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I agree with Clare Haughey that the cost of the UK Government’s employer national insurance contributions shortfall in funding is an opportunity gap for Scotland’s public services. With our partners in COSLA, we have repeatedly raised concerns with the UK Treasury about the impact on public services if that reserved tax increase is not fully funded.

As I already confirmed to Jackie Dunbar, it is incumbent on all members of the Scottish Parliament to protect public services in Scotland by calling on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to fully fund the impact on public services, not just in Scotland but across the other devolved Administrations.

We have not. The Accounts Commission has confirmed that, over the past three years, there has been a real-terms increase in local government funding. As I said in my first answer, the local government settlement over the past 10 years has increased by 41 per cent, which is a real-terms increase of 2.4 per cent. Those are the facts.

The other fact is that, if we had listened to Finlay Carson and had unfunded tax cuts of £1 billion, local government would be getting less money, not more, to fund local services. That is the reality of the situation. [Interruption.]

As a broad response to Alex Cole-Hamilton, I say that I recognise the issue that he raises, and we should all be very vigilant and cognisant of the points that he makes.

In relation to the offshore wind infrastructure projects, I would prefer that Alex Cole-Hamilton gets a written response that specifically addresses his points. The matter sits slightly outwith my direct ministerial responsibility, but I want to make sure that he gets an accurate response, so I will make sure that he gets that in writing.

We have sought to protect all local authorities from the impact of the United Kingdom Government’s increase to employer national insurance contributions by providing record funding through the local government settlement. In 2025-26, Aberdeen City Council will receive £505.1 million to fund local services, which is an additional 8 per cent compared with the 2024-25 budget. A further £5.4 million will specifically contribute to meeting the increased costs of the UK Government’s changes to employer national insurance contributions, as was confirmed at stage 1 of the budget bill.

The Scottish Government will absolutely continue to press the UK Government to fully fund the increase in employer national insurance contributions. It is not just Scotland that is affected—all the devolved Administrations have a gap in funding between what is being provided from the Treasury through the Barnett formula and what the actual cost is. I would certainly welcome support from across the Parliament in that respect, as Jackie Dunbar has suggested. I do not believe that Scotland should be penalised for investing in public services, and the UK Government must therefore fully fund the actual cost of the increase for the public sector in Scotland. We will continue to press the Treasury on that issue.

That £1.5 billion in emergency funding is the Tory legacy for local government funding. The local government finance settlement provides local authorities with an additional £1.1 billion in funding, which is a real-terms increase of 5.5 per cent, along with full discretion over council tax. We will continue to work in partnership with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and with local authorities to make sure that local authority finances are sustainable and that communities across Scotland continue to receive the high-quality front-line services that they expect and deserve.

First, I think that a lot of good work was carried out through the 2015 commission. Although the commission did not recommend any specific form of taxation to replace the council tax, it unpacked a lot of issues. The commission expressed a predominant view that local tax should continue to include some sort of domestic property tax, with a new system that was more progressive than the council tax.

The issue then is probably still the issue now—it is about getting consensus. That is why I have been pretty up front and honest in saying that I do not think that we will be able to move forward unless we can build enough consensus, not just in relation to identifying the problem but about what to do next. Everybody will agree that 1991 property values are out of date and that something needs to be done about that and everybody will agree that the current council tax system is not as progressive as it should be and that it needs to be improved, but the difficulty will be to agree on what should come next to make improvements.

I am quite optimistic that we can genuinely build some consensus around the principles that we agree on. There will be a lot that we disagree on, but there are areas that we can agree on where we could begin to make some changes. It might not be about having a massive big-bang replacement for the council tax, but I hope that we can find areas of agreement so that we can take incremental steps to address some of the issues, such as progressivity. It remains to be seen where we get but in essence, that is what Katie Hagmann and I are keen to do.

That is a fair challenge. My party has looked at various options for replacing council tax. For a time, we were focused on looking at whether there could be a local income tax alternative, but the problem was that that would not have raised enough money. Essentially, as the commission noted in 2015, we concluded that there needs to be a property element to local taxation.

We now have a Parliament of minorities, so the only way to move forward is to try to build consensus. However, with something as fundamental as council tax reform, even if we did not have to build consensus, I think that doing so would be the right thing to do. At the end of the day, we do not want to be seen to have developed something behind closed doors and to say, “Here it is—take it or leave it.” Even if we were able to do that, I do not think that that would land in the right way. The reform must stand the test of time, so we need to make sensible incremental changes that create a fairer system. That system might not be perfect, but people should feel that it is much better than the one that we have at the moment. I am keen to continue those discussions.

That is a very fair question. The joint working group is working through the detail of what we will ask and how we will consult. The important point is that the process will not be optimal if we just send something out and see who responds to it. We could use networks of support. Local authorities have a lot of such networks, which will be in contact with the very people you are talking about—those who might be struggling with council tax arrears and debt. Through third-party organisations, there might be ways to elicit views that might not otherwise be given. We will take that point away and think about it further.

That is a really important question, and it is why talking to and engaging with the public at an early stage of the process is important. The last thing that we want is to end up with something that is viewed as doing something to the public, with us saying, “We have done this thing behind closed doors, and there it is—take it or leave it”. That is not what we want to do at all.

We want to have dialogue and, as Katie Hagmann said earlier, we want to have as long a reach as possible, so that it is not just about those self-selecting folk who regularly respond to consultations such as this. We want to have a greater reach than that and to spark genuine conversations.

There is a balance to be struck, because we do not want to go out and say, “Council tax: discuss.” We will have to frame the discussion around the type of things that are possible. We do not want to lead people up the garden path and into thinking that this will make changes that it cannot. We have to be clear and honest about the parameters, but we need to look for feedback and take that on board. That has to be the way that this lands. It is not about doing to people; it is about genuinely trying to make a system fairer and being really clear and up front about that.