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The Parliament passed a bill on the matter in 2019. I must make it clear to Mr Greene and the chamber as a whole that ministers cannot comment on live planning issues under the ministerial code, and that is right and proper.

I appreciate that Mr Greene has raised a specific issue, but I encourage him to contact the minister for planning. We will certainly make Mr Arthur aware of the issues that have been raised today.

I am sure that, if Mr Arthur were here, he would wish to state to Mr Greene that, in the most recent financial year, reporters issued 135 planning appeal decisions that granted planning permission to almost 50 per cent of cases; and that, in the same period, local planning authorities in Scotland decided approximately 25,000 planning applications, granting planning permission in 94.5 per cent of cases.

I understand that officials unsuccessfully tried to obtain clarification from Mr Greene’s office on what proposals he is referring to in his question. In the absence of that clarification, I have assumed that Mr Greene is referring to planning decision making, which is the responsibility of the Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth, Mr Arthur.

The Government is committed to seeing the right developments in the right places. As Mr Greene knows, the right to appeal certain decisions by planning authorities is an important part of the planning system, and independent reporters make the final decision on the vast majority of appeals. Independent planning reporters take full account of the planning authority’s position, alongside that of other parties involved, including members of the local community.

We are committed to maximising the take-up of Scottish benefits among all those who are eligible, and our approach to that is set out in our latest benefit take-up strategy. We are aware of the additional challenges that care-experienced young people often face in accessing entitlements. Social Security Scotland is engaging with a range of corporate parents to raise awareness of devolved benefits among that group, in line with its corporate parenting action plan.

Local authorities have a duty to promote the entitlements that they administer, including council tax reduction, and they have a statutory responsibility under the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 to provide continuing care to eligible care leavers.

In the interests of time, I will say that Gillian Mackay raises an important point that I am keen to take up with her in correspondence after the meeting.

I reiterate that ministers cannot comment on live planning issues. However, I note the points that Mr Gibson has made around the process of the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019, and that the considerations around equal right of appeal and the right of appeal for developers were considered as part of that process. For clarity, the Conservatives rejected the equal right of appeal and voted for the maintenance of a developer right of appeal.

Ministers and officials regularly meet representatives of all Scottish local authorities, including, of course, Stirling Council. That engagement enables discussion on a wide range of issues as part of our shared commitment to working in partnership with local government to improve outcomes for the people of Scotland. The cabinet secretary, finance ministers and I recently invited all council leaders to meet us as part of our commitment to strengthening the relationship between both spheres of government. Those meetings commenced in September and we hope to meet Stirling Council soon, as part of that engagement plan.

I note the points that Mr Lockhart makes and the impact that that funding will have on the area that he represents. I also hope that he would, as a member of the Scottish Parliament, be concerned about any encroachment on the devolution settlement.

I thank Stephen Kerr for his intervention, which I know that he makes from a position of advocating the principles of transparency and collective evaluation. I would point him to my letter of 6 October, which is several sides—not one side—of A4, from which he will get an indication of all the ways in which we measure our performance and set our direction, including the evaluation work that has been done and is on-going to make sure that our benefits are delivering as was envisaged by the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 and our social security charter.

If we pass the bill today, the increased payment will help to mitigate some of the negative impacts of the virus on carers’ finances and wellbeing; it will also help them to provide vital caring roles at a time when health and social care services are being stretched more than they would be in normal times.

I thank members for their contributions on the amendments.

The Government shares the sentiment that members have expressed about the gratitude to, respect for, and recognition of carers throughout Scotland. It is from that sentiment that we introduced a bill to support carers and to provide the additional support that we intend to provide in the months ahead for the festive period if the bill is passed. That is why we introduced the bill in an expedited process. We must look to support carers. The Government wants to provide more support to carers beyond that—of course we do—but we must do that in a way that is proper and responsible.

We have secured resource for a doubling of December’s carers allowance supplement. That is why we prioritised introducing the bill. This is the first programmed bill—we had emergency legislation a few months ago—to get to stage 3 in this parliamentary session. We prioritised the bill to ensure that we get the double payment to carers in good time in December.

As the discussions on the bill to date, including this afternoon, have emphasised, we have political choices to make and financial choices to make too. Jeremy Balfour cited the debate that we had on 28 September. I ask him to recall what he stated then:

“The reality is that effective governance requires more than empty promises to shake the magic money tree and pay for anything and everything without consequences.”—[Official Report, 28 September 2021; c 53.]

If that is true of a UK Government with the full fiscal and monetary powers that he defended last week, it is certainly true for a devolved Government with limited powers. We have financial choices to make and, as I said at stage 2 when we debated amendments similar to those in this group, the Scottish Government chooses to mitigate the low value of the carers allowance through the carers allowance supplement at a cost of over £40 million every year—we have done that since 2018—with the additional payment, if we pass the bill today, adding another £20 million of support this year.

We also choose to mitigate the bedroom tax at a cost of £70 million a year and we chose to introduce the Scottish child payment and bridging payments to support thousands of children. Those decisions and choices will put £130 million into the pockets of families in this financial year. We also chose to give everyone in receipt of council tax reduction £130 to support them through the pandemic, a payment that is rolling out to 400,000 people this month.

Okay—I retract that statement and apologise for that inaccuracy. However, what I was going on to say was that somebody of Jackie Baillie’s experience and knowledge of the fiscal framework will appreciate the relationship between our income tax powers and the block grant, and the weakness in those income tax powers because of the fact that we do not have powers over dividend income tax and that we have limited taxation powers. I am sure that Jackie Baillie will acknowledge that as a factual statement.

It is important to emphasise—[Interruption.] I want to make some progress. I emphasise that we have to be responsible and not be reckless, which is why it is important to acknowledge that, at this point, the Parliament has already agreed a budget that makes no provision for the further increase that amendment 6 proposes to apply from this December—[Interruption.] I want to make some progress.

It is important to recognise that context, because this Government chose to pay an additional supplement last year and was elected on a manifesto that promised to pay again this year an additional carers allowance supplement of more than £230. We will be able to make that choice again in the future, depending on budget and what else we do with Scottish carers assistance, as it develops into a new replacement benefit for carers. If the bill is passed, we will have the power to pay an additional supplement in the future, if that is the will of Parliament, through the budget process and considering taxation choices that have been emphasised by others and the wider budget questions in the round.