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Yes, of course. It is a very high-profile inquiry, and we are very much taking notice of it.

Well, we have not been offered a meeting that is comparable with the meetings with Whitehall departments, which will be taking place throughout May. We understand the time pressures. I appreciate the time that it takes to have meetings with all the respective parts of the Government, but it was a bad message to send. I felt that that would have been an opportunity to get, in confidence, an understanding that we were in—

We have raised those issues with the Treasury in order to find solutions. Additional budget flexibility could also assist in managing SNIB’s financial position. We are keen for SNIB to be given the same status as the National Wealth Fund, because they are both public sector financial institutions, and that would enable SNIB to have more flexibility. I think that the latest from the Treasury is that it has not closed the door on that.

I had a general sense of shifting spend and we had no line of sight on what that would mean. We asked the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to give us a sense of the spending departments that were likely to be prioritised and protected, compared to those that were not. For example, we do not know where local government will sit in terms of Whitehall department priorities. He just said that he had to meet with all the departments, but, at this stage, they must have some sense of the priorities. I felt that all of it represented a bit of a shift. Compared to the assumptions that we had made, we are now in a different place, unfortunately.

No, but I will come back to the committee with the latest on the review.

It depends on what is on the table. If we were to consider specific tax powers or areas of devolution or spend that we do not have powers over—corporation tax, for example—we would have to know what was on the table in the discussion with the UK Government, so that we could model what that would mean. We have never hidden away from the fact that we want independence—or any powers short of that—for this Parliament. That is not a secret.

Detailed financial and economic modelling would have to be done on the basis of what we were talking about. For example, if there were to be a framework review that got into the detail of which areas would move, shift or be devolved, at that point, the detailed analysis would be done on each of the tax powers that would move to the Scottish Parliament.

At the moment, the policy is a principle. We would have to discuss this with the UK Government and do detailed work on what we had discussed and agreed on. Nothing has been agreed with the UK Government—

The Scottish Fiscal Commission will give us options that are based on what we ask it to analyse. For example, on tax, we might give it ranges of workforce assumptions and it would model those. We would have choices to make based on the information that we get back. Options would be put to me by my financial officials, using the SFC information, which would say, “If you do that, these are the implications and this is the effect.” We would then have to make judgments about what we think is—

I have no objections in principle to a finance bill—it would just be a very different way of working. I guess that it could be an annual bill, but it would not necessarily have to be; it could be regular as opposed to annual. We would need to think about the undertaking, not just for Government but for the Parliament, and about the parliamentary procedure and process. We would need to think through how that might work.

I can see some of the advantages to such an approach. I am thinking through some of the stand-alone legislation that we have had. For example, we had the Aggregates Tax and Devolved Taxes Administration (Scotland) Act 2024, which showed that we can introduce tax amendments that require primary legislation, but other changes have been made via secondary legislation.

On whether or not we would bring all that together in an annual bill, it would be the case that, in some years, not many of the elements would change, whereas in other years, the changes might be more expansive. We would have to think that through. My answer is that, in general, we are not against a finance bill, and it might be something that we could do some work on.

There is a point to our looking ahead if we can get into a regular cycle, and—credit where credit is due—that is one of the most important changes that the UK Government has made to the cycle, which, I think, is three years for resource funding and four years for capital funding. I see that my officials are indicating that that is correct. That gives people the ability to have a line of sight of the financial envelopes beyond year-to-year funding, which matters because, in turn, that would enable me to discuss the potential for multiyear settlements with local government or other parts of the public sector that have difficulty with year-to-year budgeting. The third sector is another example of where that would make a difference. It would help if we were able to provide a line of sight, particularly for three years’ resource funding but also for capital funding.

There is a caveat to that: what that amounts to in the funding envelopes is dictated very much by the UK Government’s discussions with Whitehall departments that will take place. Indeed, those are taking place as we speak. By and large, those discussions will determine the bulk of the funding for the devolved Administrations.

That is true, but there are probably advantages in that approach for the UK Government, given that the end of the spending review period will be 2028-29. You can see why that might be of some advantage to a sitting UK Government in relation to the election cycle.

On principle, leaving aside some of the cynicism—I totally understand why you have that—it is a good idea to have that cycle of spending outlook.