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Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 17 March 2025
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Displaying 1250 contributions

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Finance and Public Administration Committee

Scottish Fiscal Commission (Fiscal Sustainability Report)

Meeting date: 28 March 2023

Ross Greer

That is relevant to questions on preventative spend. We can keep launching more money into health, but it is not going to reduce demand. The challenge for us, then, is how we take money out of health and put it into prevention. That is politically challenging.

Finally, I want to ask about your projections for growth in local government tax revenue—and I accept that this will be more of a political question that you might want to avoid completely. It feels like we are relying far too little on local government tax, bearing in mind that in Scotland we rely too much on devolved income tax. Under our current powers, it is through local government tax that we can tax wealth, property and so on—in other words, we have more latitude with local government taxation—but the projected growth from local government tax is minimal and the overall share of tax revenue from local taxes relatively minimal. Do you have concerns that, given the overall issue of fiscal sustainability here, not enough discussion is being had about how to reform local taxation?

Finance and Public Administration Committee

Scottish Fiscal Commission (Fiscal Sustainability Report)

Meeting date: 28 March 2023

Ross Greer

Absolutely, John. Thanks.

The report notes that the growth in the block grant is largely going to be driven by increased health spending in England. If the assumption is that the consensus in Scottish politics continues and that health consequentials go straight into Scottish health spending, I presume that that will result in a relative deficit in non-health areas—that is, everything other than health—of Scottish Government spending and that they will be worse than the overall headline figure. Has any work been done on trying to disaggregate that to look at the sustainability of all of our non-health spending?

Finance and Public Administration Committee

Scottish Fiscal Commission (Fiscal Sustainability Report)

Meeting date: 28 March 2023

Ross Greer

That is our job—we all pick the number that we want.

Finance and Public Administration Committee

Scottish Fiscal Commission (Fiscal Sustainability Report)

Meeting date: 28 March 2023

Ross Greer

Thanks, convener. I should flag up that I have an event with the Presiding Officer at 25 past 12, so I will apologise now for having to slip out early if we run over a wee bit.

I should also caveat my question by saying that, like colleagues on the committee, I really appreciate the huge amount of work that has gone into the report. On the productivity projections, would you, for illustrative purposes, be able to project the impact on the deficit—the 1.7 per cent and 10 per cent figures—if our productivity, instead of running as currently projected, were to mirror the European Union average, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average and so on?

Going back to the convener’s point about policy choices, I know that everybody and their gran has, at some point, come up with a plan to boost productivity, and none of them has really worked. How much effort should we continue to put into that instead of trying to pull other policy levers to address the deficit?

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 22 March 2023

Ross Greer

Do any of the witnesses’ organisations have engagement and contact with transportation providers in relation to secure accommodation? If so, I have some specific follow-up questions; if not, there is no need for them.

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 22 March 2023

Ross Greer

The bill will take some time, whereas we could produce policy in a matter of months.

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 22 March 2023

Ross Greer

Does anyone else want to contribute?

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 22 March 2023

Ross Greer

I will elaborate on that a bit. You might have seen the evidence that has been submitted by the hope instead of handcuffs campaign, which raises specific concerns about private transport providers. In essence, the concerns relate to the lack of regulation and reporting on transportation.

In relation to secure accommodation, the broad direction of travel has been towards raising standards, with more reporting and less use of inappropriate restraint, for example. However, the campaign has evidence of what it believes to be inappropriate use of handcuffs, specifically, and restraint in general by private transportation providers when young people are being moved between secure accommodation locations or between somewhere else and secure accommodation. The campaign has proposed to the committee and Parliament that there should be greater regulation and greater reporting specifically in relation to transport.

If private transportation providers were required to report every instance in which restraint was used, whether that was handcuffs or something else, which would be the appropriate body to which such reports should be submitted? Would it be the SCRA, the Care Inspectorate or local authorities? Would it depend on the individual circumstance, such as where the young person was being transported to and from?

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 22 March 2023

Ross Greer

The bill is relevant only to part of what is in the Promise, which goes far wider. In so far as it is relevant, does the bill go far enough to fulfil what is in the Promise?

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 22 March 2023

Ross Greer

I would like to follow up on what Fiona Dyer said about the evidence around the impact on young people under the age of 18 who have gone through the criminal justice system. Would Fiona or anybody else on the panel be able to expand a little on what the effect often is on the young person and on the rest of their life when they go through a criminal justice approach while they are still a child?