Meeting of the Parliament 10 March 2016
I rise to support amendment 29, on fiscal rules and sustainability of public finances. As Jackie Baillie said, the Finance Committee agreed in its entirety on the matter for our report—there was no dissent whatsoever. I therefore look forward to hearing John Mason’s comments to see whether he is as keen on consistency for amendment 29 as he was for the previous group of amendments.
The committee’s agreement in January backed up its previous report on the fiscal framework in June of last year, when we made exactly the same recommendation. A day after stage 2, the Scottish Affairs Committee at Westminster seemed to support our view as well, because it said:
“An enhanced Scottish Fiscal Commission should monitor and report on the Scottish Government’s performance against those targets”—
namely, the fiscal targets that will be set out.
The fiscal framework itself, at paragraph 101, talks about relying, if there is a dispute, on the “technical input” of the Scottish Fiscal Commission. If the SFC is going to be of use in a dispute, it has to have as wide a remit as possible, rather than only producing the official forecast, as it is destined to do at the moment.
In lodging amendment 29, Jackie Baillie has made a number of changes to the amendment that she lodged at stage 2. She has removed any reference to policy objectives, which I think is the right thing to do. She has sought expert advice, and I know—as a matter of fact—that she shared it with all members of the committee at least a week ago to ensure that there were no technical objections and that we could debate purely the principle.
I note previous arguments that it is the job of Parliament to assess and scrutinise the long-term forecast of public finances. Yes, it is, but Parliament would certainly be aided in doing that job by having access to work that has been done by the Scottish Fiscal Commission.
Jackie Baillie read out two quotes from the Scottish Fiscal Commission, and I repeat what it said in its written submission to the Finance Committee:
“The SFC believes it should have responsibility for assessing the Scottish Government’s forecasts on the sustainability of Scotland’s public finances, such as adherence to fiscal rules as an example, and it would welcome the Bill being amended now to anticipate this additional responsibility when it arises.”
For all those reasons I support amendment 29. I genuinely hope that the Government will back it, so that we can have a Fiscal Commission that really is worth shouting about.