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There are hundreds of small pots of money across the whole of Government that all add up to a lot of money, and I guess that I took the strategic decision that I was going to prioritise front-line spend on our front-line public services. That required me to shift money in that direction, which makes things difficult for other areas of spend.

Would we wish it were otherwise? Of course, but when you get less money, there is less money to go round. As a result, every budget has to be looked at, and the strategic priority was front-line spend on our public services. I note that, again at an evidence session, we have not heard quite so much about the front-line spend on the NHS, on the police or on fire, and I suspect that that is because those are the areas where we have prioritised spend.

Instead, what we are hearing about are those areas that have had to take a hit as a result, one of which you have highlighted. If you want to come to our meeting to suggest that that should be the priority that you would like to be addressed and to highlight other areas where we could make changes, I will of course be happy to hear what you are suggesting.

Our higher education institutions will, as ever, have a challenging set of circumstances to wrestle with. One of the circumstances, which members will be aware of, is the restriction on international students. I am not downplaying those factors, which are all at play for universities, but they will have to manage the levers that they have to find a path. Larger universities probably have the ability to do that more readily, and perhaps there are some particular challenges for some of our smaller institutions compared with the larger ones, but I do not downplay the pressures on our university sector. We have supported it as best we can with the available resources for funded university places, and we have given it the best support that we can, given the limitations of the budget.

Discussions with the sector will continue, and of course we want to try and be as helpful as we can, but you are asking me to lodge amendments to take money from elsewhere to give to the universities. If you can suggest where that money should come from, I am all ears.

It is. As I have just said, conversations with the sector take place on an on-going basis. I have had individual discussions with some institutions as well, and of course the issues you mentioned have been brought to the fore.

Until 6 March, though, I do not know whether the money that we have in the budget now is going to be there, let alone whether we will have any additional funding. There could be a scenario on 6 March in which the UK Government makes decisions that could impact negatively on the funding that we have available. I hope that that is not the case, but we will continue to discuss with those in the higher education sector and others how we can work with them. If there are things that we can do that are helpful, beyond trying to find money that does not exist, then of course we will do them. There may be other things we could do that could be helpful to them.

As I said, the Scottish Funding Council is in the process of producing the academic year 2024-25 indicative allocations for both colleges and universities—last year it produced those in the spring—which will provide the detail that you are looking for about funded university places. That is expected in the spring of this year, as it was in the spring of last year.

During the last session, we spent a lot of time talking about the 1,200 places for universities that—as Universities Scotland has been very clear—were Covid additional places and were never envisaged to be there for the long term. It always knew that those places would be reduced, and the timeframe for that was always very clear. We will allow the Scottish Funding Council to get on with the job that it does every year.

That is how it works.

The Scottish Funding Council will discuss the number of places with colleges and universities, which will be within the overall budget that has been allocated to colleges and universities, but you are asking me about additional money in an environment—

—in relation to the programme for international student assessment results.

As I have said, the Scottish Funding Council will have discussions with both sets of institutions about the number of places. The overall budget that has been set is the overall environment that the Scottish Funding Council will be operating in. That budget has already been set out. The figure is there, and that is the context within which the SFC will operate when it comes to those institutions. As I said, as was the case last year, the spring will be when those places will be agreed with both sets of institutions.

It is a very challenging financial environment. It would have been more challenging if the tax decisions that we have made had not been made. You have alluded to the fact that you are against the tax rises and you have said that you would want to cut the intermediate rate of tax, all of which would lead us to having £0.5 billion less money for universities, colleges, health and local government. You cannot talk only about the tax side of things; you have to also address the spend side of the budget in relation to the decisions that you are saying that you would take.

I might bring in Alison Cumming here, but this is not about taking that money and spending it elsewhere in the budget—the money has been constrained, so there is less money. The money is being profiled and deployed in a way that is required by the sector but which is also affordable. There is no point in £61 million sitting in a budget line that will not be spent or which will be underspent if it means that we have to reduce funding elsewhere to provide it in a particular area—