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Thank you. It is important to get that clarification on the record.

One of the things that concerns me—I am sure that other members will raise this issue—is that the costs that have been provided, such as those for 2021-22, 2022-23 and the current year, do not give us much more than the top-line costs. It would be useful to dig down into the costs, so I will do a wee bit of digging and I am sure that colleagues will do more of that as the meeting progresses.

In your opening statement, you talked about the need to look again at the profiling of expenditure. The annex in our papers shows the actual costs after revision, which are obviously the most important ones. In 2021-22, £1.387 million was spent on staff. In the following year, the figure increased quite dramatically to £9.8 million. One would anticipate that, because a lot more work was done to flesh out the bill. However, in the first quarter of the current financial year, the figure seems to have fallen back quite significantly to £923,000, which is only about a third of the quarterly spend in the previous financial year. Can you explain why there has been such a dramatic change in those figures?

It would have been useful to have more detail on that.

I will let in colleagues in just a second, but minister, do you agree that the bill now seems to be about evolution rather than revolution? Has the big bang that we saw last year and which hit the rocks of a financial memorandum that just did not add up been transformed? Is the Government now looking at putting in place something radically different than what it was going to put in place a year ago?

The next item on our agenda is to continue taking evidence on the sustainability of Scotland’s finances as part of our pre-budget scrutiny. I welcome Rachel Cook, deputy head of policy, Federation of Small Businesses Scotland; Sandy Begbie CBE, chief executive officer, Scottish Financial Enterprise; and Louise Maclean, business development director, Signature Pubs, who is representing the Scottish Hospitality Group.

I intend to allow up to 75 minutes for this session. I say to our witnesses that, when they want to be brought into the discussion, they should indicate to me or the clerks and I will call them. You do not all have to answer every question but, if I put a question to an individual, feel free to say that you wish to comment as well. We have your written submissions, so we will move straight to questions, which I will open. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe—who will I put my first question to? I will put it to the FSB.

The FSB has talked a lot, as has the Scottish Hospitality Group, about support for businesses, which is of fundamental importance for your sector and for the Scottish economy. Where are we on that? The FSB has said:

“more than half of the businesses who responded [to our survey] do not feel Scotland is currently an attractive place to start up a business”.

First, how does that relate to other parts of the UK, Ireland or anywhere else? It is important to get that in context. Secondly, will you talk us through what the Scottish Government could do to make Scotland a more attractive place in which to do business?

Sandy, what can we do through the budget to ensure that the Scottish financial sector remains competitive?

I think that we would all agree that we need a lot more 25-year-olds in Scotland’s working population.

So, in areas where Scotland has an advantage—for example, the small business bonus scheme—we should pay additional rates relief, but in areas where the UK has an advantage, we should ensure that all Barnett consequentials go into the sector. It would be a double-win for the sector, but it would impact on other areas of the Scottish budget. If that £85 million is to be used in hospitality and other sectors, where in the Scottish budget should the Scottish Government take it from?

Is £15 million a realistic sum?

The Scottish Trades Union Congress’s evidence to the committee was that the Scottish small business bonus scheme does not necessarily work. It has been saying that for years, incidentally. When I chaired our predecessor committee between 2011 and 2016, it made the same argument when it said that the money should go directly into public services. What would you say to that, Rachel? The STUC also said that if small business bonus money is to be spent, it should be tied to fair work. What do you feel about that?

That concludes questions from committee members, but I have one or two questions to wind up. I assumed that period 1 meant quarter 1 and I know that other members of the committee also thought that. If it just means April, why does it not just say April? We are talking about transparency and that is a pretty basic thing. Just put April 2024 for period 1, and put July 2024 for period 4. We all need to talk in simple straightforward language if we are going to talk about transparency.

We have talked about this being a framework bill and there has been much discussion about primary and secondary legislation. Given the changes that we have seen in the evolution of the bill in recent months, has the balance shifted between primary and secondary legislation? Will the bulk now be primary or secondary legislation? Where has that balance moved over the past few months?

That is very helpful. I have a final question for you, before I open up to colleagues. You talked about business rates and the need to perhaps look again at them in relation to supporting the hospitality sector. Those reliefs are obviously a blunt tool, although a welcome one. What other help can the Scottish Government provide to help to grow and ensure the long-term survival and prosperity of the hospitality sector?