Seòmar agus comataidhean

I do not think that it is about that at all. It is about having something that is seen to be fair and realistic, et cetera. The methodology is important.

The Welsh comparison is interesting. If you look at the difference between the salaries that MSs and MSPs were paid 20 years ago, you see that MSs’ salaries were about £17,000 less per capita than MSPs’ salaries. I think that MSs’ salaries are higher now, and their numbers are increasing from 60 to 96.

I have raised before—I raised this last year—that the corporate body completely ignores the different workloads of list and constituency members, in terms of both staff allocation and salaries. Every person knows—I was a list member, as were you—that there is no comparison in the workload, but everyone gets paid the same salary.

I know that you will continue to ignore that, year in, year out, but if there is a reassessment, that has to be the situation. It does not mean that the overall salary has to increase, but there should perhaps be a readjustment. I know that I will make myself extremely unpopular with three of my colleagues around the table for saying that, but it is a fact.

That is interesting, and it leads on to my next question. When prices rise, they remain at a high level even if inflation goes back to zero, so there is still an issue. If we had the time, I would love to wade through the budget and ask a whole load of questions, but I am not going to do that. My colleagues would lynch me if I did so, and time is against us. However, I have a question in relation to that.

I noticed that the more homes programme will see its budget fall by 24 per cent next year, to £567.5 million. I imagine that you will respond by saying that that is because of the issues that you have outlined in relation to high inflation and the costs of materials that are needed to build those homes. However, local government capital grants will increase by 19 per cent next year, to £607.6 million. What is the thinking behind the decision to reduce capital spend on housing but to increase it significantly in the money allocated to local authorities?

I am sure that other members will ask about local government.

I want to go back to the NHS briefly. You talk about £1 billion in additional resource for the NHS and social care. How much of that additional funding will go towards the establishment of the national care service?

I do not want to spend a lot of time on this, but £242,000 is the increase for the SCHR. You mentioned two additional members of staff, but surely there must be more to it than that.

What developments do you envisage from that in terms of enhanced public engagement?

We continue our evidence taking on the Scottish budget 2023-24. I welcome to the meeting John Swinney, the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Covid Recovery. He is joined by the Scottish Government officials Alison Cumming, director of budget and public spending; Gary Gillespie, chief economist; and Andrew Scott, director of tax and revenues.

We have around 90 minutes for this session. Before I open the discussion, I wish Mr Swinney and his colleagues a happy new year, and I invite him to make an opening statement.

Colleagues might want to examine the net impact of that, but I will focus on what that tax will be used for. There are Barnett consequentials for health. In addition to those, how much additional resource is going into the national health service, for example?

Through fiscal drag, raising taxes impacts adversely on living standards, and it is anticipated that living standards across the UK will fall by 7.1 per cent over the next two years.

On St Andrew’s day, I was privileged to attend the official opening of the £88 million medicines manufacturing innovation centre in Inchinnan, which is a world-leading facility that has in part been made possible through Scottish Government investment. Given such examples, is it not time to focus more of the Scottish Government’s limited financial resources on boosting tech scalers—I know that there is an element of that in the budget, which I asked about after your budget statement, as you know—start-ups, research and development, innovation, skills and infrastructure in order to create high-value jobs, drive up private sector confidence in investment, attract people of working age—not just retirees—from across the UK and beyond to Scotland, and deliver the tax revenue that is needed to pay for the public services that we require?

On sustainability, in evidence to the committee, Professor Ruane said:

“It is about optimising the use of digital technologies to be efficient in the delivery of public services”.—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 20 December 2022; c 4.]

However, there is a concern that details of public sector reforms, which were expected along with the budget, will now be set out in due course. When is that likely to be?

I appreciate that.