Seòmar agus comataidhean

I would like to follow up some of the lines of questioning that the convener commenced. At the outset, I note that, although the fiscal framework—sorry, I mean the framework for tax; I apologise for getting my frameworks mixed up, minister—is useful, it is incredibly high level, and I wonder about the specifics of how things are measured.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission has set out clearly the issues that we face over the next four to five years, in terms of shortfalls in income tax and indeed welfare commitments, with the combination of those coming close to £1 billion. The fundamental dynamic is that, if income tax receipts per capita grow more slowly in Scotland than they grow across the rest of the UK, we receive less money to spend on Scottish public services. Given that that is so fundamental to the way in which public finances work in Scotland, why is that not laid out specifically and explicitly in the framework?

The data points that I was referencing are from the National Audit Office, so they are at a global level—

You seek devolution of the taxes in question through the fiscal framework, so those levies would be devolved in a manner akin to income tax, albeit that there is some debate about the detail of that. Is that what you are saying? Are you talking about just those levies, or would you seek to have additional levies devolved?

By definition, you are talking about very broad areas that have a huge number of metrics attached to them, especially wellbeing. Are you saying that each one of the measures is of equal value? How are they compared? How do you even compare the different objectives? There is no reference, not even at a high level, to how you will balance or compare the different objectives in your framework. Is that not a fairly fundamental point of a framework?

That is me, except to thank Professor Heald for name checking the Mirrlees review, which I have been recommending to colleagues in private session.

The convener—quite rightly—puts me under pressure as an Opposition spokesperson to say where the money is coming from. I think that that is a fair challenge. However, I would say the same thing to you. We have numbers that suggest that you are overcommitted by almost £100 million in this year’s budget and there are just four weeks to go. I hear what you are saying about pensions, but is that pension adjustment £500 million?

Where else in the budget are we going to underspend in order to generate the £500 million? Why is that not reflected in the spring budget revision itself? You are basically saying that the spring budget revision is not right and that we have overestimated costings by £500 million. Where is it?

I will pick up on that point. We are four weeks away from the end of the current financial year. I understand what happened with the cost of living payments—there was not the funding that was expected. Nonetheless, table C2.1 sets out clearly that you will overspend by £98 million against budget in order to meet those commitments in the current financial year, although there will be £511 million for next year’s budget from this year’s budget.

I struggle to square those two things. I understand at a high level what you say about devolved taxes and underspends in other areas. I could accept that statement if we were in quarter 2 of the financial year, but we are four weeks away from year-end. Could you provide a bit more detail so that we can have a bit more confidence? I hope that you know where the £500 million is coming from, because that is quite a big sum.

I appreciate that.

I just want to briefly correct myself. I stated earlier that the delta was 15 per cent. I should have said 1.5 per cent. I was doing my mental maths too quickly. The flipside of that is that the Government is doing better by an order of magnitude than I was trying to claim.