���˿���

Given that no one else has mentioned the multiply programme so far, I thought that I would touch on it.

Secretary of state, you have talked a lot about partnership working, but South Ayrshire Council, a Conservative-led authority, has said:

“the allocation for Multiply which accounted for over 17% of ... UK”

shared prosperity fund

“resources, was ring fenced ... it is doubtful whether South Ayrshire Council would have determined such allocation if it had been given discretion on this matter. The programme could have been more effective by aligning and combining both numeracy and literacy interventions. The Multiply financial allocations follow an even pattern. It will be challenging to spend”

even

“one third of our Multiply allocation”.

Surely, if there has been partnership working and not imposition, as you have said, that situation with a Conservative authority would not be happening.

It is becoming more important, but it seems odd that the UK Government should even be involved in the multiply initiative, given that education is completely devolved. If we are honest, it has not been brought in through partnership working. The UK Government has decided that it is going to impose it on Scotland, and that is it. I cannot think for a single minute that the Scottish ministers said, “Oh, that’s a great idea.” They would have been happy if you had allocated additional funding through the block grant that they could spend on education, but to come in and impose something on which even Conservative authorities do not believe they can fully utilise the allocated resources is clearly a concern.

I am quite sure that they would be willing to work cross-border.

We have to finish at noon, so we have only a couple of minutes left, but I will say one final thing before I wind up. Zoe Billingham, director of the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank, said that the National Audit Office report on levelling up includes

“a litany of missed deadlines, moving goalposts and dysfunction in the way levelling up funds have been allocated to councils as part of the government’s flagship programme.”

In Scotland, we have also had the imposition of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, which means that it cuts across devolved policy. To give you the final word, secretary of state, what will you do differently to ensure that levelling up is much more impactful and effective for those it is trying to assist?

Good morning and welcome to the third meeting in 2024 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee.

We have one item on today’s agenda, which is to take evidence on the replacement of European Union structural funds in Scotland from the Rt Hon. Michael Gove MP, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations, in the United Kingdom Government. Mr Gove joins us online. A very good morning to you and welcome to the Finance and Public Administration Committee.

We have almost 90 minutes for the evidence session. Before I open up the discussion to members, I understand that Mr Gove would like to make a short opening statement.

I will finish with the issue of cleaning, which has been brought up by both John Mason and Michelle Thomson. The cleaning budget will increase by 23.7 per cent to £804,000. That is not in itself a huge figure, but I wonder why there is such a large percentage increase in one year.

If the situation is not as bad as we thought, why has the housing budget been cut by a third, to £375.8 million, in the forthcoming year?

The housing budget has had a particularly serious reduction. You have mentioned one set of figures, but we must work with what we have in front of us. Page 53 of the budget document shows that the more homes budget has decreased from £740.1 million in 2022-23 to £564.6 million in 2023-24 and £375.8 million in 2024-25. That is almost a halving of that budget over two years at a time of a housing emergency.

We know that, at the same time, the Scottish Government has made very significant capital investments in other areas. For example, there has been a 12.4 per cent increase for Police Scotland and a 49 per cent increase for digital connectivity; I will mention one or two other increases in a moment when we move on to discuss other areas.

Why has that choice been made? The Scottish Government has quite rightly said that it is a matter of choices. I find it wearisome that no one other than the Scottish Government really makes choices. Everyone says that there should be more money for everything and no reductions in anything. We are in a situation in which capital is decreasing—that is just a fact of life—but why has housing in particular had such a dunt, relative to other areas of the Scottish budget?

For our second evidence session on the 2024-25 Scottish budget, I welcome to the meeting the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Shona Robison, who is joined by Scottish Government officials. Dr Alison Cumming is director of budget and public spending; Ellen Leaver is deputy director, local government and analytical services; and Dr Andrew Scott is director of tax and revenues.

We have just over two hours for this session. Before I open up the discussion, I invite Ms Robison to make a short opening statement.

Transparency is fundamental. We cannot be comparing apples with pears. We need to have confidence in what we are looking at when we are making comparisons.

One of the issues raised by a number of people who have given evidence to the committee, particularly on our pre-budget report, was the need to grow the tax base. It is fair to say that there is a level of disappointment with some of the decisions that have been made. I will ask about some of those decisions. In the wellbeing economy and fair work budget, there is a 15 per cent reduction to £348.7 million in the enterprise, trade and investment budget. You have already touched on the Scottish National Investment Bank; its budget is down 28 per cent. At a time when we need to grow the tax base, improve productivity and create economic growth and when we need to provide the tax revenues to pay for so much else, why have decisions been made to reduce the enterprise budgets?

We want to look at these figures three-dimensionally rather than two-dimensionally wherever possible.

I will go back to the issue of choices. You talked about protecting the NHS, and its resource is up 4.3 per cent. The resource for police is up by 5.6 per cent and support for ferry services is—I am pleased to say—up by 23.3 per cent. The figure has gone up in a number of areas, but how did you decide on those percentages? Why did you decide on, for example, 4.3 per cent for the NHS but 5.6 per cent for policing? What was the decision making behind that?