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Chamber and committees

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 20 June 2025
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Displaying 1492 contributions

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Finance and Public Administration Committee

Budget Scrutiny 2023-24

Meeting date: 10 January 2023

Ross Greer

I have a brief question about the current year’s budget before I ask about next year’s draft budget. Given the current uncertainties around public sector pay settlements, for example, at what point should we expect the spring budget revision?

Finance and Public Administration Committee

Budget Scrutiny 2023-24

Meeting date: 10 January 2023

Ross Greer

That will be useful.

I turn to next year’s draft budget. What status should we now give the resource spending review? When it was developed and published, there was an acknowledgment that, as each year that is covered by the RSR passed, there would almost certainly be gradual divergence. However, we are now in a position in which there is immediate and significant divergence in year 1. For local government, there is £550 million more than was laid out in the RSR. If I was working in local government and trying to plan ahead for budgets, should I presume that the 2024-25 budget will provide flat cash relative to what is proposed for next year, or should I look back at the numbers for that year that are contained in the RSR?

Finance and Public Administration Committee

Budget Scrutiny 2023-24

Meeting date: 10 January 2023

Ross Greer

I have a final question that relates to various members’ questions about behaviour change and tax policy. There have been relatively significant changes in tax policy, such as the 2018 changes to income tax and the changes to council tax—I think that those were in the same year, or it might have been the year before. Was there a significant difference between the outcome of those changes—the revenue that was eventually raised—and the behaviour changes that the SFC assumed would happen? I recognise that there are questions for the commission about methodology in that regard, but can you say whether behaviour change resulted in anything that was significantly different from what had been budgeted for?

Finance and Public Administration Committee

Budget Scrutiny 2023-24

Meeting date: 20 December 2022

Ross Greer

I will return to the additional dwelling supplement. If you were to assume no behaviour change because of the rise from 4 per cent to 6 per cent, what would the additional revenue have been from that?

Finance and Public Administration Committee

Budget Scrutiny 2023-24

Meeting date: 20 December 2022

Ross Greer

Therefore, there is a roughly £20 million projected loss because of behaviour change.

Finance and Public Administration Committee

Budget Scrutiny 2023-24

Meeting date: 20 December 2022

Ross Greer

I am sorry, Graeme. I probably phrased that wrong. You are assuming that the additional change to the rate will result in behaviour change that would be worth around £20 million, but at what point would it have resulted in a change that would be equivalent to the amount that it would otherwise raise if there was no behaviour change? At what point would we raise it by so much that the amount of money that is coming in would be no more than it was in the previous year at a lower rate? I presume that, if we were to raise it to 20 per cent, we would take in a lot less money than we did from ADS specifically last year. I take your point that we would probably bring in more LBTT, but the amount coming in from ADS would be a lot less.

Finance and Public Administration Committee

Budget Scrutiny 2023-24

Meeting date: 20 December 2022

Ross Greer

[Inaudible.]—from wider economic changes.

Finance and Public Administration Committee

Budget Scrutiny 2023-24

Meeting date: 20 December 2022

Ross Greer

My next question might be best directed at Professor Muscatelli, as our domestic expert. Do you have any views on whether the Government is using its existing capital borrowing powers effectively enough? I acknowledge that they are extremely limited. Have you looked at whether they could be better used?

Finance and Public Administration Committee

Budget Scrutiny 2023-24

Meeting date: 20 December 2022

Ross Greer

I will switch to the issue of tax and your recommendation on continuing to make the tax system more progressive. Do you have any views on the papers that were recently published by the Scottish Trades Union Congress and the Institute for Public Policy Research, which largely focus on the introduction of new tax powers? Both papers included proposals on changes to income tax, non-domestic rates and so on, but they focus primarily on creating new powers, particularly around property taxation, which you mentioned, Professor Muscatelli.

I am conscious of the time, so I will roll in a second question specifically on the higher tax band. Is the range in the higher tax band now too large? For example, should we tax people who earn between £45,000 and £60,000 at the same rate for that portion of their income as we tax that portion of income for those who earn between £100,000 and £125,000?

Finance and Public Administration Committee

Budget Scrutiny 2023-24

Meeting date: 20 December 2022

Ross Greer

I return to the point about capital powers and your recommendation for the Scottish Government to maintain capital spend. Professor Muscatelli acknowledges the Government’s limitations when it comes to capital borrowing, so I want to understand a little bit better how you think that the Government can maintain capital spend when the capital budget is largely set for it through the settlement from the UK Government. You might think that the limited capital borrowing powers are not being used well enough or that we could increase taxation further to increase the capital budget, or it could be a question of reallocation within capital because there is a belief that some capital spend is not efficient enough and we could get more bang for our buck through reallocation. Could you expand a little bit on how you think the Scottish Government could achieve what you recommended, given the limitations that you have acknowledged?