it is a concern of the committee; it lies at the heart of the problem that we have with the Scottish budget.

I refer to the measures introduced by the UK Government to target the overspend, including the potential savings that were put in place in July, with

“departments absorbing at least £3.2 billion of the public sector pay pressure ... immediate action to stop all non-essential government consultancy spend”

and

“a 2% saving against government administration budgets”.

The UK Government has said that that process is on-going. How confident are you that it can realise that set of potential savings? Are you seeing anything like the equivalent determination in the Scottish Government to implement those kinds of efficiency savings in expenditure?

Does that not go to the heart of the problem? Living standards are going up by 0.5 per cent a year on average and taxes are rising, yet some of the granular work that could be done by Government to reduce its expenditure just gets washed out when a great splurge of cash comes in, which is largely funded by borrowing and tax.

Earlier, you discussed demographic trends in relation to the UK workforce. We have been dependent on net inward migration for employment. Is there a risk that, as we close that gap, the UK will be seen as a less attractive place to come and live and work, bearing in mind that, despite the net inward migration into the UK, Scotland is not realising its fair share, which is leading to imbalances in the labour and employment market here? Is there a risk that our dependence on net inward migration could be undermined by the closure in the gap?

Presumably that work should begin now; the UK Government should not be negligent. It should act with gusto and determination.

We have heard today about the UK Government’s perspective on welfare and unemployment. How concerned should we be about the fact that Scotland has a higher percentage of people who are claiming long-term disability benefits and that the trend seems to be that the percentage of people claiming those benefits is rising faster than it is elsewhere, which should presumably be a concern for any Government.

With regard to the active labour market, post-pandemic, there is a sense that people are retiring earlier. Sometimes, that relates to pensions legislation; other people are perhaps just not working quite as hard as they did pre-pandemic. In public policy terms, how do you seek to reverse that trend?

How concerned should we be about the level of inactivity in the labour market across the whole of the UK, and specifically in Scotland, where it is higher as a percentage of the population?