I will start by picking up where I finished my previous remarks on local government finance reform. I thank the cabinet secretary for indicating the Government’s support for what was in the Greens’ proposed amendment and for making the point that there should be a cross-party effort on local government finance reform. I definitely welcome those remarks.

If I have picked up correctly what the cabinet secretary has said, the work that will be advanced over the remainder of this year will include the commitment that was made earlier this year to consider a power of general competence for local government. Perhaps the front bench could confirm whether I have picked that up correctly. I see the cabinet secretary nodding; I will take that as confirmation that I have understood that correctly.

I think that that power would be genuinely transformational for local government. The challenge in Scotland is that we have a tier of government that we refer to as “local government”, but it is not particularly local. The 32 authorities are massive by the standards of European local government, and they cannot do very much governing, either. Giving them a power of general competence would be one critical step towards them having genuine power to govern in their local areas.

Bearing in mind that my previous remarks focused a lot on the success that we have had with progressive income tax, the Greens absolutely recognise that additional funds for public services cannot come just from increasing individual tax liability. That is why, during our time in Government, we pushed for the reintroduction of a public health levy and for the carbon emissions land tax.

On the public health levy, I highlight the point that Scotland has introduced minimum unit pricing for alcohol, quite rightly for public health reasons. However, as it stands, minimum unit pricing without a public health levy actually increases the profits of supermarkets. Considering that Parliament has, quite rightly, agreed to increase the minimum unit price, I think that a public health levy would be a very effective step to take alongside that to allow the additional revenue that is being raised and is currently going into the pockets of supermarkets to instead be directed into the health service, and particularly into addiction recovery services.

The Poverty Alliance, Oxfam and others recently challenged the First Minister on the point that Scotland is already a wealthy country. In fact, the amount of wealth in this country has grown considerably in recent years, but it is hugely unequally held. That is why the Scottish Greens are campaigning for a wealth tax on the top 1 per cent—those with assets of about £3.5 million and above. People in that category have only got richer—much richer—in recent years, while everybody else has been struggling during the pandemic and the cost of living crisis. If the model wealth tax that we proposed, based on a paper from the University of Greenwich, were applied UK-wide, it would generate at least £70 billion a year. That is the estimate if we assume a very high rate of avoidance; if we assume a figure from the lower end of the range of avoidance estimates, it could be up to £130 billion a year.

These debates about our public finances are fundamentally about honesty, because they are about how we can afford things. The block grant in Scotland has not come close to keeping up with inflation and pay demands in recent years. We need to face up to the fact that we must either cut or radically reform services to generate savings, or raise additional revenue from elsewhere. We cannot continue to go on as we are, and the onus, as I said earlier, is on everybody to call for more spending to engage in that financial reality. I commend the Scottish Trades Union Congress’s paper from late last year as a good place to start.

However, I do not want to neglect the need for public sector reform. I am a fan of a big state; I think that government should be the expression of the popular will of society. It is where we share power and resources and where we can do transformational things together, especially to protect our most vulnerable neighbours and this planet. There are huge challenges, such as the deeply embedded inequality in the UK and the climate crisis, which require a big, co-ordinated response—the kind of response that only Government and the state can lead the delivery of. I want to see a bigger state in Scotland and to see it do more to meet the needs of people and the planet. However, I do not want just what we have now, but on a bigger scale. We need far more efficient and accountable public service provision.

I want to highlight a reform success story from recent years, which is that of Screen Scotland within Creative Scotland. It has had a transformational impact. Believe it or not—given what colleagues have said earlier—there are areas of the Scottish economy that the Greens really want to see grow and that we are proud to have played a role in growing. One of those areas is our film and TV industry.

Ten years ago, our film and TV professionals were embarrassed by the state of the sector and the lack of support that it received. We now have world-class studios, which are booked out and turn business away. From 2019 to 2021, the value of film and TV in our economy doubled. The sector is employing record numbers of people in a vast range of roles and our international reputation is rapidly growing—the team at Screen Scotland has been absolutely critical to that. It is passionate about what it does, has an excellent relationship with the sector and has a clear purpose.

Screen Scotland is a relatively new part of our public sector landscape. I still believe that the team needs to be separate from Creative Scotland, but what has been achieved in recent years is a blueprint for other areas of public sector reform that could generate considerable economic return for Scotland overall.