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The Scottish Fiscal Commission will give us options that are based on what we ask it to analyse. For example, on tax, we might give it ranges of workforce assumptions and it would model those. We would have choices to make based on the information that we get back. Options would be put to me by my financial officials, using the SFC information, which would say, “If you do that, these are the implications and this is the effect.” We would then have to make judgments about what we think is—

I have no objections in principle to a finance bill—it would just be a very different way of working. I guess that it could be an annual bill, but it would not necessarily have to be; it could be regular as opposed to annual. We would need to think about the undertaking, not just for Government but for the Parliament, and about the parliamentary procedure and process. We would need to think through how that might work.

I can see some of the advantages to such an approach. I am thinking through some of the stand-alone legislation that we have had. For example, we had the Aggregates Tax and Devolved Taxes Administration (Scotland) Act 2024, which showed that we can introduce tax amendments that require primary legislation, but other changes have been made via secondary legislation.

On whether or not we would bring all that together in an annual bill, it would be the case that, in some years, not many of the elements would change, whereas in other years, the changes might be more expansive. We would have to think that through. My answer is that, in general, we are not against a finance bill, and it might be something that we could do some work on.

There is a point to our looking ahead if we can get into a regular cycle, and—credit where credit is due—that is one of the most important changes that the UK Government has made to the cycle, which, I think, is three years for resource funding and four years for capital funding. I see that my officials are indicating that that is correct. That gives people the ability to have a line of sight of the financial envelopes beyond year-to-year funding, which matters because, in turn, that would enable me to discuss the potential for multiyear settlements with local government or other parts of the public sector that have difficulty with year-to-year budgeting. The third sector is another example of where that would make a difference. It would help if we were able to provide a line of sight, particularly for three years’ resource funding but also for capital funding.

There is a caveat to that: what that amounts to in the funding envelopes is dictated very much by the UK Government’s discussions with Whitehall departments that will take place. Indeed, those are taking place as we speak. By and large, those discussions will determine the bulk of the funding for the devolved Administrations.

That is true, but there are probably advantages in that approach for the UK Government, given that the end of the spending review period will be 2028-29. You can see why that might be of some advantage to a sitting UK Government in relation to the election cycle.

On principle, leaving aside some of the cynicism—I totally understand why you have that—it is a good idea to have that cycle of spending outlook.

No, but it has more scope because it does not have the constraints.

Some parts of the work of the advisory group were completed, but there might be more work to be done. The tax strategy was published: that was clearly an important milestone, and the advisory group had a lot of key input into it. That strategy was a product of its work. The publication of that strategy provided a natural point at which to discuss the future of the advisory group.

There is a lot of interest in new taxes, for example. Is there a role for the advisory group regarding what some of those may be? Similarly, there is a lot of interest in local government taxation. That discussion is on-going.

It will, of course, be material to that.

First, as is the case in any workplace, viewing inappropriate material is a disciplinary matter, as it rightly should be.

Absolutely. We sometimes need to raise the horizons. The debate sometimes feels a bit sterile; we talk about just the GERS figures, rather than the evidence of what other jurisdictions have been able to do—short of independence, in some cases. You have cited one case, and I do not think that people in Alberta would be hankering after having those powers removed.

We need to get beyond the sterile debates and have a debate about a sensible set of arrangements that would give us the ability not just to grow the economy, but to manage some of the headwinds. Our very limited borrowing powers do not enable us to do that. That gets us into difficulty, because we rely on the UK Government, of whatever colour, to negotiate—for example, as it has done around the impact of the global pandemic, which was an exceptional event. We want to be able to mature our powers and levers to a position where we are able to do more of that ourselves. I do not think that that is a terribly controversial thing to say.

Where that gets into the principles and the details is where it would require a lot of negotiation with the UK Government. That would have to be done in good faith, but that door is not open at the moment.

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.