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I could push more on that. It was interesting to see what is the settled status of the Basque Country, regardless of what Government is in power in Madrid. That is not the situation that we have in Scotland.

To finish up, do you have any more points that you want to make to the committee, in view of the discussion that we have had during the past hour and a half? Is there anything that we have omitted?

Audrey, the discussion is about the fiscal framework. I know that you had only one hour’s notice of the meeting, but you are moving away a wee bit from the subject matter that we are discussing and deliberating today.

Thank you very much. I also thank Matthew Elsby and Niall Caldwell for their contributions.

That concludes the evidence on the fiscal framework review, the report and VAT assignment. We will consider the next steps in private at our next meeting. That concludes the public part of today’s meeting. The next item on our agenda will be taken in private.

Good morning, and welcome to the 30th meeting in 2023 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. We have received apologies from Michael Marra; Daniel Johnson is attending as his substitute. We have also received apologies from Michelle Thomson; Audrey Nicoll is attending as her substitute. I welcome both to the committee.

As it is Audrey Nicoll’s first time attending the committee, I invite her to declare any interests that are relevant to it.

You are being diplomatic in the responses that you are giving. It seems to me—correct me if I am wrong—that you were presented with a take-it-or-leave-it situation with little wriggle room. As my mother would say, half a loaf is better than no bread. Was that the kind of approach with which you were presented?

That is great. My last question is about VAT. As you will be aware, last week we took evidence on VAT assignment; we had a round-table discussion with a number of organisations, including the Scottish Fiscal Commission and Audit Scotland. We had planned a 75-minute session but we took only 50 minutes because it became very clear that no one thinks that VAT assignment is in any way a good idea. I might not be speaking for everyone, although I am pretty sure that I am, but we felt that it was added to the Smith commission so that it could appear that the commission was going to move towards 50 per cent of taxation being devolved at some point and it was thrown in as part of that mix.

However, when we looked at the intricacies of assignation and the nightmare that it would be—HM Revenue and Customs, for example, briefed us on volatility, as did many others—it appeared to us, the Fraser of Allander Institute and the SFC that it was not in Scotland’s interests to secure the assignment of VAT. The volatility would be huge and we could see zero benefits, because we would not have control over the policy or the VAT levels at all. Of course, it was also a way of getting around the fact that, when we were in the European Union, we could not devolve VAT to sub-state legislatures.

Will the Scottish Government abandon the policy of assigning VAT or will it consider whether VAT can potentially be devolved in future? What is the Scottish Government’s position on that? It seems to us that Scottish Government officials have done a lot of work on that over many years. I feel for the people who have been doing that work, but it is a dead end as far as we can see. That is the unanimous view of the committee and, indeed, of the people who participated in last week’s round table.

We have spoken about prudential borrowing over the years. It is available to local authorities, and it has always seemed bizarre to me, as well as many others, that local authorities appear to have more flexibility with borrowing than the Parliament does.

Thank you for that helpful opening statement. The committee was taken by surprise by the announcement. I recall what a tortuous process it was to construct the fiscal framework in the 2011 to 2016 session of the Parliament. Had it not been for the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of the day digging in their heels at the last minute, we would have ended up with a framework that would have cost this Parliament several billion pounds over years. A deal was struck. Therefore, we expected the review to be a much more drawn-out process.

You touched on the process. On the delegation of powers over taxation, for example, the UK Government still has control over national insurance, VAT, quite a lot of income tax, corporation tax, fuel duty, savings, dividends and excise duties on cigarettes, tobacco and alcohol. Did the Scottish Government propose any of those for devolution? We will talk about VAT assignment in a minute. How far did the Scottish Government try to push the envelope? I appreciate that you said that you had an opportunity to secure improvements, but it is clearly not a negotiation of equals. Where are you pushing in addition to the areas that you mentioned in your opening statement?

Apologies: I have just had a wee aside with one of the clerks about the letter. I have received the letter, but the clerks have not.