Seòmar agus comataidhean

It is very unfortunate that Katy Clark came in and asked Jeremy Balfour’s question. She was late to the meeting and took over a question that had already been allocated to another member. I accept, however, that that is your prerogative, convener.

My question is about the Scottish child payment. There have been quite a lot of requests for it to increase by more than inflation. I note what you have said already, cabinet secretary—and £6.3 billion is obviously a huge amount of money and a huge increase for the whole social security budget—but did you take into account those requests for a higher increase for the Scottish child payment?

That is what I feared. It seems that it does not matter what we do. As long as we have income tax and national insurance as they are in the UK, we have a real problem.

Moving on to another tax, you have commented on council tax reform and made the point that, as we know, there is no agreement or consensus on what should replace it. Some of us are getting a little bit frustrated. After all, we need to do something, but clearly nothing that we do will have 100 per cent support. Is the Government committed to making some kind of change fairly soon?

As we have already covered quite a bit of ground, I will try not to be too repetitive.

Earlier, the convener raised the question of our relationship with the UK tax and national insurance system. It seems that the fundamental problem is that the UK has two income tax systems, namely income tax and national insurance, and they do not relate to each other at all well. Have you picked up any suggestion that the UK Government is even looking at that issue, thinking of combining those systems or anything like that?

Given that the last revaluation was 23 years ago, even if it was just a reform of the present system and a revaluation, that would be major.

There seems to be a fairness and equality issue within it. In Glasgow, for example, it seems that property values have gone up more in some areas than in others. They have not gone up so much in poorer areas, such as my constituency, which are, therefore, relatively losing out with every year that goes by.

This question follows on from Michelle Thomson’s point about the ScotWind money. I accept the point that it is very hard to start a savings scheme, investment fund, sovereign wealth fund or whatever when we are in real financial challenges. Would a compromise be for that money to be ring fenced for capital expenditure—not necessarily just for renewables, but housing, roads, railways or whatever? That would be an investment for the future. Although we would not be setting the money aside, we would be saying that it is definitely going to an investment.

We note that the UK has gone into a recession—whether it is technical or not, it is a recession. We are sometimes told that raising tax somehow damages growth. However, the UK is in a recession—that is, it is not growing—under a Conservative Government, and it has relatively low tax compared with other countries, at 38 per cent of gross domestic product in tax compared with France at 50 per cent, for example. How do you reflect on the fact that the UK is a low-tax economy and is not growing?

You say that the next infrastructure investment plan

“will be published in due course.”

Will that be in May, or some other time?

Can you give us the timescale for the review?

Would Ms Hamilton accept that I did not say that there was no public benefit?

This group is quite straightforward, with Rachael Hamilton going in one direction and me going in another.

I and many others support the proposals that the Scottish Government has set out in the bill. However, it is important that NatureScot’s wider conservation functions are not diminished in any way and that the administration costs of trapping, grouse shooting and muirburn licences are covered in full by applicants. NatureScot is taking on significant additional licensing functions as part of the bill, and I think that I heard the minister say that NatureScot might need new staff as a result. We do not want NatureScot’s resources for other work to be reduced because of that. Public finances are tight, and if the public purse has to subsidise those licences, it means less money for other important needs. Rachael Hamilton slightly overstates the case when she uses words such as “punish” and “thumbscrews”, but the reality is that money is tight, and £1 extra for subsidising landowners means £1 less for the national health service.

In the context of the climate and nature emergency, we need a strong NatureScot. I understand that NatureScot does not charge for the licensing functions that it administers. However, other organisations, such as the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, already charge for most of their licensing functions. With regard to firearms licence administration, via Police Scotland, the public already bears the cost, to a large extent, of what is largely a private benefit.

In this case, the aim of the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill is explicitly about addressing the illegal persecution of raptors that is associated with grouse shooting and to improve trapping and muirburn practice to prevent damage to public interests. Grouse shooting is largely a private benefit linked to land ownership, so it feels inequitable to many that the public should have to cover the costs of such licences, especially when, in the context of grouse shooting, the legislation is designed to address the long-standing illegal behaviours of some practitioners. The legislation is intended to act as a meaningful deterrent to illegal behaviours and bad practice in land management. If the licence applicant has to pay the administration costs of the licensing service, it could also be argued that they will have greater investment in the process and will focus more on what they are asked to deliver—namely, the licence conditions set by NatureScot for the receipt of a licence to operate trapping, grouse shooting and muirburn.

I gather that there is due to be a licensing review at some point. The minister referred to that when I asked her a question in the chamber in December. It would be good to hear from the minister what her current thinking is on the subject of full cost recovery, the timescale of any review and whether she is minded to support charging for the specific licensing functions that are related to the bill.