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Thank you. I now open questioning to colleagues. Our deputy convener, Daniel Johnson, will go first, to be followed by Liz Smith.

What tax take is being lost across the UK as a result of those tax gaps—or tax avoidance measures, if you want to call them that?

No.

Before he comes in, I ask you to be a wee bit more specific. I anticipated that you would talk about people on lower incomes, but who do you mean by that? Do you mean people who are on benefits, people who are on low wages who are getting pay rises that are below the rate of inflation, pensioners, or some elements of the above?

Good morning, and welcome to the 33rd meeting in 2022 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee.

The first item on our agenda is an evidence session with the Office for Budget Responsibility on the United Kingdom autumn budget statement and the wider UK context, with a view to informing our scrutiny of the upcoming Scottish budget 2023-24.

We are joined remotely by Richard Hughes, chair of the budget responsibility committee, and Andy King and Professor David Miles CBE, both of whom are members of the budget responsibility committee. Good morning, and welcome to the meeting.

I move straight to questions. I ask members to direct their questions to the chair, Mr Hughes, who can bring in other members of the panel as he wishes, but the other panellists should indicate if they wish to speak. We are two members down this morning, because of the weather conditions, we believe. At least one of them should be here within the next 30 minutes.

Mr Hughes, in our pre-budget scrutiny, we called for

“an open and honest debate with the public about how services and priorities are funded, including the role of taxation in funding wider policy benefits to society.”

Do you believe that that is happening, either north or south of the border?

That is why we need an Office for Tax Simplification.

Andy, my final point will probably come under your area. I do not know whether you will have had time to look at it because it was published on 5 December, but in a paper commissioned by the Scottish Trades Union Congress, Landman Economics set out

“a proposed package of tax increases to fund an increase in public sector pay and investment in public services, in Scotland”,

including short and long-term measures, which would raise £3.3 billion. Have you had the opportunity to look at that and consider what its implications might be for service delivery and behavioural change, and so on?

When do you want to come in?

To be fair, everyone will be hit by fiscal drag between now and 2028. Andy King, did you want to come in?

What will be the debt repayment level in 2027-28 under current forecasts?

Another issue that we have talked about is fairness. For example, the UK Government abolished the cap on bankers’ bonuses on 23 August, and it did not reverse that. The Office of Tax Simplification will also be closed. What are the implications of those measures?