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It is a partnership, but it is not a partnership of equals, because, ultimately, the UK Government decides how its money is spent. Regardless of whether it is spending £100 or £100 billion in Scotland, I am interested in your thoughts on the core point, which is that the vast majority of people in Scotland do not think that the UK Government should be the Government that spends money in devolved areas. If the spending is in reserved areas, it is a totally different issue. The core point is that a lot of the money that we are talking about is being spent in devolved areas. Regardless of whether the individual projects are welcome, the vast majority of people do not believe that the UK Government should be making those decisions. They would prefer the UK Government to give the money to the institutions that people in Scotland have decided should make such decisions—either the Scottish Government or local authorities. Why do you think that only a very small minority of people in Scotland believe that the UK Government should spend in devolved areas?

I will move on, because I am conscious of the time.

When John Mason made a point about the length of time for which funding is provided, you compared the situation with the Scottish Government’s annual budget. You mentioned having sympathy for the finance secretary, but I point out that the Scottish Government provides annual funding because your Government gives the Scottish Government an annual settlement. Your Government has the power to give multiyear settlements. If you wanted to advocate for that around the Cabinet table, I think that you would find cross-party support for your doing so.

Some local authorities that gave evidence to the committee said that the three-year funding model for the shared prosperity fund compares pretty poorly with the seven-year funding model for EU structural funds. In particular, they highlighted that the delays in releasing funds meant that, with a lot of projects, there was a two-year dash to deliver. If funding was released only at the end of December 2022, local authorities had only one quarter of that financial year left in which to spend the money, so there was, in essence, a two-year dash to spend it. Do you recognise the concerns that, particularly for multiyear capital projects, two years—or, in the case of the evidence that we received, two and a quarter years—is a very short window of time and that that might not result in best value for money because there is a push to get the money out the door before the deadline?

Good morning, secretary of state. I want to follow up John Mason’s line of questioning on the length of time for which funding is provided. Before I do so, I note that, yesterday, the Welsh Government published a report by the independent commission on the constitutional future of Wales. It included interesting research on public opinion across the UK, including on whether—and, if so, when—the UK Government should spend in devolved areas. Only 5 per cent of people in Scotland thought that it should do so whenever it wanted, while 18 per cent thought that it should not do so normally or without consent but that there might be circumstances in which it should. That is lower than the percentage of people who thought that the UK Government should legislate in devolved areas, which was also quite low.

Regardless of the fact that people welcome funding coming to their area and that many projects have merit, are you not concerned about the core democratic point, which is that people in Scotland—the findings for which are not particularly different to those for England or Wales—do not believe that the UK Government should spend directly in devolved areas? They seem to prefer money being given to the Scottish Government or directly to local authorities to decide how to spend it.

In that case, why have you gone for a three-year funding period, not, say, five, seven or 10 years?

Some of us still retain significant concern about the freeports, but that is a separate debate.

Finally—and briefly—secretary of state, have you ever raised concerns with any of the chancellors with whom you have worked or with Treasury officials that the spending review periods are resulting in the UK Government not getting best value for money and that they are limiting the options in your portfolio to develop multiyear funding models that would provide better value for money as well as greater certainty?

Having engaged in budget negotiations myself, I can sympathise with that point at least. Thank you.

Learner voice, as well as teacher voice, is really important. There are other perspectives, such as those of parents and carers, that would also be valuable additions.

Cabinet secretary, you made a point about the model of staff secondment that Education Scotland used to use but has moved away from more recently. Do you see opportunities for that not only in the reformed Education Scotland but in the new qualifications body or in the inspectorate? There is not enough grit in the system at the moment. One criticism of the current inspection system is that many of those who inspect schools, professional as they are, have not themselves been in the classroom for quite some time. Is there a role for the secondment of classroom teachers, so that people who are constantly involved in our national education bodies have direct, personal and recent experience of the classroom?

You have pre-empted my final question, which was going to be about exactly that point. A teacher should not have to be an SQA marker to truly understand the grading system, but we have heard a lot of feedback about that and you have made exactly that point.

Convener, given the time, I am happy to finish there.

In that case, the calculation is almost entirely a reflection of the in-year savings from this year. There is a marginal additional amount.

Can you clarify where those demand-led changes came from? I recognise that you said that the Deputy First Minister published the related budget lines in November. I cannot remember the detail of everything from that point onwards, so could you give us a bit more detail on how much of that came from demand on student support programmes versus tuition fee payments?