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I have just met with respondents and I listened to those concerns. We could not have a situation in which developers contributed to the cost of remediation of orphan buildings in England and Wales but not in Scotland. I would find that difficult to defend. Michael Marra made the point that developers might feel that they are being taxed twice. However, someone has to pay for the remediation of buildings where there is no developer, and it is not fair that that falls exclusively on the public purse. It is important that there is a developer contribution in recognition of the fact that there is a problem and that a solution must be found to remediate those buildings.

I also made the point that developers’ contribution is just that—a contribution. It will not fund the programme for remediating orphan buildings. That will still require a significant investment of taxpayers’ money—public money.

There are also the single building assessments that developers are taking forward, and the work that the public sector is taking forward on its own buildings. We are focusing on those buildings for which there is no ownership or responsibility. I think that the pace will increase and that a number of buildings will be rapidly assessed as being okay. Not every building will require the same input of time, effort and remediation. We will be able to clear those buildings and give them the green light, and then we will be able to focus remediation on the buildings that require it. I do not think that it is fair to just say that 100 buildings a year would take 14 years. That is a very blunt tool.

Once we are up and running with the SBAs, I think that they will gather pace, particularly for more straightforward buildings. We want to be transparent about this and we will give regular updates on what the pace is once we have the systems fully up and running.

I will come back to you on that point specifically.

Although the issues that stakeholders raised with me included an element of the impact on land value and also whether behaviour will pass that on to house prices and whether that would then be a deterrent, their main issue was the cumulative impact—it not just about one impact, but what it looks like when it is all added up together. I said that we were very cognisant of that and were mindful that, if other things were to impact on the sector—on land value and house prices—we had to think of it in that context.

However, we will come back to you on your specific point.

Our judgment is that it should certainly be set at the same level initially, and the figure of £30 million is the amount that it would raise on that basis. Those issues need to be discussed in more detail, but we want to set the levy at the same level initially.

I will bring in Stephen Lea-Ross on that. It is really difficult to say. I cannot tell you what the global cost will be of remediating all the buildings, because we just do not know the extent. A partial remediation of a building could cost £300,000 and a full remediation could be upwards of £800,000, which is at least a £500,000 difference. We just do not know at the moment. Indeed, some buildings might require no remediation. As things stand, until the actual technical assessment is done, it is really difficult to assess that.

I have told the sector that I understand the point about certainty. I would not want a situation in which the rate of the levy constantly changes. We are working with the sector to try to have a period of stability, and we have set out the amount that we expect to receive from the levy. We can factor that in and maybe have some points of review, where we take stock of the actual SBA remediation costs annually and where the levy sits in relation to that. As you can imagine, I want to give the sector a bit of certainty in the initial phase.

It is a very complex system, as it is in England and Wales.

The issues are exactly the same, and the timeframe will be exactly the same, in England and Wales. It will be a 10-year programme. For complex buildings, it will take some time for the work to be completed; for others, it will not. For home owners who have faced a level of uncertainty, it is important that, through the SBA process, we are able to, I hope, give the green light and a clean bill of health to a lot of buildings, or say that only marginal remediation is required, so that people can get on with selling properties that are mortgageable again. Exactly the same issues are being faced in England, Wales and elsewhere.

That is an interesting question. It depends on how far the chancellor goes—is she talking about just financial assets or assets per se? I suspect that she will restrict herself to financial assets, such as those relating to the student loan book and so on. I would favour the rules being tweaked to enable us to have the maximum benefit and flexibility, with at least the cut to capital funding being reversed, but we want significant investment beyond that so that we have a line of sight to be able to invest in affordable housing and so on.

That is very topical, given that the UK budget is coming tomorrow. I hope that we get an improvement in the capital position, as has been alluded to. If that is to be believed, I would certainly welcome that, because it would help us with certainty and with being able to invest what we need to invest.

The other important issue is multiyear settlements. The indication is that the spending review for both resource and capital will conclude in the spring. That will give the Scottish Government a multiyear line of sight on capital expenditure, which will be helpful in the building safety space, as it will enable us to plan what we think will be a reasonable allocation to ensure that the pace can be kept up. The last thing that we want is to have the single building assessments completed but for people to then be waiting for the remediation work. We do not want any delay to that. Once the SBAs are completed, we want the remediation work to be got on with as quickly as possible. We absolutely appreciate that people want to be able to move on with their lives. At the centre of this are worried householders who have been waiting a long time, so we want to be able to get on with this.