Seòmar agus comataidhean

You have made a number of recommendations, as have the SFC and others, about the kind of data that we need to start gathering to get a good sense of the effect on behavioural impact, payroll, monthly payroll and things like that. Could you talk a little bit about how long we would need to gather that data for before we had a robust enough evidence base, and about the impact of the fact that we would be starting to gather that data now, by which I mean years after some of the changes were made? How do we account for the fact that we will always have that initial period of income tax changes without a richer base of data to draw from?

I want to follow up on the line of questioning from Miles Briggs around teachers. Minister, I presume that the trade union to which you referred is the NASUWT. In its evidence to the committee, the NASUWT was clear that it felt that if the bill was passed and outdoor education provision was moved on to a statutory footing, that would require the renegotiation of teachers’ terms and conditions at the SNCT.

What is the Government’s position on that? Do you agree with the union that passage of the bill would require the issue of terms and conditions to be raised at the SNCT, with a view to potential renegotiation?

I agree with that: there is obviously a tension, because we are trying to reset relationships and give local government more flexibility. You can understand the scepticism when the Scottish Government raises such issues, given the many other areas of spending in which the Government prescribes to local government. Councils do not have a choice about the 1,140 hours of early years and childcare, for example: Parliament agreed to that. There is an on-going debate about how the £145 million for teachers is spent, with the spectre of a clawback of that money.

Will you elaborate on why the proposals in the bill are potentially overreach, in terms of national Government directing local government, while all the other areas that I have mentioned, even just within the education, children and young people portfolio, are not?

I understand that the SNCT is within the purview of the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, but it is a tripartite body. A lot of the workforce issues that we discuss in this committee in relation to schools are for local authorities, as the employer, to address, and the SNCT directly involves the Scottish Government as the third partner.

I understand that you cannot clarify the situation this morning, but will the Scottish Government give a clear position on that ahead of the stage 1 debate, perhaps in response to the committee’s report? It is really quite important for members, before we vote at stage 1, to understand the Government’s position on the terms and conditions aspect.

Moving on to a not entirely unrelated issue, how do you view the impact of the bill on the relationship between the Scottish Government and local government, particularly in the context of the Verity house agreement? Has the Government given any consideration as to how the bill would fit in with the new agenda that is being attempted and the reset of the relationship?

Thank you.

On the wider point, do you acknowledge that the bill has, among other things, raised the profile of the fact that we currently rely on a huge amount of good will and volunteering from classroom teachers to take their classes away on such trips? Regardless of the outcome of the bill, however enthusiastic I am about it, there is a need to address the fact that we expect a huge amount from teachers, over and above what is currently in their contracts.

I will switch to a different area entirely. I am flying somewhat blind, because I have tried to open so many of your reports of 200-ish pages from the previous few years that my laptop is really struggling to cope.

On land and buildings transaction tax, your projections have generally been relatively bullish, yet it still seems to be increasing and overperforming year on year—pretty consistently to the tune of about a billion pounds. If I look at the 2022 LBTT projections versus the projections in the most recent report, there is a fairly consistent gap of about a billion pounds, which is replicated if you go back through previous reports. What work have you done to look at the LBTT projections and the methodology behind them, because, although it is positive that it is overperforming, there is a relatively consistent overperformance?

Good morning.

I return to the issue of national insurance contributions and your projections of around 50,000 lost hours in the labour market. To what extent do you take into account potential secondary effects? For example, there is acute concern about the effect on the social care sector. If social care employers struggle to pay those costs, it will result in a reduction in the number of staff in a sector that already struggles to attract enough staff, which will also result in other individuals having to withdraw from the labour market to become unpaid carers to family members. Are those second-order effects taken into account? To what extent are you able to project such issues?

Sorry, I said a minute ago that there was a gap of about a billion pounds, but the gap for Scotland is pretty consistently about £100 million.

I return to Craig Hoy’s point around public sector pay. One of the challenges for both Governments is that any figure that is put into a budget to account for public sector pay will immediately be taken by trade union negotiators as a floor rather than a ceiling. Therefore, there is a tension between Governments being able to put enough money aside to have genuine negotiation versus the transparency that everybody else requires out of a budget process. Do you have any advice for either Government in that regard?

Sticking with national insurance contributions, and accepting that the primary goal was to raise revenue, if the UK Government had taken a different approach, would it have had the same kind of consequences? For example, it could have lifted the 2 per cent cap on earnings above £50,000, albeit that that would have raised perhaps not quite half of what the employer national insurance contribution increase does. The primary impact will be on sectors with large numbers of people on lower incomes of far less than £50,000.