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I do not want to be too flippant, but the rationale is quite simple. The organisation that we are replacing has proven itself undeserving of our trust and incapable in governance, in how it structures itself and in the operational decisions that it makes. That is why Parliament is now taking the dramatic step of abolishing the Scottish Qualifications Authority and replacing it with a new body. I want to ensure that we build in safeguards so that we do not repeat some of those mistakes. It sounds as if the cabinet secretary is essentially asking us to trust the new organisation and, although I hope that the new organisation will prove itself deserving of our trust, I do not think that the risk is worth taking, given why we have got to where we are now, and I think that we should put that safeguard into the legislation.

I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for laying out her rationale. I must admit that I am still somewhat unsure of the Government’s position and of exactly what the cabinet secretary is offering me. If the Government is willing to accept that we should legislate to separate those roles, I am perfectly happy to work with the cabinet secretary and come back with an amendment at stage 3 that addresses the point around the GTCS in particular—although I do not entirely agree with it, I am perfectly happy to address that point for the sake of achieving wider agreement.

I am grateful for that. It is valuable for us to achieve consensus wherever possible. On the basis that we will come back at stage 3 with an amendment that sets out the separation of those two roles, I am perfectly happy to not press amendment 47 to a vote or to move amendment 48.

On Mr Kerr’s amendments, I think that amendment 222 is too prescriptive and amendment 223 too restrictive. I have some sympathy for what is in amendment 221 as a broad statement of principles but, given that we will be coming back with amendments at stage 3 to address the points that we have been discussing on the separation of the roles, I would not vote for amendment 221 at this stage, although I could conceive of something in that area that I would be able to agree to at stage 3.

On the basis of the cabinet secretary’s reassurance, I will not press amendment 47 or move amendment 48 when we get to it.

Amendment 47, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendments 221 to 223 not moved.

I am particularly grateful to Martin Whitfield for making that point and clarifying that we want to hear from young people who may not be taking a qualifications Scotland qualification. On that basis, I would be happy to support his amendment 226 if he moves it at this stage, but it would be helpful if he could acknowledge that if both my amendment 119 and his amendment 226 are agreed to, we will need to do a little bit of reconciliation to tidy things up at stage 3.

The primary intention of the wording that the Government and I landed on in amendment 119—

“young people who are undertaking, or have recent experience of undertaking”—

qualifications, was, as I mentioned earlier, to ensure that we do not disqualify a young person as soon as they have completed their course. The experience of a young person who has, for example, just finished high school is really valuable: having been all the way through the process, they can reflect back on it—that is a voice that we want to hear.

Does Martin Whitfield appreciate that point and recognise that, if we agree to amendments 119, 120 and 226, we will need to do a little bit of tidying up to capture both of the points that we are getting at? The requirement does not necessarily need to be for the young people to be currently undertaking the qualifications, because those who are not undertaking any qualifications are a particularly important marginalised group who we need to hear from, but we do not want to exclude those who have already undertaken a qualification, such as school leavers.

I agree with that, absolutely. One of the best—if not the best—quality budget debates that we have had in this Parliament was in either 2017 or 2018, in the year in which the Scottish Government asked all the parties to put forward tax proposals. It then gave those to the SFC to come back with projections on them. That is the only year in which Opposition parties were invited to do that, and it improved the quality of the debate significantly. It is a shame that that did not then become a regular part of the budget process.

I have one final question about data and its availability. It is an issue that this committee keeps coming back to, it is in your report and every other committee touches on it. We produce and collect a vast amount of data, yet we consistently come up against the problem that it is not the right kind of data, that it is not what we actually wanted or that the data may well exist but it is not accessible to those who need it.

David Bell, in your paper you point to the national performance framework review as being a space in which that can be addressed. Is the NPF the right space for the Government to try to marshal the data that is available in the public sector in, or does something separate need to exist? Does there need to be clear overall ministerial responsibility for public data? I will not suggest a commissioner or anything like that; we already have a Scottish Information Commissioner, and this committee has strong views on having more commissioners. Is there a space or a point person or something that is needed to address that issue?

I am not convinced that just allowing the NPF review to take its course will necessarily address the issue. We will be back in the same place of collecting a vast amount of data, most of which we do not use and is not particularly usable, and we will either not collect or not be able to access the data that we really need.

Mairi, I am interested in your thoughts on this. Last year, the Fraser of Allander Institute was commissioned by Alcohol Focus Scotland, I think, to work up proposals for a public health levy. Was that indicative of the wider engagement of advocacy groups, NGOs and so on with some of the knottier issues around tax and where resource comes from? Have you noticed more engagement?

I absolutely agree with that. There is a wider challenge on the legislative side as well, particularly during the second half of the parliamentary session, when lots of bills are coming through. We have had a challenge with capacity, as the Parliament’s legislation team has been supporting a number of amendments that members want to lodge. A wider conversation needs to be had, and a quarter of a century into devolution is probably the right time to have it.

David, I will pick up on another point in your paper on which, unusually, I am more optimistic than you are about the effects of recent changes to the process and the culture around it. The committee’s challenge to organisations that submit written or oral evidence to us is that, if they want more spending, they need to identify where it will come from. You suggest—not unfairly—that that has a dampening effect and potentially mutes non-governmental organisations and other organisations that would struggle to be able to do that.

On the other side of that, it is in part because of the pressure from this committee that we have seen a higher quality of work on tax policy from those organisations that have the capacity. The Scottish Trades Union Congress started off publishing papers that were optimistic in their assumptions about revenue yield, but they have improved over the years.

If we put the important challenge to those organisations—that, if they are quite legitimately saying that we need to increase the Scottish child payment, for example, we also expect them to say where the money should come from—is it inevitable that they should do that work, or is there a role for organisations such as the OBR, the SFC, SPICe and so on? Earlier, we talked about the OBR’s public information work. Is there a role for organisations in and around the Parliament to support those who would want to take part in that conversation but do not necessarily have the expertise, the knowledge or the capacity?

I point out that, although the Scottish Government operates an open government licence, almost none of its non-departmental public bodies or executive agencies do so. There is an immediate copyright blockage, even if you just want to scrape public data off their websites.

I will pick up on the points that were raised by John Mason and Liz Smith around parliamentary process. I take on board what Mairi Spowage said about not wanting to get too far into the wider discussion about parliamentary reform.

David Bell, your submission made quite an interesting and important point on capacity. The number of MSPs is the same as it was in 1999. The Parliament has far more responsibility and, as you hinted at in your submission, a higher proportion of members are ministers. Fewer members are, therefore, available for scrutiny. At the same time as we are talking about improving the budget process, other discussions are under way around the fact that we do next to no post-legislative scrutiny. That is a significant problem. We clearly need more time to debate some of the portfolio-specific issues around the budget. Liz Smith highlighted that the way that we do that at the moment does not work. There are ways to improve, tweak and reform the processes. If you want to address whether we have the right number of MSPs, feel free to do so, but, without getting into that directly, is there a fundamental capacity issue here? Does the Parliament have the capacity to do the kind of effective budget scrutiny that we are all discussing?

I understand that the agency will be a couple of steps removed, but it is important to ensure that all key stakeholders are able to contribute.