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The remit will be consistent with the agreement with the Scottish Green Party, as I outlined.

I will bring you back from income tax levels to general economic performance, which is captured by the national strategy for economic transformation—NSET—and the evidence paper that is provided with it. Those are fair points, so I will take them away and reflect on them.

I am conscious of the point that I made earlier about the need for the framework to remain a concise, high-level document. As I interpret it, what you are driving at is that the strategic objective for stable revenues needs to be unpacked to some degree in order to highlight those points.

—and are forecast to grow year on year. That ultimately comes down to the different make-up of the economy in other parts of the UK. I think that we are all familiar with the impact that the concentration of financial services in London and the south-east has on inflating earnings overall elsewhere in the UK, and the challenges that that creates. It is important that we look at what are the drivers of earnings and economic performance, and we are setting out our vision for that in the national strategy. Equally, though, we cannot lose sight of the impact on the block grant adjustment and the need for that process to be considered as part of the fiscal framework review.

I take the point around economic performance and the need to maximise opportunities and prosperity in Scotland, and that is what we are setting out through the national strategy for economic transformation. However, we cannot lose sight of the block grant adjustment aspect as well, and we have to bear in mind that income tax revenues are forecast to continue growing in Scotland.

That is not determined yet. We have an agreement that is in the shared programme with the Scottish Green Party. We are at an early stage in how we will develop the process, but we are going to be working at pace.

Any remit must be consistent with what is in the policy programme, so it will cover the resourcing of local government, including council tax. It will be for the citizens assembly to consider what issues it wants to explore within that remit. As I said, I do not want to prejudge its work.

In response to a previous question, I touched on aspects around metrics. I have not yet touched on a point that I referred to in my opening statement, which is that I am keen for the framework to help us to elevate the public discourse on tax. I hope that the committee knows that I am keen to advance transparency, improve engagement and have more substantive discussion across the range of my responsibilities. I know that the committee welcomed the work that was done to prepare the guide to the spring budget revision. That approach informs how I want the framework for tax to be implemented.

The document sets out how the Government will approach tax policy, but it also provides a framework or tool for others to bring forward tax policies, whether that be in the Parliament or among the general public and other stakeholders, such as civic Scotland. I hope that it can help to catalyse a more informed and more reasoned debate about tax, in recognition of the important contribution that tax makes. That is important in the context of the existing powers that we have and in the context of any changes that will emerge via the fiscal framework review or any subsequent devolution.

Along with all the stated objectives of transparency and demonstrating the Government’s commitment to on-going engagement and a culture of continuous improvement, I hope that the document can contribute to providing a strong reference point or a foundation for a more substantive debate about tax. I hope that we all share that view and aspiration.

I appreciate that Revenue Scotland has a role, and it is directly accountable to Parliament.

Okay. I am happy to take that away.

That is a fair point. I am not suggesting that migration is a silver bullet—it is part of a broader range of measures. If we are going to consider intra-UK migration, it is important that we also look at employment levels across the UK. Some of the challenges we face with skills shortages and a tight labour market are not unique to Scotland but are UK wide, which creates challenges in that sphere.

You referred to the high street and the changing nature of retail. As Parliament will be aware, a retail strategy is to be published shortly, so I cannot pre-empt that, but it has grown out of a piece of work that was done in collaboration with business, academia, trade unions, the third sector and the public sector. We are also undertaking work in partnership with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities on our updated town centre action plan, which came out of an independent review.

As for the policy interventions that Government can make, whether they be in the national strategy on economic transformation, the retail strategy, our town centre action plan or, in the longer term, national planning framework 4 and the work we are seeking to do on the planning system, we can pull a range of policy levers, but there is no single lever that can address all those issues in one fell swoop. I hope that that captures my point that although there is a range of different initiatives, there are, ultimately, limits to what we can do with the existing suite of powers that we have at our disposal. The main macroeconomic levers, employment law and so on are still reserved to Westminster, so we have to operate within those limitations.

The question that you have asked goes much broader than the framework for tax, which is what we are considering at this meeting. A broader range of work is going on that will ultimately help increase productivity and prosperity in a way that will translate into earnings and increased tax take.

At this point, we are working at pace on that.

No—the can is not being kicked down the road. I am not yet in a position to announce timescales but, when I am, I will make sure that the Parliament is the first to know.