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It will be different for different organisations. One of the reasons why pay progression has never been part of pay policy is that different organisations will be in entirely different positions with regard to pay progression. The health service is in a very different position from other parts of the public sector, and the value of pay progression is markedly different from one body to another. Pay progression has never been recognised as part of pay policy, and it has always been assumed that public bodies and organisations will absorb the costs of pay progression within their budgets. Those will be different for each organisation, so it has never been calculated as part of pay policy. I recognise that pay progression is a factor, but it will be different from one organisation to another.

The policy of 9 per cent over three years was intended to give scope and latitude for configuration in a way that meets the needs of organisations and that they can afford. Pay policies must be affordable and organisations must be able to deliver them within the allocations that they have been given. With regard to whatever decisions are made on the specifics for each organisation, I note that deficiencies, head count, reform and doing things differently are all part of the way that organisations are expected to manage their pay bills.

No—issues about partners of students coming to study, and so on, are also important. There is no doubt that people have been put off and have gone elsewhere. The UK Government can certainly also do something about the employer national insurance contributions issue, for example.

I am not trying to dodge responsibility; I am just saying that there are a number of headwinds. I accept that the Scottish Government’s funding is a key part of the sustainability of the university sector, but so are research capability—being able to attract research funding—employer national insurance contributions and international students. I am keen to engage with the UK Government on those points. I know that Scottish and northern English universities have particular problems with their ability to attract a number of international students who are perhaps gravitating elsewhere.

I will look at the issue that you have raised and come back with a fuller response. Going forward, I am open to looking at what more we can do within the confines of the resources that are available to us. There are issues that are not just for the universities, but we have to play our part in making sure of the sector’s sustainability.

I would not describe it or recognise it in those terms. Are there challenges for the college sector? Every sector has its challenges. The big challenge, which we touched on earlier, is joining up our skills landscape in a way that better delivers for employers and the economy. Dundee and Angus College is a great example of a college that has really got ahead, reformed and made the changes that it needs to make. It made decisions to invest in some areas and to disinvest in others in anticipation of some of the headwinds over the past few years, when budgets were particularly constrained. That college is in a pretty resilient and forward-looking position. Across the whole college estate across the country, I think that colleges are in different positions, but that shows that it can be done. It is down to local leadership, vision and a real joining up of the skills landscape with others across the city.

Having a daughter who returned to education and went through the college system after having left school at 16—much to my pain at the time—I recognise that the college system is an amazing opportunity for people from all walks of life. I am very aware of its value. If there is more that we can do, I want to do it, but it is partly about joining the dots of the skills system—that must be done.

I will need to come back to you with details from social security colleagues, but I suspect that the heart of the issue is that it is a system that families feel more encouraged to access rather than being discouraged.

I think that I should come back to you with more detail than I can provide today.

I have already set out our tax position: we will not change tax rates or bands for the duration of this parliamentary session. Obviously, I cannot speak for an Administration beyond May 2026.

I would not usually express this in these terms, because there are constraints, but, given the scale of the Scottish Government’s overall budget, we are still talking about a very small element of it. Does that mean that we do not have to make changes elsewhere? No. We should make those changes anyway. We should be driving efficiencies, and we have to change the size and shape of the workforce, for all the reasons that we understand in relation to sustainability and affordability. Reforming public services through delivering them in a different way is the right thing to do, regardless of whether we need to create headroom for social security support, because that will be more efficient and will deliver a better service to the public. I will come back to that in some detail in the fiscal sustainability delivery plan, alongside the MTFS.

The child disability payment is paid to much smaller numbers of people than the adult disability payment is, as it is for children who have profound and challenging disabilities. The figure requires some explanation, and further detail needs to be set out. I do not have that to hand, but I will come back to you.

You are right that we should always look at the evidence base on the impact of a benefit payment. I hope that we are monitoring this, and I will cover it in my answer in writing, but I would expect the child disability payment to be supporting families out of poverty and supporting them with their mental health. It is intended to help with all the things that you would expect it to help families with when their costs of living are higher than those of other families. The evidence should be there and I expect that it is being gathered, but I will check and come back to you.

Okay. I will pick that up.

The Scottish Retail Consortium also said that

“there is much ... that retailers can get behind”

in the budget, and it called for people to support it.