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Reprioritisation in each budget is an issue—I think that everyone would accept that. Andy Witty talked about that issue in relation to the college sector. The size of individual budgets is also an issue, which Andy raised specifically. The Scottish Government has set out spending priorities that are worth more than £63 billion. Do the witnesses have any views on where we should move money within the budget? If any of you think that money would be better moved from A to B, please let me know.

Your requests appear to me to be relatively modest. For example, you say that an

“investment of £66M over 5 years, a scale similar to other UK strategic centres such as the Royce, Turing, or Rosalind Franklin institutes, would establish a global-scale hub able to compete with the best centres in the world.”

You go on to say that analysis by UK Research and Innovation

“of prior critical mass investments in manufacturing research estimated that £63 is generated for the wider economy for every £1 spent.”

You continue:

“On this basis a total ROI”—

return on investment—

“of over £4Bn of economic return could be realised from the proposed institute investment.”

You need lab space, do you not?

One of the Government’s objectives is to triple the number of planners—if they can find people to actually do it.

I understand what you say about neighbours. I think that England, Ireland and the Netherlands are among our biggest trading partners, if not the three biggest.

After letting in Alistair McInroy with a brief supplementary point, I will let in Andy Witty, who has been very patient for the past 15 or 20 minutes.

That is what I was going to move on to.

Before I let the witnesses answer, I should say that the Scottish Government has said that it has a commitment to

“work with businesses across Scotland to understand the cumulative impacts of tax on competitiveness.”

Someone who moves from London can buy a castle here for the price of a bog-standard house there.

Thank you for that helpful opening statement. This is an emotive issue, and I know that colleagues around the table spent a lot of time deliberating over the submissions that they received and the financial memorandum. I have no doubt that they are already digesting aspects of the statement that you just gave. I have written down 29 questions to ask you but, following your opening statement, I will probably ask only 28 before opening out the session to colleagues around the table.

You have touched on a number of the issues that I and colleagues will ask about, so let us get straight into it. We are here to deliberate not on the pros and cons of the policy but on its financial aspects, so let us look at that. Cerebral Palsy Scotland said:

“we are concerned that continued pressure on NHS resources could lead to individuals and clinicians making decisions not in the person’s best interests, but according to NHS and social care budgets.”

I appreciate that you have said that that is—obviously—not the aim of the bill. Care Not Killing said that The Journal of Clinical Ethics published a highly controversial paper in 2020 that reported that a Dr Shaw, who is based in Glasgow. described the potential savings of allowing assisted dying as the “elephant in the room”. Care Not Killing said:

“Mr McArthur should acknowledge this point about the danger of cost savings becoming a motivation for people seeking assisted suicides”.

You will be aware that there are a number of additional quotes along similar lines in the submissions. Given what the Canadians have said about the savings that they believe will be made, how do you respond to that and persuade people that saving money will not enter into how the bill is implemented, if it is passed by Parliament?

Having flexibility in the system is important. I remember a similar circumstance a decade or more ago when I was trying to get a dialysis machine for Arran from NHS Ayrshire and Arran, which I was able to do.

You touched on numbers in your opening statement and again just now. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society in Scotland has said that, according to the financial memorandum,

“the cost of each dose provided to a terminally ill adult to end their own life would be £80. We think this is likely to be a huge underestimate of the actual cost for each dose, once all the costs of procurement, storage, facilitation, disposal etc. are considered.”

It goes on to say:

“Furthermore, in Queensland, where voluntary assisted dying legislation is in place, circa 300 people had an assisted death in the first 6 months. This is for a population which is very similar in size to Scotland.”

You have touched on the fact that the legislation in different areas, whether Victoria, Oregon, Canada or Queensland, is different, but a common theme in the evidence that we have received is that there is an underestimate of the number of people who would wish to progress with assisted dying, if the legislation were passed.