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The Acorn project is a good example of that. We have offered to increase funding in order to push the UK Government down the road of approval of Acorn, and it remains to be seen whether that happens at the spending review. There is an inefficiency in not aligning the investments, strategies and leverage that we have as Governments. We should be trying to face those in a similar direction.

Exactly.

The tax advisory group—we were really clear about this with the members of the group and in our public communications—was not set up in such a way that we would say to it, “This is our tax policy for the budget.” Apart from anything else, if I were to do that before informing the Parliament, I would get myself into difficulty. The tax advisory group was not a group that we would, in essence, consult on the tax rates for each budget, and that was made very clear with the group at the start.

We work with the tax advisory group on things such as the public’s understanding of tax and areas that we could improve in that regard and on ensuring that we look at all the component parts in the here and now and the areas that we might look at in the future. In essence, that is my response. I would not have been telling the tax advisory group about our proposals for tax. That would not be right, because the Parliament should hear about those first and foremost.

We take advice from the Scottish Fiscal Commission. We give the commission the information and details of what we have been looking at. We give it various options, and it comes back with what they would mean in terms of revenue raised or potential behaviour change. We will also look at data from HM Revenue and Customs. We look at all those things, but the Fiscal Commission is the main body that will have done analysis in advance of our making decisions.

Angus Robertson replied to you on this matter just last week, Mr Marra. He said:

“The Scottish Government stands ready to engage at any point with the United Kingdom Government on substantial new fiscal powers for Scotland, following which we will model the impact of potential policy choices.”—[Official Report, 14 May 2025; c 9.]

We are ready to engage with the UK Government in looking at full fiscal autonomy if it is open to engaging with us on the detailed work for that. We have asked for a proper review of the fiscal framework—one that goes beyond just the margins—and we have asked the Treasury to do a more fundamental review of the fiscal framework. We have not yet had any indication that the UK Government would be up for a more general and wider review, but we will continue to pursue that.

We would have to do the detailed work at a point in time. It would clearly depend on the financial circumstances of that point in time—whether that was now, five years ago or 10 years ago. We would have to do detailed work with the UK Government and, if it was serious about wanting to engage with us, it would—

No detailed work has been undertaken on the basis of where we are at the moment and the current fiscal position. If we reached an agreement that such work should be undertaken, it would be done with the UK Government.

The tax advisory group looked at the overall tax position. It considered many themes, including the public’s understanding of tax and the coherence of the tax system. For example, if you increase the public’s understanding, are they more likely to then adhere to and pay their taxes? It considered the burden of tax, and we had a look at some of the HMRC data on behavioural issues. The group’s input was more about tax in a general sense rather than on specific rates.

I take the point. We just need to bear in mind the dynamics of who sits around the table in the tax advisory group. On the one hand, the STUC has a particular view of what should happen vis-à-vis tax, which is very different from the views of business organisations that sit around the table. They will say different things to me.

We then have the tax experts, who are a little bit more dispassionate, I guess, in their view of behaviour, and we also have local government, which has its own views. That means that there is not one view emanating from that advisory group, but a range of views. What I—and we collectively—tried to do was to pull as much of that as we could into a coherent tax strategy. Nevertheless, many of those views will not be able to be reconciled.

We should undertake to have further discussions about it. I have no in-principle objection and I take the point that our engagement with the debate in committees was perhaps lacking some interest, so we need to reflect on that—we should not just ignore it. However, it would take some time to put in train the very different set of arrangements that would be needed for a finance bill. We should take the issue away and have further discussions about the implications not just for the Government but for the Parliament and parliamentary time. We are happy to do that.