Seòmar agus comataidhean

That is quite a remarkable way of turning a positive that we can all get behind into a negative.

We need to drill down into those numbers, and I have asked for more robust granular data, for example on where people are settling. Willie Coffey raised the point about our rural communities; I mentioned in my answer to him that we have been talking about National Records of Scotland’s forecasts, which, in essence, plateau over the next 40 years, with significant drops in rural areas and significant increases in urban areas. Those figures disrupt that general trend.

Looking at Scotland’s public services right now, my greatest worry is that it is the very people whom we need who are the most excluded by our current immigration and visa systems. That is the bottom line. Last week, Russell Findlay raised the issue of delayed discharge, which a number of people have concerns about. The big problem with delayed discharge is the workforce: right now, we know that far more people could be in the country who are excluded from it on the basis that they do not earn enough or are not considered to be skilled enough by the UK Government. That is quite an affront to them. I know that many of us entrust loved elderly relatives to such people.

On Monday, we heard that there are massive housing sites in Shetland that are ready to go, but the big problem is workforce. Quite a number of Europeans used to work in Shetland, in the construction industry in particular, but private sector construction businesses have told me that they have all now left to go home.

I agree that we have to drill down into the figures. The population figures that were published yesterday are a cause for celebration, but I would like to see higher levels of inward migration, and I think that visas have a role to play in that. I am assuming that those figures would have been collated prior to the most recent clampdown on visas and immigration.

We do not see the data in advance of it being published. It was published yesterday, I believe, and we have discussed it internally in Government. The ask has been for there to be a more granular drill-down so that that detail can be shared across cabinet secretaries and across portfolios to allow us to better understand the implications of it. I imagine that Angus Robertson would be able to return to the Parliament with more data. It is helpful to understand what is motivating people to move to Scotland and how we can build on that so that we can motivate more people to do that.

I also think that the rhetoric is important, for two reasons. First, I confess to being really disheartened when there is a constant drumbeat of negativity in our political discourse about why people should not move to Scotland. In general, what we hear from the Opposition is that everything is rubbish; points are made about tax and so on. I think that we forget that that has a negative impact on whether people want to move to the country. I have often heard it said that the negative rhetoric about tax is more off-putting than the tax itself. That has certainly been the case over the past few years. The NRS figures are interesting because they represent positive rhetoric about Scotland that we can all get behind, which, I would hope, would encourage other people to move to Scotland.

Secondly, how we respond is important. The Government is proud and delighted that there has been an increase in migration to Scotland. We want Scotland to be a welcoming place for migrants and immigrants. Given what other parties are saying about their concerns about immigration, it is so important that we stand together in Scotland and say to immigrants, “We welcome you—we want you to come here.” We recognise that there is a moral imperative for us to welcome people to Scotland; more than that, we recognise that it is an unashamed economic imperative that we do so.

If our problem has long been emigration, I hope that the way that we respond to the recent figures will reverberate across our political discourse and, perhaps, further afield, to illustrate the fact that we want people to make their home here.

Let me make a stab at that and then hand over to Richard Rollison.

That has been a very pressing issue since the Scottish National Investment Bank was established. Prior to the bank’s being established, there were extensive conversations with the UK Government and the Treasury about whether there could be any unique flexibilities for the bank within the fiscal framework. A lot of work was done to build cross-party support so that the UK Government could have the confidence that it was not a political play but was about supporting the bank on those flexibilities.

One of the big flexibilities that the bank would like to have is the ability to carry over budget across financial years. Any investment house will make decisions irrespective of where they fall in the financial year, but the lack of flexibility to carry over that is built into the fiscal framework means that, if we are nearing the end of March, there is a really difficult decision to make as to whether to accelerate an investment decision and, in the process, to carry a lot more risk, or to wait until the next financial year and carry even more risk because you do not know what the budget will be.

We have been working with the bank to consider what further flexibilities might be afforded from within the Scottish Government budget, but it is extremely difficult to see how we can do that without additional flexibility from the UK Government.

Richard—I will hand over to you for the better answer.

Yes. I could take each of the five opportunity areas, including hydrogen, and tell you about where I think we need far greater and closer collaboration with the UK Government. Carbon capture, utilisation and storage is quite an obvious area in which we ultimately need the UK Government to make an investment in Scotland’s opportunity. When it comes to some of the other areas, the big issue that people raise with me, and which they will raise with members consistently, is grid connection. More generally on where we need close collaboration, we ultimately cannot deliver the full scale of our ambition for the five opportunity areas without close alignment with UK Government strategies on them all. I suppose that that is the general gist of my response to the question.

I will give you an update. It might be helpful to remind the committee of the background of that expression of interest linked to Forsyth Black. He was the chairman of the board and resigned from it to ensure an independent and fair assessment. He stepped back from his duties immediately upon disclosing that he was linked to an expression of interest, and the Scottish Government and Prestwick airport subsequently agreed that he would have to resign rather than be temporarily removed from his post. He does not have inside knowledge of competing bids to purchase the airport, as no formal bids have been received.

I do not feel that it would be appropriate for me to share further details, including the number or identity of any other organisations behind an expression of interest, at this time. That is not to say that we cannot come back to Parliament when there is something on which to update you in due course.

It would be more appropriate to put that question to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, but I am very conscious of the impact on the businesses and organisations that I represent at the Cabinet table. His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has done work on the impact on behaviour, particularly on net migration to Scotland. I also believe that statistics on population were published yesterday, and it is important that we take them into account, too.

My answer is yes, the Scottish Government keeps behavioural impact under review. Indeed, it must do so, because the Scottish Fiscal Commission models the behavioural impact of every tax rate. It often bypasses people—though not this committee, I am sure—that the Scottish Fiscal Commission, when it puts together its figures for what it assumes the Scottish Government will raise through a particular income tax change, models the behavioural impact. As you will see, the SFC’s tables model what the Scottish Government is set to gain if all things remain equal, and what it will actually receive, taking behavioural impact into account.

He is a civil servant.

I am delighted to return to an area on which we had an exchange in the past and to repeat why I do not believe that it is appropriate to associate a single line of budget to the NSET programme. I very much respect the fact that Colin Smyth has a different view on that, and I very much respect the comments that Audit Scotland has made, but I am afraid that I am just not going to change my mind on the suggestion that we have one budget line associated with NSET, because that would completely undermine my view of NSET, which is that it should be for all Government to deliver.

I have just given an example about the work that is being done on innovation in the health service, and it is self-evident that that would not be included in a single budget line on NSET. The minute that we resort to the siloed approach on budgets, we will have completely eliminated the core purpose of NSET, which is to try to deliver economic prosperity across the Government.

In June, we published our second annual progress report, which lists all the actions that have been delivered and sets out what stage we are at in the NSET programme. However, I assume that you are talking about the Audit Scotland report.