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I think that Jackie Baillie is referring to last year when, for example, social care was fully costed as being in the region of between £1.5 billion and £2 billion.

The options fees will reflect the market’s willingness to compete. England and Wales had an open auction and projects in England and Wales are generally in shallower water and off the coast. We need to factor in that Scottish conditions are far more challenging, so projects are costlier to develop. They are often further out to sea, in deeper waters and will probably require the deployment of floating technology, which is still at an early stagee of development, and there are higher grid connection costs, so they are relatively more expensive to develop. All those additional costs have been factored in, not by me but by the developers who are bidding for those sites.

Amendment 1 increases the social justice, housing and local government portfolio authorisation in schedule 1 to the bill by £120 million. Amendment 2 increases the total amount of resources of the Scottish Administration in schedule 1 to take account of that additional £120 million. Amendment 3 increases the overall cash authorisation for the Scottish Administration under section 4(2) of the bill by £120 million. In other words, these amendments give us the authorisation to draw down cash and the authority to spend it.

I move amendment 1.

Amendment 1 agreed to.

Amendment 2 moved—[Kate Forbes]—and agreed to.

Schedule 1, as amended, agreed to.

Section 2 agreed to.

Schedule 2 agreed to.

Section 3 agreed to.

Schedule 3 agreed to.

Section 4—Overall cash authorisations

Amendment 3 moved—[Kate Forbes]—and agreed to.

Section 4, as amended, agreed to.

Sections 5 to 11 agreed to.

Long title agreed to.

I clarify that quite a lot of the £440 million was already factored into budgets. For example, it includes funding that we identified for next year’s budget but has been paid in this year’s budget. It is a complex picture, and it is difficult to draw a line directly from the £440 million.

It is hard to say at this point, in advance of supplementary estimates, but I envisage—I can be corrected on this—that additional consequentials will be generated in health and social care. I mention that as a caveat. Additional funding that is generated by there being more spending south of the border is likely to come from health. An element might come from transport, because the UK Government has invested in transport, which has been affected over the past few weeks, in the same way that we have. That is my understanding.

We have the conversation about baselining every year. I hope that the way to get away from that conversation is through the resource spending review. However, I have heard the calls from local government. I do not know whether Ian Storrie has anything to add on local government finance, but I note that the £120 million is not ring fenced, so it can be spent on what local government determines. Things including national insurance contributions will need, technically, to be paid year on year, and pay will need to be paid year on year. I am very conscious of rolling budgets. I do not want to pre-empt next year’s budget, but I sincerely hope that we will, through the resource spending review of what local government actually needs, be in a better position well in advance of that, and that we will not still be having this groundhog day discussion about whether things are baselined.

Daniel Johnson asks a good question and has already explained why that is not identified separately: it is all part of the overall block grant.

I do not think that a lot of the Covid-related spend can be, in Mr Johnson’s words, “switched off” in the short term. We can take the recovery work that is going on in justice as an example. There is a backlog of cases, some of them hugely challenging. While the courts are dealing with that backlog, new cases come forward all the time. It will be challenging to work through a backlog that keeps increasing. I cannot see that being “switched off”, as Daniel Johnson put it, in the short term. Those working on the justice portfolio have a good grasp of what is required in order to get through that backlog. I have had conversations with the Lord Advocate, the Lord President and the cabinet secretary Keith Brown about that.

Recovery will take some time if we want to see better outcomes at the end of that work. We are now in a situation where Covid-related funding is not exceptional or a one-off. It is not about emergency, one-off, grants whereby we can clearly determine that that spending is a result of something like omicron. Covid-related funding has become business as usual for many portfolios.

To go back to the resource spending review, multiyear spending must be affordable. That is a challenge. Going back to Ross Greer’s question, there are difficult decisions ahead. The spending envelope is not getting any bigger to accommodate the additional Covid-related spend, so we must become better at ensuring that our funding delivers the right outcomes.

I hope that it will be concluded very soon. On Thursday, I am due to have a conversation with my UK Government counterpart, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, about the next part of the fiscal framework review. I do not have a date in mind; final details are being confirmed. We are clear about what we would like to see, and it is a case of negotiating a position.

My sincere hope is that the conversation on Thursday will be fruitful and constructive and will move us forward. A lot of work has gone on between officials on both sides, but it will come down to a finalised agreement between me and the UK Government. Nothing on our side is holding things up; it is just a case of getting a finalised agreement with the UK Government.

Funnily enough, that does not really feature in the conversations that I have about the budget. Reducing spend does not really make the agenda in those conversations. Actually, there is one exception. I do not mean to call them out but, in previous years, the Greens were always very good at coming forward with proposals to increase spend while also identifying reductions in spend.

To clarify, the £440 million is a one-off. It is certainly not in our baseline. As far as I know, the UK Government would classify it as Covid consequentials. It is certainly largely one-offs. I cannot think of anything in that £440 million that is baselined. The fact that that is a feature relates to an important premise of your question.

I would certainly like to baseline the £120 million. The reason for my being slightly more hesitant than I might have been in previous years is that we are about to embark on a resource spending review. I sincerely hope that, in that review, rather than talking about what has been baselined, we start from a position of considering local government’s need and what budget it needs.

I think that previous years’ conversations on what should and should not be baselined will become redundant. This time last year, I was asked repeatedly for baselining figures, and I said at the time that I would be happy to return to those conversations. I am sympathetic. I could say that the money will be baselined. However, the £440 million is not baselined, so we will need to identify funding this time next year to cover the costs that local government has identified.

That is right. Again, for comparison, the overall health budget is £18 billion, the local government budget is £12.6 billion and the overall budget is around £40 billion.

I have two points to make about that. The first is that Registers of Scotland received significant Covid consequential funding this year. As part of the more than £639 million of Covid consequential funding, Registers of Scotland got—if I remember correctly—£14 million. If I am incorrect about that, I will get back to you.

Secondly, Registers of Scotland got substantial financial support because, of course, it raises income. I have been assured that it can still deliver its services within the budget that has been allocated.