I am glad that we are having this debate this afternoon, although I am a bit frustrated that we are not having a debate dedicated to the fiscal sustainability of Scotland’s public finances, and that we will not have the medium-term financial strategy, the capital spending strategy or the tax strategy before autumn. That is disappointing and frustrating.

Scotland’s public finances are not sustainable without huge changes to our tax policy, significant cuts to public services, or some combination thereof. The Parliament’s Finance and Public Administration Committee has been trying to get both Government and Parliament as a whole to engage with the issue, because it is becoming more urgent. Short-term decision making to balance budgets in year is consistently resulting in poor value for money for the taxpayer.

I had some involvement in two rounds of the euphemistically named “path to balance” exercise to close the Government’s in-year budget deficit. That was difficult work, resolving the tension between the financial reality and the consequences that would come about from reducing spending on important services. I do not envy the ministers and officials who have to deal with that every year.

However, one specific concern that I have about how we go about closing the in-year budget deficit each year is that certain portfolios are bearing a disproportionate burden—specifically, the education portfolio. If we compare justice and education, we see that, for obvious reasons, the justice portfolio spending allocation is largely fixed at the start of the year. There is not much flexibility once we have made those commitments, whereas in education there is more nominally discretionary spending.

When we have gone through a pattern—for reasons outwith the Scottish Government’s control—of in-year deficits, year after year, it means that the portfolios with that discretionary spending have had to bear a really disproportionate burden to close the deficit.