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I will move on, but I am happy for other witnesses to come back on any of those issues.

I alluded to the idea that we should have a laser focus on growing the number of Scottish taxpayers, but it now strikes me that it is critical to grow the amount of income that each Scottish taxpayer has, because that benefits the Scottish exchequer as well as the individuals themselves, and it should ultimately lead to tackling our productivity issues.

Let us return to Ray Perman’s comments about the levels of spending on enterprise support. We are not spending anything like £600 million any more, which we were spending through Scottish Enterprise alone. We are spending about £530 million, so we are now spending less, despite having created the Scottish National Investment Bank. The question is this. We need to be mission led—we need to have that focus. Should that focus be purely on productivity, which will lead to impacts on earnings? If it is not, what should the mission of the Scottish National Investment Bank and other enterprise agencies be? How do we enhance that laser focus?

With regard to the ring-fenced funding that you are receiving, Gail Macgregor highlighted the commitment to 1,140 hours of free childcare, which we all agree with. Can you give us a bit more detail and clarification on that? Are you saying that the funding that you are getting for that is not sufficient now and will likely not be sufficient in years to come? If so, is the implication that local authorities are having to top up the funding to deliver on the 1,140 hours commitment?

I—and, I am sure, the rest of the committee—would find it helpful to see some data on that. If what you are saying is the case, one would expect the proportion of the total funding for things that are not ring fenced to shrink. We would find any analysis that brings out that sort of detail very useful.

In the interests of time, I will move on. My next question is for Linda Somerville. Before asking it, I remind the committee of my entry in the register of members’ interests, which states that I am a member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers—USDAW.

We are all very much aware that the furlough scheme is coming to an end at the end of this month, but we seem to be seeing some quite contradictory data. We have seen low or reducing levels of unemployment in recent months, but we also know that there are fewer jobs in the economy than there were pre-pandemic. According to the latest set of numbers, more than 100,000 people in Scotland are still on furlough. Does the STUC believe that enough is being done to ensure that there are jobs for people coming off furlough or to address any imbalances in the labour market that we may be about to encounter in the autumn?

Does Joanne Walker have any observations about the way in which taxation operates in Scotland?

Does Joanne Walker have anything to add?

I want to return to some of the points that were made at the beginning of this session. The discussion regarding preventative spend was of particular importance, especially given the real challenges that we have ahead of us. Of course, we are 10 years on from the Christie commission. Although such measures are difficult to implement from year to year, will the panel reflect on whether we have done enough to embed Christie in the way that we devise policy and structure the budget? I think that the key word is “cross-portfolio”, which has been mentioned. Do we devise and implement policy in a sufficiently cross-portfolio way? Should the budget, rather than being structured around silos, be structured around outcomes? I will go to John Dickie first, as he got the grilling on preventative spend at the beginning of the session—at least, I think that it was a grilling, convener.

Does either of the other witnesses want to comment? It might be your last opportunity.

Moving on, but related to the previous question, there have been a number of suggestions, both at this morning’s meeting and in written submissions, that we need to have a look at the fiscal framework. Thinking about Christie, I wonder whether, as well as looking at the fiscal framework, we need to consider how we can use and benefit from it.

The fundamental outcome of the fiscal framework is that, if there are increases in tax revenues, we have that money to spend here, in Scotland. I am at risk of making a gross oversimplification, but one way of thinking about it is that the best way of tackling poverty and inequality is to ensure that more people are in well-paid employment. Are we sufficiently focused on ensuring that policies remove barriers to employment and that such employment is sufficiently well paid? Let us use the living wage as the minimum benchmark.

Does anyone fancy having a go at answering that question? Polly Tolley is smiling most broadly, so we will go to her.

I intend to focus mainly on high streets and the comments that have been made about retail but, before I do so, I will get my declaration of interests out of the way. I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests: I am a director of a company with retail interests and a member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers.

Before I ask about high streets and retail, I want to pitch in a different way a question that I asked the previous panel. Last week, the committee looked at the impact of taxation decisions that had been taken in Scotland. An additional £500 million should have been provided as a result of the changes that were made by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy, but we have seen an uplift of only £150 million. The reason for that is the fiscal framework and the way that it works. Fundamentally, income tax receipts per capita have increased more slowly in Scotland than they have in the rest of the UK. What does that say about the way in which we have been applying taxation policy?

That elicits a fundamental question, which I put to the previous panel. Has the Scottish Government focused sufficiently on increasing the number of taxpayers in Scotland by getting people into work and ensuring that, when they are in work, they are sufficiently well paid? That is surely the best way of ensuring that we have money for public services in Scotland.

That question is probably more for Joanne Walker in the first instance, but I would be interested to hear Kevin Robertson’s response, as well.

I will pitch the same question to Laura Mahon, mainly because, when you were talking about tax, Laura, you were considering the wider external benefits of levies in some ways. Are we examining our tax powers sufficiently in the round and sufficiently in relation to the outcomes that they produce?