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I am just trying to put it into context with where the rest of the Scottish consolidated fund is going to be spent. Not many areas are going to get the level of increase that each one of the office-holders has done.

Good morning, and welcome to the 34th meeting in 2022 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. We have received apologies from Douglas Lumsden, who is attending a funeral today.

The first item on our agenda is an evidence session with the Scottish Government’s expert panel on the Scottish budget for 2023-24. We are joined remotely by Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli, principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Glasgow; Professor Frances Ruane, chair of the national competitiveness and productivity council and research affiliate at the Economic and Social Research Institute; and Dr Mike Brewer, chief economist and deputy chief executive at the Resolution Foundation. I welcome you all to the meeting.

I intend to allow up to 75 minutes for the session. We will move straight to questions. Our questions do not have to be answered by everybody. I will put my questions to Professor Muscatelli, who can decide which of his colleagues should answer. Although more than one person can answer, that does not need to happen.

The “Expert Panel Interim Commentary on the Implications of the UK Government Fiscal Statements for the Scottish Government Budget” sets out the panel’s thinking

“on how the Scottish Government could respond to the challenges it is facing through the tax system and the wider implications for public services and the economy.”

It suggests that the Scottish Government will need to find a balance between

“providing short-term support to vulnerable households and businesses; and ... investing to grow and improve the productivity and resilience of the economy in the medium to longer term.”

Has it done so?

I realise that you do not want to stray into political areas if you can avoid it, and that is not going to be easy but, when I asked about improving the productivity and resilience of the economy in the medium to long term, you said that the Scottish Government has done the best that it can given the constraints that you have mentioned. Is there anything that it can do differently to achieve those objectives?

Thank you very much for that. I now open up the session to colleagues.

That commentary was fascinating. I note that the budget’s three priorities are tackling child poverty, having sustainable public services and moving towards net zero. I have always assumed that people who work in the North Sea are paid very well and that people who work in the net zero industries not quite so well, but the average income is almost exactly the same, at just over £38,000 a year. Given that, and given what the Government has prioritised, how can we accelerate the move to net zero to ensure that it is faster than the decline in employment and the decrease in tax revenues in the north-east?

I thank Professor Muscatelli and his colleagues for their evidence this morning. We will have a five-minute break before we hear from the next panel.

One of the issues is that benefits are going to be uprated in April to the consumer prices index rate, which was 10.1 per cent in September, whereas the GDP deflator is only 3.2 per cent. Of course, that is ridiculously low given current circumstances. Will that increase the gap even further?

Given that the Scottish Government is, apart from the higher rates, more or less mirroring the UK’s thresholds, can you tell us what the UK level will be by 2027-28?

Thank you for that helpful clarification. The first member round the table to ask questions will be the deputy convener, Daniel Johnson.

Okay. I will not get into that argument at this point.