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I warmly welcome that £2 million commitment from the Scottish Government; it is essential that that money is there in order to safeguard our outdoor education centres.

Can the minister also comment on the article by Martin Davidson from the Outward Bound Trust in The Scotsman today, in which he asks the Scottish Government what it is doing to address the inequalities in access to outdoor education residentials for many children across Scotland?

I thank Mr Harvie for that intervention, but it is all about economic growth, which his party is not terribly keen on. Scottish Fiscal Commission statistics show that there is a huge issue in relation to Scotland’s income tax revenues, which is one of the key issues around income tax policy—hence the Conservative Party’s view on that.

I also hear that VAT on fuel bills should be scrapped, but that is not the best way of assisting those who are most in need, because it is not a progressive measure. It would reduce bills by just 5 per cent and would cost the Treasury billions of pounds. I have also heard claims, including from Jackie Baillie this afternoon, that there should be windfall taxes on oil and gas profits, similar to the Gordon Brown windfall tax on privatised utilities in 1997. However, if we look abroad to other countries such as Spain, those taxes have had only very limited success. The companies in question are owned by us all through pension funds—

What confidence does Patrick Harvie believe the Green-SNP Scottish Government is giving to workers in the north-east of Scotland?

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions ministers have had with the outdoor education sector since December 2021. (S6O-00719)

I will just finish this point, Ms Baillie.

The companies in question are owned by us all through pension funds and insurance firms, and they have to be attractive to new investment.

Windfall taxes risk a reduction in output and therefore an increase in prices for consumers. We should not forget that £100 billion of investment is needed to secure future power generation. In short, the energy experts are telling us that we need to increase energy supply and reduce the demand, and a windfall tax would do the opposite.

I will give way to Jackie Baillie.

I can very much acknowledge Gordon Brown’s failure on a windfall tax. On that point, I am happy to conclude my remarks.

I move amendment S6M-03042.1, to leave out from “and defer” to end and insert:

“; believes that the Scottish Government should deliver a fair settlement to local government to avoid households being hit with council tax increases in April; welcomes UK Government action to increase the Living Wage, raise the Personal Allowance, reduce unemployment and freeze Fuel Duty, and calls on both of Scotland’s governments to take further action to support individuals and families at this difficult time.”

I acknowledge that this is a very serious issue for many families who see their household bills going in only one direction, at the same time as they try to cope with all the other challenges of the pandemic, which is far from over. Today, that anxiety has been heightened with the news of the increase in the energy price cap.

I also acknowledge concerns about the national insurance rise, which I will come back to in a minute. In addition, I acknowledge anxieties about world markets and increasing political tensions between Russia and the Ukraine, which have potentially serious implications for energy costs and supply chains.

When we drill down into the detail of the inflation statistics, it is clear that producers and suppliers that are involved in international trade are telling us that much of the current level of inflation is a direct result of rising shipping and wholesale gas costs. Those involved in UK business tell us that it is also a result of shortages in labour markets. There are inflation issues in other countries: in Germany, inflation is up to 4.9 per cent; in America, it is up to 7 per cent; in France, it is up to 3.3 per cent; and there is underlying energy inflation in the eurozone, which is now averaging out at 28 per cent.

We know that the cost of the pandemic is well over £400 billion. We know that 6 million people are on NHS waiting lists and, whether we like it or not, we need to go ahead with the national insurance increase to pay directly into health and social care budgets. It is never popular to raise tax and I am not going to argue that the national insurance increase will not be painful but, when the decision was made some time ago, there was a reluctant acceptance that, in order to deal with the waiting lists and NHS crisis, that rise was necessary.

Will the member take an intervention?

As the minister has rightly reminded us, it is the convention of this Parliament under the standing orders that a rate resolution must be agreed before stage 3 of the budget bill process.

Although political parties will inevitably have very different views about tax policy, a restraining order is upon us, which means that, if we voted against the rate resolution, we would, in effect, be preventing tax being collected, with the uncertainty that that would create for taxpayers and for those working on payroll for the next financial year. I am sure that we can all agree, particularly this year, given all the challenges of Covid, that that would be irresponsible and create greater instability and uncertainty. I put on record that we will certainly not oppose the rate resolution, even if we have very different views from the Scottish Government about tax policy.

In recent weeks, the Parliament has witnessed several debates—in the chamber and in committees—about the economic priorities as we continue our efforts to emerge from the pandemic. Despite the different tax policies of the different political parties, I think that we are agreed on what the objective should be: namely, to improve Scotland’s productivity and its labour market flexibility, especially in relation to the skills gap and retraining, and pursuing economic growth—although I am not entirely sure that the Greens share that particular agenda. We shall see.

We are very keen that Scotland remains attractive for investment, which is why we do not want Scotland to be the highest-taxed part of the UK, because that creates disincentives not only for business but for families who want to work and live in Scotland.

On 9 December, we were very pleased to hear the cabinet secretary confirm in her budget statement that the income tax rates for 2022-23 will remain unchanged. We were much less pleased about the adjustment to basic rate bands, which has put 68,000 people into paying more tax. On the Conservative benches, we believe that we need to be extremely careful about any policy that will lead to some divergence, and here is why. I refer to the Finance and Public Administration Committee’s report on scrutiny of the budget, which we have debated several times in recent weeks. It concludes that Scotland’s economic underperformance is “deeply worrying”. That is because the official forecast is that low wages, poor productivity—which, obviously, feeds lower wages—weak investment and changing demographics are having a downward impact on income tax receipts, and that comes at the same time that Scotland’s welfare burden is increasing and there are worries about rising inflation.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission shows us that, for the medium term at least, income tax revenues are not increasing sufficiently fast, as they would have done had income tax remained aligned to UK rates. In other words, our greater tax powers in this place and our higher taxes are not being accompanied—certainly not as yet, and certainly not in the SFC’s forecast—by the increased tax revenues that Scotland so desperately needs.

We also know, of course—I do not know how many times we have said this in the past few weeks—that what is extremely worrying is the net financial gap of £190 million shortfall that we have, and the prediction is that that will rise, possibly, to £417 million in four years’ time. I think that these are very serious statistics, because—

Yes.