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Absolutely. I have two further points.

I strongly advise people to look at the page that you referred to. They will see that, of all the budget lines, the economy line overspent. We spent considerably more on business support than the funding that had been given to us, such was the importance that I placed on helping businesses to get through.

My second point is that we should compare that with previous years. There are well documented complaints every year about the Scottish Government carrying an underspend. I agree with that. We cannot overspend. It is illegal for me to overspend. Therefore, as we get closer to the end of the financial year, coming in under budget is a bit like landing a 747 on a postage stamp.

By way of comparison, there was a £669 million underspend in the previous year, which is 1.7 per cent. There is the £580 million figure, which is 1.1 per cent, with £392 allocated in the budget bill and £168 million in the autumn budget revision—I appreciate that budgets are hugely complex, with lots of different material. I can say that every penny is accounted for, and every penny has been spent. I maximise the value of every single penny in a Covid year, because I know that the needs far outstrip the availability of funding.

The disagreement ranges from £400 million to £1.7 billion. It is a very significant range.

To clarify, that is not from underspend but from budget that was allocated. For example, in my own portfolio, budget had been allocated for some schemes and initiatives that we will now need to manage over a longer time period. All the funding was allocated, and the same applies to other portfolios. For example, in health, there was money that had been allocated. Right now, this year, we are managing a particularly challenging budget. That is demonstrated by the fact that there is no money in next year’s budget that is based on an assumption of carry-forward. In other words, at this point in the financial year, we do not assume that there will be any underspend that could be carried forward, because we are fully maxed out on every budget line. The money that you mention came from a host of different sources, largely where we have had to phase things over a longer time period.

I would always advise people to believe the numbers rather than necessarily anybody else’s take on the numbers. I know that Douglas Lumsden will know his way around the local government settlement probably better than anybody else. In relation to what the numbers show, I would differentiate, as COSLA does, between the core budget and the overall settlement.

In relation to the core budget, which is protected in cash terms, I do not recognise the £100 million figure that local government is using. COSLA recently wrote to me about that £100 million, and I am trying to get underneath it. My understanding is that COSLA is saying that it is for Scottish Government priorities, but I do not recognise the figure. As far as I am concerned, if you compare last year’s core budget to this year’s core budget, you will see protection in cash terms. Of course, the argument could be made that it does not take into account the impact of inflation, but I cannot inflation proof any part of the Scottish Government’s budget, such is the nature of inflation right now.

The other part to this is that there is real-terms growth to the settlement. I think—and hope—that Douglas Lumsden would probably agree that education and social care are joint priorities, and there is significant additional funding for health and social care integration. Although COSLA does not calculate that as part of its core budget, we see significant additional spend on health and social care and a significant additional spend on teachers and support staff. Of course, that also includes funding for free school meals, curriculum and music tuition charges and expanding the school clothing grant.

I hope that I have tried to be as fair as possible in distinguishing the budget as COSLA does. However, I certainly do not recognise the £100 million that COSLA references.

There is funding in this year’s budget to enable us to continue to invest in our key trunk roads. You will appreciate that the current plan is to fully dual the A96 between Inverness and Aberdeen. We have agreed to conduct a transparent, evidence-based review of the programme, which will report by the end of 2022. All road projects, including the A96, are subject to detailed review and assessment. We remain committed to making much-needed improvements to the A96, but we need to let that review run its course.

We have frozen the higher and top-rate thresholds and increased the starter and basic-rate bands. Largely, we have echoed what the UK Government has done with regard to freezing bands. I recognise that decisions made in previous years mean that that gap remains frozen this year.

I would be happy to. I remind the committee of our position last year: the budget included £500 million of additional Barnett consequentials, which had not been confirmed, although an assessment had been made that it was highly likely that that funding would arrive, and ultimately those assumptions were exceeded in aggregate. We try to take decisions in the budget based on the best available evidence. As you will all know, because of the way in which the funding position works, additional announcements are often made in year that, had they been baked into the budget from the beginning, might have led to more efficient use of funding.

In next year’s budget, we have made similar assumptions surrounding likely sources of income. Those assumptions include, first, income from the next round of offshore wind leasing, the precise scale and profile of which is expected to be confirmed early in the new year. If the budget had been later—as it has been in the past two years—that would have been factored in.

The second assumption relates to the resolution of a long-standing disagreement with the Treasury on the effect on the block grant of personal allowance adjustments. The methodology was finally confirmed this summer, although it is still part of live discussions and negotiation.

The final element is further Barnett consequentials, including some that, despite being linked to UK spending announcements, were not included in the 2021-22 funding position—in other words, announcements that have been made but for which the funding has not been drawn down in this year.

From my perspective, if the budget were later—let us say, March—it is quite likely that we would have been in a position to factor in all those things. We have considered all those sources individually and collectively, to arrive at a prudent, risk-assessed figure of £620 million of additional expected resource funding.

Lastly, it is important to say that we have not made any assumption on the availability of resource funding from the Scotland reserve. We will see how this year pans out. The additional omicron challenges are putting extreme pressure on this year’s budget. It is quite unlikely that there will be much to carry forward into next year.

In the interests of being fair and transparent, we published our capital spending review last autumn, which set out where we intended to invest over the coming years. Unfortunately, the capital that was allocated to us through the comprehensive spending review from the UK Government was lower than the conservative and cautious estimates that we had provided in the capital spending review. It might be that some of that capital commitment will need to be managed over a longer period, but I still refer the committee to the commitments that we made in the capital spending review, because that has informed the choices that we have made in this year’s budget. Of course, we have also chosen to make use of capital borrowing.

With regard to some of the high-level lines on capital, there is significant investment in infrastructure, decarbonisation efforts and the regeneration capital grant fund. There is a clear and ambitious willingness in the budget to use as much capital as possible, particularly next year, when economic recovery will still be vitally important.

I am happy to unpack any particular line, but I hope that that gives a general overview of our capital position.

It is the hardest part of any budget to identify what must be reduced in order to increase other lines. I have met all the Opposition spokespeople once and am keen to meet them again because, now that they have seen the budget, there might be more clarity on changes to approach. However, although I might hear differently over the course of today, I have heard from the Opposition only about where budgets should increase. I am very sympathetic to that. I would love a budget where every decision is easy because we are able to invest at the requisite level in all areas of the public sector. Unfortunately, the nature of budgets does not allow that. Budgets must be informed by choices, and there are some difficult choices in the budget that I am not hiding from.

There are areas of criticism that I have heard loud and clear over the past two weeks, but I come back to the position that I have maximised the funding that is available to us. You have heard already what I have said about the £620 million of assumed additional funding, so there is no funding that I am withholding or sitting on, not least because I do not need to negotiate a deal this year. Therefore, as with every penny on the face of the budget, if we are to, for example, increase the local government settlement, where should that money come from? If we are, ultimately, to agree that health consequentials should go to health—which the UK Government is pushing strongly and the Scottish Government has incorporated—that leaves very little room for manoeuvre for other budgets.

On the infrastructure side, it is capital. Capital cannot be spent for business grants, and it cannot be spent on day-to-day services. Capital is allocated to the building of a new school, for example. Someone will come to me regarding a hospital, which costs £100 million, let us say. That £100 million will be drawn down, although the hospital might not be completed by the end of the financial year. I cannot turn round and say, “Tough luck. You ain’t getting the rest of your hospital, because the money needs to be spent by the end of the financial year.” What I say is that, if there is £20 million-worth still to build, we will carry that money forward.

You ask me about choices, but I do not hold money back. The only time I have held money back, which was well documented, was just before last December when we were given significant additional funding of more than £1 billion in the final four months of the financial year. You will recall that I allocated it all and I said that I would hold £300 million in case of another wave. What happened on 5 January? We were all locked down and, thankfully, there was £300 million to invest in business.

I do not hold money back. All of the funding is allocated. The question is whether it can be drawn down, for example by vaccination teams or by the new hospital that is being built. Those are the choices, and the choices are determined, particularly during Covid, by a very volatile situation. I would much rather that we budgeted intelligently, than suddenly trying to get rid of money at the end of the financial year.

You will remember 24 December last year, as I do. On 22 and 23 December, we had been pressing the UK Government to say whether there would be additional consequentials, and we were told that there would be no further consequentials. Late on 23 or 24 December, we suddenly had hundreds of millions of pounds of additional funding. That had to be spent intelligently on business support in very short order. Managing significant additional sums of money late on in the financial year leads to poor decision making if you cannot carry it forward beyond 31 March.