Hansard

I begin with a comment that Malcolm Chisholm made. He was concerned about the Government maintaining its capacity to undertake the tax-forecasting function to enable us to be informed about whether we could come to the view that we accept the Scottish Fiscal Commission’s estimates. That is an elementary proposition. Would not the Government be in dereliction of its duty if it did not undertake such an assessment to satisfy itself that a body that is not accountable to it—I concede that it is accountable to Parliament—is able to formulate a set of numbers that will be significantly influential on the public finances of Scotland? Would it not want to be assured that the commission has come to the correct judgment and proposition—or range of propositions? After all, members are absolutely right: there is no precision about these points. However, we certainly need to satisfy ourselves that the estimates and forecasts that have been put forward are appropriate and dependable for the purposes of the Scottish budget process.

If the Government decides that the forecasts do not command its confidence, a mechanism is in place. That is part of the OBR framework, as well—the OBR can be challenged by the United Kingdom Government if it does not believe its forecasts, and we have put arrangements in place to enable us to take the same approach. It is absolutely correct to enable the Scottish Government to properly exercise its financial management responsibilities for the people of Scotland.

Richard Simpson set out some arguments about the international evidence on external forecasting. If Dr Simpson was to look at the analysis undertaken by the Scottish Parliament information centre, he would find that the OBR model is the outlier. When Robert Chote gave evidence to the Finance Committee, he made the point that the OBR model was not the norm. Of course, as part of the negotiations on the fiscal framework, I have accepted a proposition that is closer to that model. I am prepared to accept it if it is necessary to get the United Kingdom Government to agree to a reasonable fiscal framework. However, when we are coming to a considered judgment about this, we should bear in mind the fact that the Scottish Government’s position in the debate, to begin with, was founded on a strong body of international evidence that indicated that the approach that we were taking was robust and would allow the Scottish Fiscal Commission to fulfil the function that was envisaged for it.

In the course of the debate, there has been a lot of discussion about Jackie Baillie’s amendment 29. Gavin Brown observed that the amendment would have had two functions: first, to enable us to have clarity about responsibility for the long-term sustainability of the public finances; and, secondly, to enable us to see whether the Government was observing its financial rules. On the latter, my problem with a lot of what was said in the debate on the amendment was that the question of whether the Government is observing its financial rules is entirely black and white. As I explained to Baroness Goldie, in response to her intervention, it is a matter of fact.

On the question of where responsibility lies for judging the long-term sustainability of the public finances, in my view that rests ultimately with members of Parliament—informed, yes, by the consideration of the Finance Committee and, significantly, by the judgments of the finance secretary. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of members of the Parliament to determine whether they believe the public finances to be undertaken sustainably.