Seòmar agus comataidhean

You are saying that the figure is effectively going from £634.9 million to £926 million. Is that correct?

It looks as though the housing sector is getting a major boost. We know that, over the next five years, there will be a real-terms reduction in capital and a gross domestic product deflator of around 5 per cent in real terms. Where is that blow going to fall?

I will not go into the infrastructure delivery pipeline in great detail because we will take evidence on it separately, but can you say where there are likely to be significant reductions in capital spend? We asked for that in relation to that pipeline 25 months ago and I feel somewhat underwhelmed by the fact that the pipeline talks about the projects and the money that has been spent but it does not give details of timelines or the resources allocated against the projects that are in annex A and annex B.

One of the projects in that tranche is in my constituency. It was put forward in 2004 and, 22 years later, it still has not moved to annex A. How long is that going to take? I know that it is a living document but it is not very inspiring when you look at the timescales—it seems to me that there is a “mañana” approach. Where is the sense of urgency about pinning some of those things down?

As I said last week, I think that the real-terms reduction is going to be deeper because I do not think that the GDP deflator is accurate.

It is commendable that the Government is increasing funding for critical safety, maintenance and infrastructure on the roads by 6.1 per cent compared with the ABR figure, and funding for ferries by 18 per cent.

However, in the past two years, I have raised the issue of why public-private partnership infrastructure investment appears in the transport section of the budget every year, but not anywhere else. I understood that that was going to be resolved one way or the other so that we could compare spending in different portfolios.

According to the outturn figure, there has been a 42.6 per cent increase in spend on PPP infrastructure investment in transport. Why would that be?

It seems as though the payments are being stepped up. Even compared with the ABR figure, we are talking about an increase of around 10 per cent. Why is the PPP expenditure in other portfolio areas not in the budget, as we have asked for it to be for at least the past two years?

It makes life easier for you if we can ask a question and get an answer because, that way, we do not end up having to keep asking the same questions year after year. I would have thought that that would make life easier for the Government.

There has been a massive improvement in the layout of the budget with regard to the autumn budget revision figures, but witnesses at last week’s meeting, including those from the Scottish Fiscal Commission, expressed frustration about the fact that there is still £606 million that is not set against the ABR. That means that, to an extent, we are in a situation in which we are comparing apples with oranges.

One area in which real concern has been raised is that of local government funding. The Government has made it clear that one of its aims is to tackle the cost of living crisis, but it will not be easy to tackle the cost of living crisis if people get above-inflation council tax rises. I would have thought that that is almost a certainty, given the settlement for local government. I think that the settlements in some areas are pretty robust—most of them seem to be above inflation—but that is not the case with the local government settlement.

The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has provided a briefing to all members of the committee, which states:

“this is a very poor settlement which fails to address the dire financial situation of Local Government in Scotland. The 2026-27 Budget provided a small amount of additional, uncommitted revenue funding of £235m and an uplift to the Affordable Housing Supply Programme.”

As we have discussed, the affordable housing supply programme is getting a major boost, but there is a real issue when it comes to day-to-day spend.

The briefing goes on to say:

“In addition to the gap Councils face, the £497.5m gap in 2025-26 in Health and Social Care Partnerships will continue to rise as demand and complexity increases. The additional funding is only 30% of what we demanded for social care alone.”

Why is local government the poor relation in what is, in many ways, a good budget?

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has reported that the local government and finance portfolio will

“see reductions averaging 2.1% a year in real-terms”,

or £472 million, over the spending review period. How can local authorities bridge that gap? You are suggesting that it doesnae exist. Does that mean that council tax rises will be at inflation or below in the spring?

—and of where money is being spent and not spent, so that we can see what is happening in a portfolio. Outside commentators who do not have the opportunity to sit here and question you for two-and-a-half-hours, as we are this morning, cannot see what is happening in reality because they do not have the information.

Sticking with the economy, what is the situation with the Scottish National Investment Bank? The Government is very ambitious about the bank’s work, but there has been quite a significant decline in funding since the ABR—it has gone from £227.4 million to £190.4 million, which is probably a 16 or 17 per cent reduction. I do not see any notes about projects or programmes, so why is its budget being reduced so significantly?

I notice that there is a £34.6 million capital allocation against the 2025-26 ABR budget, but that allocation was not in the 2024-25 outturn and it is not under the 2026-27 budget, so was that one-off spend? It just seems bizarre to go from zero to £34.6 million to zero again.