f reasons for that but, most importantly, they have to be independent forecasts and they have to be seen to be independent. By so doing, those amendments also got rid of, I think, a rather weak reasonableness test which I don't think was going to offer much scrutiny. It gets rid of the messing about with economic determinants for non-domestic rates and I think it avoids or at least weakens the built-in optimism bias that any Government producing forecasts is at risk of producing and for all of those reasons I support all of those amendments in the name of John Swinney. As I said we got there in the end I was hoping that we would get there at stage 2 but I failed to convince the Cabinet Secretary I just wasn't quite up to the mark of convincing Mr Swinney that George Osborne was up to the mark. George Osborne managed to convince John Swinney that this is the right way to go and I say thank goodness for the persuasive powers of George Osborne. Thank you, Presiding Officer and I think I have to say it is no secret that I as one of the members of the Finance Committee have not been convinced all along that the SFC should be doing the forecasting. The main reasons for that have been that, one, it is fundamentally better to have one organisation to do the work, in this case forecasting and a separate organisation to check it. That is what happens with audits and both auditors and the SFC look to the future and look to the past. Secondly, it is going to be more resource intensive and therefore more expensive to have this kind of duplication of work. Thirdly, I am not convinced that the OBR model is that great and it is certainly in a minority internationally. Fourthly, the question of independence and who does the forecasting are two completely separate issues and should not be conflated. However, I do accept that the bargaining with Westminster over the fiscal framework has meant that we have not got the ideal situation in every case this being won. I will vote for the amendments tonight but if I am returned here and it all goes belly up I will be standing here to say that I said it before. Thank you. First Minister, if you wind up and press or withdraw your amendments. Presiding Officer, the first thing I have to say is that to reflect on Jackie Baillie's initial comment which Jackie Baillie said that she was rising to support the amendments and I just would like to say if that was a speech in support I would hate to see a speech that was not supportive. I suppose that that is how the Labour Party goes about its business. That is how they operate in such a ferret in sack-like mode on a constant basis with Jackie Baillie delivering speeches of support of that nature. I accept that this has been a long and winding journey on this particular question and I want to place on record the resolute consistency of Mr Mason who has been absolutely and totally consistent on his arguments throughout this process but if it wasn't for the fact that the finance committee at stage 2 had voted against these provisions I would have had nothing to give away in the fiscal framework negotiations and if it came down to a bargain between saving the Scottish budget a Tory attack of £7 billion of cuts to the public expenditure and me compromising to put these powers in place then I thought it was a price worth paying. Of course I'll give way to Mr Brown. Mr Brown, then encourage or attempt to persuade SNP members on the committee to change their view at stage 2. I would make absolutely no attempt to try to persuade members of the committee to do anything other than what they thought to be the right thing to do in given circumstances in a parliamentary process. Of course. Did he perhaps share with him the negotiations that were going on with the fiscal framework? As Jackie Baillie knows I have maintained absolute confidence around the conducting of the negotiations with the Treasury as was a proper approach for me to take the issues that were resolved. I am glad that those amendments seem to command support within the parliamentary chamber. They are part of the fiscal framework agreement that we are putting into place. We want to ensure that all details of the fiscal framework are put into practice in the fashion that is envisaged by the fiscal framework agreement. That is precisely what the Scottish Government has placed on the record of the amendments today. I invite Parliament to support amendment 1 and when it comes to the appropriate moment to support the other amendments in the group. Many thanks. The question is that amendment 1 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are. Now move to group 2 and call amendment 29 in the name of Jackie Baillie in the group on its own. Jackie Baillie to speak to and move amendment 29. Thank you very much Presiding Officer and I am pleased to move amendment 29 in my name. That amendment seeks to give the fiscal commission responsibility for scrutinising the Government's performance against fiscal rules and secondly to consider the sustainability of our public finances. In so doing I have reflected on the cabinet secretary's comments at stage 2 of the bill and the original intentions of the finance committee both in their report on fiscal institutions and their stage 1 report on the bill. Across the world fiscal institutions have a role in looking at fiscal rules and the future sustainability of public finances so this is actually nothing new. In the 17 OECD countries that have been researched 15 have responsibility for looking at the long term sustainability of public finances 11 have a role in monitoring compliance with fiscal rules. Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Portugal Sweden and the United Kingdom to name but a few. So this is the normal thing for fiscal institutions to do. Mr Swinney asked at stage 1 and he has asked since what the fiscal rules are. As finance secretary I would expect him to know this but let me just help him here. These are the fiscal rules that are set out in the Public Finance and Accountability Scotland Act. There are the fiscal rules in relation to capital borrowing, revenue borrowing, the budget exchange mechanism, all of three which will change when the new Scotland bill becomes an act. The fiscal rules set by the Scottish Government itself, the 5% revenue finance projects can. Then there are the rules set out in the fiscal framework agreement including the Scotland reserve. We should be interested in making sure that these are scrutinised and reported to Parliament. Let me turn to the sustainability of public finances because when you consider the international monetary fund fiscal council data set you can see that the second most important function of the emerging new generation of fiscal councils is to judge the long term sustainability of public finances. I don't see why we shouldn't want to do that. The majority of expert witnesses to the committee agreed that both areas were important. The Scottish Fiscal Commission in a letter to the committee itself said that it believes that it should have responsibility for assessing the forecast on the sustainability of Scotland's public finances such as adherence to fiscal rules and it would welcome the bill being amended now to anticipate this additional responsibility. Indeed, Professor Hughes-Hallot, a member of the commission said to the committee that the bill should be amended to make explicit that the commission has a role in assessing fiscal sustainability. Professor Campbell Leith, another member of the commission, remember that these commissioners are appointed by the cabinet secretary himself. He said that one of the main objectives of creating a fiscal commission is to ensure that there is fiscal sustainability. The committee convener, Presiding Officer, Kenny Gibson, reflecting the committee's unanimous view on this, said that we believe that it should assess the Scottish Government's adherence to its fiscal rules and assess the long-term sustainability of the public finances. That will further strengthen the independent scrutiny role of the commission and reflect the view of many witnesses who have appeared before the committee. Not my words, Presiding Officer. Kenny Gibson's. OECD, the Fiscal Commission members themselves, the Finance Committee and numerous expert witnesses besides, I hope that the cabinet secretary is listening and will indeed support my amendment 29. Are you moving your amendment? Which I move, Presiding Officer. Gavin Brown. I rise to support amendment 29 in relation to the fiscal rules and sustainability of the public finances. As Jackie Baillie said, the committee agreed that in its entirety in our report there was no dissent whatsoever and so I therefore look forward to hearing John Mason's comments on this matter to see if he is as keen on consistency in this group of amendments as he was on the previous group of amendments. The agreement of the committee in January backed up the committee's previous report on the fiscal framework from June of last year where we made exactly the same a day after the stage 2 process the Scottish Affairs Committee at Westminster seemed to support our view as well where they said, an enhanced Scottish Fiscal Commission should monitor and report on the Scottish Government's performance against those targets namely the fiscal targets set out. The framework itself section 98 and section 101 is about relying if there is a dispute on the technical input on the dispute coming from the Scottish Fiscal Commission. If they are going to be of use in a dispute I think they have to have as wide a remit as possible and not only produce the official forecast as they are destined to do at the moment. There have been a number of changes from the amendment put forward at stage 2 by Jackie Baillie. She has removed any reference of policy objectives and she has sought expert advice and she has shared it. I know, as a matter of fact, at least a week ago with all members of the committee to make sure that there were no technical objections to it so that we could debate purely the principle. I note previous arguments that it is the job of Parliament to assess the long-term forecast of public finances. Yes, it is, but Parliament would certainly be aided in doing that job and scrutiny by having access to the Fiscal Commission. The Scottish Fiscal Commission Jackie Baillie read out two quotes, but in their written submission to the finance committee they believed that they should have responsibility for assessing the Scottish Government's forecast 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 of those reasons I support amendment 29 and I genuinely hope that the Government will back that amendment so that we can have a fiscal commission really worth shouting about. Thank you very much, Deputy First Minister. Presiding Officer, I welcome the opportunity to debate further Jackie Baillie's amendment which, as she indicated and as the Government Brown said, has been debated in a different form but largely similar principle at stage 2. I remain unclear of the added value or enhanced scrutiny provided by way of the commission assessing Scottish ministers' performance against fiscal rules. The Scottish Government is subject to budgetary rules which Jackie Baillie includes in her definition of fiscal rules, performance against which is already effectively assessed by the Auditor General as part of the annual audit of the Scottish Government's annual financial statements. We are also subject to statutory aggregate borrowing limits set administratively by the United Kingdom Government. There are already established mechanisms for reporting to Parliament on those issues. It is a matter of fact as to whether or not the Scottish Government operates within those limits and so it remains unclear what public value the commission could add in carrying out assessments against those limits. Should the Scottish Government gain borrowing flexibilities in future which would enable us to set further and more flexible fiscal rules so that we revisit the issue and consider whether the commission could add value in reporting on the Government's adherence to such rules. In relation to fiscal sustainability I remain of the view that this is primarily a role for elected members of the Scottish Parliament who hold ministers directly to account for the robustness of our financial judgments. I'll give way to Mr Schiffford. We did not be very difficult for members to do that unless they have the level of analysis of the fiscal commission or such in order to have the information in order to hold the Government to account on that issue. My judgment is that there is not a lack of financial information that circulates around in relation to the setting of the budget process. Mr Chisholm and I were both former members of the House of Commons. The degree of financial scrutiny and financial provisions in this Parliament is significantly stronger and more detailed than anything that I experienced in the House of Commons. There are spring and autumn budget revisions and there is all the information that is set out and the scrutiny to which we are subjected by the Auditor General and the wider role that the Auditor General undertakes. I think that members of the Parliament have a very strong access to data and information to enable them to undertake that task. I'll give way to Mr Bannisgold. I was struck by his earlier comment that as further borrowing powers for example might emerge, she might be prepared then to come back and look at this, but is that not to concede that in principle Mr Bailey's amendment is sensible because the whole point about the fiscal commission is we are creating something, a very important body which we have never had before which I think has the attraction to many onlookers of being the first time we've had a composite umbrella body with a very important job and a very important form with very important duties and I'd have thought that the cabinet secretary far from seeing this as in some way tiresome, restricting or distracting actually a support to the very important job he is charged with doing. At no stage did I use any of the language that Bannisgold has just suggested were reasons why this amendment should not be supported. At no stage have I used the word tiresome scrutiny. What I've said is that I believe that the financial scrutiny is there by virtue of the current exercise of functions by Audit Scotland and by virtue of the fact that the fiscal rules under which I am obliged to operate, whether that is living within the revenue limit set by the United Kingdom Government which is the rule in which I have to operate or the capital del requirement or a fixed borrowing limit which will be set at 3 per cent of the £450 million per annum if we couldn't borrow £450 million because we would be prevented from doing so because it would breach our administrative limits. My point is that I don't see and the description I said was that I could not see what the added value of this was in relation to the amendment that was being put forward by Jackie Baillie. So I don't think it's an appropriate role for the Scottish Fiscal Commission and as I've indicated in my responses to interventions risk duplicating the rules already fulfilled by the Parliament and by the Auditor General. I therefore ask Jackie Baillie not to press her amendment feeling which I recommend to Parliament that Parliament does not support the amendment. My thanks. No call on Jackie Baillie to wind up and press or withdraw her amendment. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I intend to press the amendment. The Cabinet Secretary has deployed some of these arguments before. So let me take them in turn. Firstly, he says that this is a role for Audit Scotland. Let me just read out the Auditor General's role is to appoint auditors to Scotland's central government and NHS bodies to examine how public bodies spend public money to help them to manage their finances to the highest standards and to check whether they achieve value for money. I don't see fiscal rules or indeed sustainability of public finances in that. Now Audit Scotland have published in a second because Audit Scotland have published a number of reports on developing financial reporting in Scotland. They have written to the finance committee recently on the fiscal framework as well. They are very strong in wanting a comprehensive, transparent, reliable and timely reporting of Scotland's public finances. A key part of which is the overall account of revenues, expenditure, assets and liabilities of the Scottish public sector as a whole. Scrutinising the sustainability of public finances is something with which they agree. That is complementary to Audit Scotland's work. I am sure that, as with other bodies that the cabinet secretary has referred to when we were debating this at stage 1 and stage 2, that a facility of a memorandum of understanding could be put in place that ensures co-operation between both bodies. I will take an intervention now. John Swinney. The point that I wanted to intervene on was the point when Jackie Baillie set out the functions of Audit Scotland. Those functions are about assessing essentially the quality of judgments that are made about financial decision making that are undertaken. That is already part of the remit of Audit Scotland. That is why I think that this provision would duplicate that essential role. I do not think that it is unnecessary. I do not think that it provides duplication. I have suggested to the cabinet secretary a way of ensuring that that does not happen, which is a memorandum of understanding that is quite commonly used with other bodies. Can I turn to the issue of the role of Parliament? Ultimately, it is always the role of Parliament to hold the executive to account. Parliament can and should be assisted in this task. We currently benefit hugely from information from SPICE, from the financial scrutiny unit and indeed others besides. I expect that the Finance Committee and the Parliament itself will benefit hugely from the Fiscal Commission's work in the future. Malcolm Trism is absolutely right. We should be equipped with the financial information, the factual information on which we can then make informed judgments. I would have thought that that is something that Parliament aspires to. My final word, Presiding Officer, is really a reflection again about the committee. It is a reflection by every single member of the Finance Committee, in their first committee report on fiscal institutions and then in the stage 1 report on the bill. I would be hugely disappointed if today those members changed their minds. I cannot ask the convener, I cannot ask Mark McDonald because they are not here, but I would genuinely be hugely disappointed if they changed their minds and as has already been referred to. I will take John Mason. John Mason. For the sake of completeness, the issue mentions me. I have to say that this is not an issue that I think is absolutely central and that I feel very strongly about. I did feel very strongly about the forecasting and, as John Swinney said, I have been consistent on that. I struggle to understand the difference that this would really make. I have simply observed that for two years you have struggled to understand what difference this would make, but you have nevertheless supported it. You supported it in the original report, you supported it in the stage 1 report and I would have had much more respect for people if they had stayed consistent to that. Particularly so, because, as Gavin Brown said, I consulted each and every member of the Finance Committee to make sure that I was properly reflecting the committee's view. Needless to say, I did not get a response to my email from many of the SNP members which, again, is disappointing. Presiding Officer, this is what fiscal institutions do. If we want to be in line with what the rest of the world does, then we should be supporting amendment 29. Clearly, based on what the cabinet secretary has said, I am unlikely to be happy when this is voted on. The question is that amendment 29 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. There will therefore be a division. As this is the first division of the stage, the Parliament is suspended for five minutes. Order. The result of the vote on amendment 29 is yes, 43. No, 63. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. I now call amendments 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, all in the name of the Deputy First Minister and all previously debated. I invite the Deputy First Minister to move amendments 2 to 6 on block, please. Does any member object to a single question being put on amendments 2 to 6? Since no member objects, the question is that amendments 2 to 6 are agreed. Are we all agreed? We are. That brings us to group 3, review of accuracy of forecasts and I call amendment 7 in the name of the Deputy First Minister group with amendments 10, 11, 13 and 14. I invite the Deputy First Minister to move amendment 7 and speak to all of the amendments in the group, please. The purpose of amendment 7 is to provide a basis for scrutiny by and accountability to the Scottish Parliament in relation to the previous commission's forecasts. I believe that it is important that the forecasts that underpin the Scottish budget process are robust as possible and informed by previous experience. The commission will therefore conduct a self-evaluation of its previous forecast for each financial year. It is for the commission to determine the content of those forecasts which may include comparisons of assumptions, risks and projections used by the commission against the actual outturn and results. Amendments 10, 11, 13 and 14 are consequential amendments which ensure that the reports on the accuracy are laid before the Parliament and published by the commission. I move amendment 7 and ask members to support the remaining amendments in the group at the appropriate time. Since no one has requested to speak, Deputy First Minister, do you wish to wind up? No further comments. Question 9 is that amendment 7 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are. Call amendments 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18. I invite Deputy First Minister to move amendments 8 to 18 on block, please. Move them block, please. Thank you. Does any member object to a single question being put on amendments 8 to 18? Since no member has objected, the question is that amendments 8 to 18 are agreed, are we all agreed? We are. That brings us to group 4, Scottish Minister's statement and a call amendment 19 in the name of Deputy First Minister in a group on its own. I ask the Deputy First Minister to move and speak to amendment 19, please. The Fiscal Framework Agreement specifies that the commission should prepare the tax and GDP forecasts that support the operation of that framework. I consider it to be equally important that we take legislative action to ensure that the commission's forecasts have official status and to create a presumption that those are the forecasts that will inform the Scottish budget. The intention of amendment 19 is to ensure that the Scottish ministers are required to give account to the Scottish Parliament if they do not use the forecast prepared by the commission in the Scottish budget. In such an instance, which I would expect to arise only in truly exceptional circumstances, the Scottish ministers must make a statement to Parliament to explain the basis of any disagreement. The statement must be laid before Parliament at the same time as budget documentation. That requirement, read together with amendments 1 and 8, will create a presumption that those ministers will use the forecast prepared by the commission in the Scottish budget and requires them to report to Parliament so that the basis of the decision taken by ministers is transparent and can be appropriately scrutinised. I move amendment 19. Many thanks. No other member has requested to speak to Deputy First Minister. Do you wish to add any further comments? Many thanks. The question is, that amendment 19 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are. That brings us to group 5, due to co-operating with the office of the committee. The committee has agreed that amendment 19 be agreed to. The question is, that amendment 19 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are. That brings us to group 5, due to co-operating with the office of the committee. That brings us to group 5, due to co-operating with the office for budget responsibility. I call amendment 23 in the name of the Deputy First Minister in a group on its own and invite the Deputy First Minister to move and speak to amendment 23. The purpose of amendment 23 is to implement a requirement in the fiscal framework agreement that the Scottish and United Kingdom Governments will introduce a reciprocal statutory duty of co-operation between the commission and the office for budget responsibility. That amendment will support the two independent bodies in discharging their statutory functions, both as they exist now and as they will be amended once the Smith proposals are fully implemented. Although that amendment places a duty on the Scottish Fiscal Commission only, we expect the United Kingdom Government to introduce a reciprocal arrangement through a section 104 order under the Scotland Act 1998 order in due course. The fiscal framework anticipates that the statutory duty will be underpinned by a memorandum of understanding between the two bodies that will set out more detailed, practical working arrangements. I move amendment 23. I have no further request to speak. Do you wish to add anything? The question is that amendment 23 be agreed to, are we all agreed? That brings us to group 6, review of commission's performance review period and a call amendment 24 in the name of the Deputy First Minister group with amendments 25, 26, 27 and 28. I ask the Deputy First Minister to move amendment 24 and speak to all of the amendments in the group. The amendments bring forward the timing of the first external review of the commission's performance so that the first review will occur after two years of commencement of its statutory functions. After that review will be required at least once every five years. Those measures will help to ensure an early review of how the commission is performing its functions and to provide assurance that the forecasting arrangements are working well. It is particularly relevant in the early phases of the commission's work, where there is not the same legacy of reporting and forecasts upon which the commission can build. The commission itself will determine the scope of the first and indeed every review. That means that there is scope to ensure that the scope of the first review is proportionate to the status and situation of the commission at that time. There is a clear public interest in ensuring that there is an early check on the commission's work and governance arrangements. By requiring the first external review after two years, we are taking additional steps to ensure that this Parliament and the people of Scotland can have confidence that the commission's forecasts, which will underpin the Scottish budget, are robust. I move amendment 24. Many thanks. I have no further requests to speak. Do you wish to add anything, Deputy First Minister? Nothing, Presiding Officer. The question is that amendment 24 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are. That ends consideration of amendments. I will allow a few moments for the chamber to clear before we move on. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ond, transparansate and accountability to the Parliament and the public, and I commend the bill to the Parliament this afternoon. The finance committee has devoted many hours to scrutiny of the Government's proposals for the fiscal commission, both prior to and during the legislative process. I am grateful to the convener and to members of the committee for the thoughtful consideration that they have given to those issues and the challenge that they have brought to bear. That challenge has helped us to test and refine our proposals so that we can all be satisfied that the bill delivers the strongest possible arrangements to safeguard the forecasts that support the Scottish budget. I would also like to place on record my thanks to the individuals and organisations who took time to respond to the Government's consultation on our legislative proposals last year and to the various calls for evidence on the topic that has been issued by the finance committee since 2013. Those contributions have provided fresh perspectives that have helped us to guide and shape our policy. Parliament is aware that in order to secure a fair deal for Scotland on the block grant adjustment that ensured that there was no detriment to Scotland's budget. I agreed to compromise on the production of forecasts in the fiscal framework agreement. I have previously expressed significant reservations about this forecasting model. However, I am confident that the arrangements in the bill before Parliament this afternoon will ensure that the commission is equipped to produce robust forecasts to underpin the Scottish budget and that Parliament can appropriately hold the commission to account for its work. The amendments approved by Parliament this afternoon mean that the commission will prepare five-year forecasts of receipts from the fully-devolved taxes from non-domestic rates and from the Scottish rate of income tax, and that those will be prepared in time to meet the needs of the Scottish budget process. The commission will be required to publish an explanation of the methodology and assumptions that it applied in preparing its forecasts so that those can be scrutinised by Parliament, academic commentators and others. Furthermore, our amendments ensure that the commission's forecasts are the official forecasts that support the Scottish budget, the commission's core statutory function is to prepare forecasts and assessments that inform the Scottish budget. I have gone further than the equivalent obligations on the UK Government by providing in statute that the Scottish ministers must make a statement to Parliament if they depart from the commission's forecasts and prepare in the Scottish budget. That ensures that Parliament can properly hold ministers to account for choosing such a course of action. I would anticipate that the Scottish ministers would not take such a decision lightly and that the only and truly exceptional circumstances would turn to forecasts to be used in the Scottish budget. Can he tell us what resources the Scottish Government will have? He is obviously talking about the possibility of them rejecting a commission forecast. Will the Scottish Government have the same resources now in terms of forecasting or will there be lesser resources? It is not clear to me what the case would be. I intend to maintain those resources within Government to ensure that we can satisfy ourselves that we have a forecast on the fiscal commission that we believe to be credible and deliverable to underpin the Scottish budget. The timing of commencement of forecasting responsibilities is still to be discussed and agreed with the fiscal commission. I want us to be in a position whereby the commission can exercise its full forecasting responsibilities as early as possible, but it is important to allow the commission time to put robust resourcing and operational arrangements in place so that the Government and Parliament can be assured over the integrity of the forecast that is underpinning the Scottish budget. I have every conference that the chair and members of the commission will do just that as they oversee the transition to a statutory body, but I place on record the fact that we will need to agree those transition arrangements with the fiscal commission to ensure that we have robust forecasts to underpin the Scottish budget. This Parliament currently has competence to legislate for a fiscal commission with functions related to the tax and borrowing powers devolved by the Scotland Acts of 1998 and 2012. Once the current Scotland bill has been enacted, we will be able to move quickly to expand the functions of the commission in accordance with the fiscal framework agreement. We plan to use the regulation-making powers in the bill to require the commission to also produce forecasts of devolved demand-led social security expenditure and Scottish GDP, as well as modify the existing function in relation to income tax to reflect the wider powers due for devolution in 2017. The Government has brought forward amendments that not only deliver the changes in statutory functions necessary to fulfil my obligations under the fiscal framework agreement, but which build in additional safeguards to strengthen the scrutiny and accountability arrangements that underpin a forecast preparation model. I have already referred to the requirement on the commission to publish details of its forecasting methodology, as the Scottish Government has done for the past two years. In addition, the commission will be required to prepare a report evaluating the accuracy of its previous forecasts, providing transparency over the past precision and accuracy of its technical analysis. The commission will also be subject to an external review of its performance two years after the commencement of its statutory functions. That recognises the strong public interest in ensuring that the forecasting arrangements that underpin the Scottish budget and the operation of our new fiscal framework are operating effectively and supported by robust institutional governance arrangements. All of those reviews and reports must be laid before Parliament, providing additional tools by which Parliament can hold the commission to account. I also want to ensure that we retain a form of the challenge function currently carried out by the non-statutory commission, which I believe has greatly enhanced the Government's forecasting abilities. I envision that forecasts will be prepared in future by a professional group of staff appointed by the commission, and those forecasts will in turn be scrutinised by members of the commission. I have shared that view with members of the commission who will determine how forecasts will be produced and what quality assurance processes are required to vouchsafe the integrity of those forecasts. At introduction, the bill delivered a Scottish Fiscal Commission, which was structurally operationally invisibly independent of government. Independence has been a key feature of our proposals for the commission. With Audit Scotland commenting on the consultation paper that was published almost a year ago on 26 March 2015, it rightly identifies the independence and impartiality of the commission as being of Parliament importance and sets out proposals to achieve that. The bill expressly provides that the commission will not be the subject of direction or control of any member of the Scottish Government in performing its functions, guaranteeing its operational independence. The amendment that I brought forward at stage 2 to require the commission and the Government to agree and publish a protocol to deliver greater transparency in the interaction between the commission and Scottish ministers. The commission will retain the flexibility to determine its own work programme within the scope of devolved fiscal powers enhancing its operational independence. The commission will rightly be directly accountable to Parliament for the discharge of its functions, and Parliament will have a key role in approving the appointment of members of the commission. In light of issues raised by the Finance Committee in its stage 1 report, I brought forward amendments at stage 2 that allow members of the commission to be appointed to serve a second consecutive term of office on which to specify that an appointment term will be a maximum of five years. Everybody across the chamber should welcome the creation of the Scottish Fiscal Commission. It demonstrates how seriously we are committed to establishing robust forecasting arrangements to support the operation of new tax and borrowing powers. The continuation of the Scottish Fiscal Commission as a statutory body is another important milestone in the journey to enhance Scotland's fiscal powers. The commission already plays a key role in supporting the exercise of the tax powers devolved under the Scotland Acts of 1998 and 2012. The bill provides for an institutional and operational framework that enhances that role, protects the commission's independence and creates a solid basis for the commission to expand its functions over time, in line with the fiscal powers of this Parliament. I move that Parliament agrees that the Fiscal Commission bill will be passed this afternoon. I welcome the opportunity to participate in the stage 3 debate of the Scottish Fiscal Commission bill. At the outset, I want to thank my colleagues on the finance committee, the clerks, all those who gave evidence to the committee and, indeed, I want to acknowledge the role of George Osborne, the Tory chancellor, for apparently it was he who convinced the cabinet secretary to make the Fiscal Commission more robust. It was, of course, in January 2015 that Scottish Labour set out our plans for a Scottish Office of Budget Responsibility—a truly independent body, one with teeth—that would ensure that we have greater transparency and scrutiny of Scotland's public finances. Its importance cannot be overstated, because we have substantial new powers coming over taxation and welfare. No longer will it be just about spending money that somebody else has given us. We are now responsible for raising some of it, too. Being honest and open with the Scottish people about what the economic future holds, placing forecasting in the hands of experts free of political manipulation, is absolutely the right thing for us to do. Of course, that applies to all Governments of whatever political colour. Let us look at the context that we face. At stage 1, I pointed to oil for the first time in a decade, down below $30 a barrel. GDP growth figures clearly affected in a negative way. Growth in Scotland, both onshore and offshore, is not good and certainly not performing, as well as the rest of the UK. Just yesterday, the jazz figures were published. I understand from James Kelly not once, not twice, but indeed three times, because the figures provided by the Scottish Government were incorrect. I am sure that the cabinet secretary regrets that, but I think that he will also acknowledge that that does not fill people with confidence. Jazz, which is the Scottish Government's balance sheet, tells us that there is a staggering £15 billion gap in our public finances. That is more than the funding for the entirety of the NHS. When Labour called for a Scottish OBR, the existing fiscal commission had a limited role. No forecasting responsibility, members appointed by the cabinet secretary, serving as both advisers at the same time as providing scrutiny, did not provide reassurance about the independence of the commission. I am very pleased that that has now changed. The fiscal commission is now, to be honest, statutory footing, responsible for the official forecast for assessing expenditure and income across the Scottish Government's responsibilities with better governance arrangements than we had before. I am, I confess, disappointed that the cabinet secretary has rejected my amendment on scrutiny of fiscal rules and the sustainability of public finances. I regret that he and his party have turned their face against making sure that the fiscal commission is truly robust. Having those responsibilities is the normal stuff of fiscal institutions across the world, but it is not to be that in Scotland. Yet it says—or at least it certainly was, something that SNP members on the finance committee agreed with. I was delighted to see, for a couple of seconds, both Kenny Gibson and Mark MacDonald make their way to the chamber to vote against my amendment, something that they have believed in for more than two years, but, of course, they have left again. I do not know why that is. Maybe it is to hide their embarrassment. The finance committee previously produced a much welcomed report on the need for a robust fiscal institution. That was followed by an equally thoughtful and robust stage 1 report. In both, only one member descended from the commission producing the official forecast. As I said earlier, that was John Mason. I respect his consistency on that issue, even if I disagree with him. However, I regret his subsequent lack of consistency in other areas of the committee's thinking. However, what genuinely disappoints me is that other members and the convener changed their minds at the 11th hour just before stage 2. Low and behold, days later, before the fiscal framework was announced, they changed their minds again. Official forecasting was now to be the responsibility of the fiscal commission. When it comes to the commission scrutinising fiscal rules or considering fiscal sustainability, they all agreed, but now they have changed their minds. The cabinet secretary had clearly marched his SNP members up to the top of the hill and promptly abandoned them. He said that he did not influence them. He said that he did not tell them about the fiscal framework negotiations. I ask people to think about that. They have held a consistent view, a strongly expressed view for two years, and remarkably, they changed their minds at the 11th hour. I do not know what happened. However, it is a matter for individual members to determine how they protect their own credibility as politicians, but I care about the credibility of the committee. The flip-flopping was embarrassing. It did no credit to the committee. It did no credit to this Parliament. I hope that we can all reflect on that for the future. Scotland is on the verge of gaining substantial new powers. With those new powers, come new responsibilities. We need openness and transparency in the stewardship of the nation's finances, and the Scottish Fiscal Commission will be a very welcome addition to that process. We support the bill at stage 3. I want to begin on a positive note by saying that the bill that we now have, the bill that I hope will pass today at decision time, is considerably better than the bill that was drafted prior to stage 1. My own view was that the bill from stage 1 had a number of flaws, first of all, allowing only the Scottish Government to do the forecasts, not even really encouraging any alternative forecasts to be published, along with the cabinet secretary making clear his view that there ought not to be any alternative forecasts. We had a position where the Fiscal Commission was simply to assess the reasonableness of the Scottish Government forecasts. In looking through that over the course of this budget process, the reasonableness test was such a low bar that it was difficult to foresee a situation where it would do anything other than pass the Government's forecasts as reasonable. When quizzed on whether there would be any numbers at all that they could suggest that would be deemed to be unreasonable, they were unable to say so, and they stated bluntly that they did not look at the numbers, they did not look at the outputs at all, they looked at the models underpinning those numbers. I welcome hugely the amendments that were passed in group 1 of the process earlier today, because I think that they were absolutely fundamental. Without them, I genuinely think that we would not have had a Fiscal Commission worthy of the name. Without them, what I think we would have had is a series of educated, useful, intelligent advisers who would make the budget process better than without them, but it would be nowhere close to what is known internationally as an independent fiscal institution. That change really rescued the bill from what would otherwise have still been perhaps a little helpful but have almost no real regard in terms of scrutiny, particularly for the powers that will be coming forward in the years to come. There is a huge improvement, and obviously for that reason we will continue to support the bill and vote for it at stage 3. However, I have to say in all honesty to the cabinet secretary after working on this for well over two years. I am left with just a bit of a feeling of dissatisfaction at the end of the process for a number of the reasons that Jackie Baillie outlined in her contribution, but I have just been working on it on that committee for a couple of years extra and taking into account a huge amount of evidence over the process. So I am disappointed that we do not have an amendment in there to look at the sustainability of the finances and to look at the adherence to the fiscal rules, because that seems to happen all over the OACD. When looking at the contribution from SPICE who got a document from the OACD with looking at 17 countries, all 17 of them do one or the other. All 17 of them look at either the long-term sustainability or the monitoring of fiscal rules, and nine out of the 17 do both. The fact that we will do neither makes us a bit of an outlier. I was dissatisfied too with the stage 2 of the finance committee report, and now we will return to this in closing. However, in attempting to be helpful and answer a question from me, the cabinet secretary for me has just opened up more questions. At stage 1, we all agreed without any debate or without anyone going away from it in relation to fiscal rules, we all thought that was the way that we had to go. We had held that position for well over a year. However, all of a sudden, when it came down to stage 2, four members of the finance committee voted against that amendment and the amendment failed. I asked simply if the cabinet secretary did not attempt to put any pressure on them at all. If the confidentiality was maintained, as he said, and I have no reason to doubt him whatsoever, what was it that made them change their mind? What was the intervening evidence between that report being published in the middle of January and the vote being taken in early February that made them vote the way that we did? I think that, as a committee member and as a Parliament, we are entitled to an explanation of why that was the case. I just hope that we get that over the course of the debate. Many thanks. We now turn to the short open debate, and I call John Mason to be followed by Malcolm Chishol in speeches of four minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I am very happy to speak in today's debate. I very much welcome the fact that we have a fiscal commission in place, and we are going to have a strengthened fiscal commission in place, and through this bill it is going to be put on the statutory footing. As has been said by other members, we have spent a fair bit of time in the finance committee examining and discussing such commissions and how they work, as well as being the lead committee when the bill went through its process. While Scotland aspires to be an independent country at some point, with all the extra powers and responsibilities that that involves, we are clearly not at that point yet. Internationally, there are not that many examples of devolved administrations or states in a federal system that have independent fiscal institutions. I think that some of the US states do, Ontario does and Catalonia, but not very many others. So we have tended to look at smaller independent countries as models, and some of the committee went to Sweden and a couple of us went to Ireland. Therefore, in the first place, Scotland has the opportunity, I believe, to set an example and really to be leading the way for devolved Governments and Parliaments in having such an institution or commission. As we studied more of those international examples and as we thought through how a commission would work, I became increasingly convinced that the normal international model of an independent commission commenting on or endorsing forecasts was the best model. That is the norm internationally. The UK is an exception. In that respect, I agreed with the Government and disagreed with the majority of the committee. In fact, the commission members themselves were not convinced by the OBR model. I have to say that I have a huge respect for all three of the commission members, and I very much hope that they will be able and willing to take on the different role from the one that they had expected. However, as part of the negotiations over the fiscal framework, I accept that Westminster was keen to have us adopt their OBR model, and I accept that the Scottish Government agreed to that as part of the bargaining process. That was obviously the main area of disagreement at committee. There has been mention today of the one amendment that we had at stage 3. I have to say that there is a bit of tokenism going on here. Labour, as the Opposition, is trying to fight off the Tories and is trying to show that they must oppose something, and they hunted through the bill and found a little thing, and they created an amendment on that. I have time, yes. That is something that you have believed in for more than two years now. It is not about hunting for something to disagree with. It is about making sure that we have a robust fiscal commission that is worthy of this Parliament. I think that we have that. As I have said, a major issue is who does the forecasting, but today's amendment is a very peripheral issue. I find it very hard to get excited about it. I do not believe that Jackie Baillie is excited about it. I think that she is just making a bit of a mountain out of a molehill. Independence for the Scottish Fiscal Commission was one topic that we all agreed was essential. Partly that comes from because of having appropriate structures, but I remain convinced that the other essential element is the integrity and the independence of the individuals involved. In that respect, forecasting and independence are two distinct concepts. It really does not affect the independence of the Fiscal Commission whether they are doing the forecasting or not. We have the good example of Audit Scotland who check other people's work and comment on it and are hugely respected. I find that amendment 7 is a slightly strange amendment—we have voted for it—but it talks about the commission preparing reports containing an assessment of the accuracy of its forecasts prepared by it. We have been forced into the slightly odd position that the commission is having to comment on its own forecasts. Just on the cost, we have been very generous so far with the Fiscal Commission at £850,000. That is more than the Irish or the Swedes get. I do not think that we should be throwing more money at them without a lot of caution, but I welcome the fact that we will have the Scottish Fiscal Commission and I hope that members will support it at decision time. Members have explained that this has been a long and twisting road. I am afraid that I have not been able to follow every turn since I am not on the finance committee, but I am pleased at the destination that we have arrived at. When the original model was proposed, I had two worries about it. First, although the theory was that we would have the Government forecast, which the commission would then comment on, it seemed to be that the SFC was acting much more as advice to the Government. There was constant interaction during the process, which might have meant that it had influence, but it also reduced its independence. That was a flaw in the model, but the more fundamental flaw, of course, was that it was not involved in the forecast at all. We are told that there is not a single Fiscal Commission anywhere that only looks at official Government forecasts. That needed to be sorted out. David Bell gave an interesting quote about why that was necessary. I think that it is essential that the forecasting is done outside the Government, and then you will know that if they are wrong—which is probably going to be true—they will be honestly wrong rather than dishonestly wrong. I suppose that a more neutral way of putting that is that Governments tend to indulge in optimism bias. I am pleased that we have an enhanced role for the commission. It is going to be reviewed. That is good. There can also be external valuation of the work. We can have a mechanism perhaps to have external valuation through local or international experts, as is recommended by the OECD. However, I am slightly worried beyond that about the perhaps overemphasis on checking that we are still hearing from the Cabinet Secretary. I may have this wrong, but it seems to me that there is going to be certain forecaster appointed and the FSC members are going to check them. That seems to me to be rather over-engineered. I was slightly surprised to hear that the Scottish Government is going to have the same forecasting capacity that it currently has checking the SFC. I was slightly surprised by all that checking going on. That departs from the OBR model. We need to keep a watch on that. One reason to keep a watch on that is that it is going to have increased expenditure, because if we have all that capacity still in the Scottish Government and, obviously, extra capacity in the SFC, that will have financial implications. Obviously, tax is going to be critical for that, but it will also have a role in terms of the new social security powers. I think that the main issue that could be controversial in the next five years between the two Governments relates to the spillover effects. I think that the cabinet secretary pointed out at one or other of his committee appearances that information from the OBR and the FSC would be helpful in resolving any controversies in that particular area. John Mason said that he is not excited about Jackie Baillie's amendment and he claims that none of us are, but it is a very important amendment that Jackie Baillie put forward. I hope that that will be revisited in due course. Many European countries have one or other of the responsibilities referred to. I am particularly interested in an assessment of the long-term sustainability of the public finances. That is not one of the functions of Audit Scotland to look five years ahead, projecting what we know about policies and tax and project that forward five years. The cabinet secretary says that I and everybody else can hold him to account and that we cannot. We do not have that information unless we have experts projecting forward as the OBR does over five years. I think that that is one of the problems that there is almost a prejudice against the OBR among certain members of this, but I think that the OBR does produce good reports on financial sustainability looking five years ahead. I do not see why the Scottish Fiscal Commission should not perform the same function. I welcome the changes that have been made in the bill. I hope that that is not the end of the process. I am sure that members who are coming back will keep a close watch from inside. I and no doubt Gavin Brown will keep a close watch from outside. Thank you very much. We now turn to the closing speeches and I understand that this will be Gavin Brown's last speech. On behalf of all the Presiding Officers, I thank you for your contribution to the Parliament. I wish you all the best for the future. Presiding Officer, I did not realise until now that this is going to be my last speech. You obviously know something that I do not. Indeed, the whip in this Parliament must move in very mysterious ways. I just hope that I do not get dragged into anything next week or indeed the week after. This has been a very short debate, summing up just a handful of interim speeches since I last spoke. It is always a difficult job, but I think that the starting point has to be all of us want to see this bill to pass today. As I said in my introduction, it is considerably better than it was at the start. For that reason alone, I think that it deserves the entire support of the Parliament. If you look at the genesis of fiscal commissions across the world, why did they come about and why did they come about? In almost all cases, the reason why it came about to start with was because there was a big recession, there was a downturn that was not predicted, there was a downturn that turned out to be demonstrably worse than anyone had predicted. All of that was driven by optimism bias from Government. Government after Government has set up a fiscal commission in order to make sure that we manage the pens and the pounds, to make sure that we minimise or indeed eradicate optimism bias and to get independent expertise along with a set of checks and balances. That is one of the reasons why I think that we are doing it now, coupled with the fact that we already have some financial powers and we are getting considerably more. If you only have financial powers looking at, for example, LBTT, if you get it slightly wrong, you can quite often find a way of accommodating that change to make sure that it does not impact on the services that you can provide. However, once we move into income tax, once we move into looking carefully at non-domestic rates, once we move into a portion of ultimately VAT, with the greater number of powers we have, the greater the risk is for getting it wrong. If we get it wrong at the forecast stage, particularly in predicting that we are going to get more than we actually get, then we have serious problems in relation to the Scottish budget in making sure that we can then correct those errors going forward over the course of the year. For that reason, the fiscal commission becomes even more important, and it is a reason for all of us backing it today. On the debate, I want to pick up on the one key point of that debate. John Mason, a man who I respect hugely and who has done a very good job as deputy convener, I think is just simply wrong when he says that the issue was tokenism. I think that the amendment today reflected, in my opinion, the second most important thing that the committee reviewed and looked at. Issue number one for me, far and above the rest, was indeed the forecasting, but issue number two was having a responsibility for the long-term sustainability of the finances and for making sure that the fiscal rules were adhered to. To suggest that it is tokenism, I think is just incorrect. If you look again at the OECD principles, principle 3.1 outlines the kind of functions that the fiscal commissions ought to have. They look at economic and fiscal projections, they look at baseline projections, they look at analysis of the executive's budget, and they monitor compliance with fiscal rules or official targets. In terms of the main things that any fiscal commission, anywhere on the planet, does, this is one of them. This is one of the key things they have to do. It's something that the committee thought they had to do all the way through. It's something that I hope Mr Swinney and rejecting it today can at least keep the door open, because as our powers increase, as we become a stronger fiscal parliament, it's critical that we get that right, and we need somebody other than Government to keep control there. It doesn't just mean that it's better for the country, it actually helps Mr Swinney or his successor to do their job even better as well. For that reason, I hope that we ultimately do get that in the Fiscal Commission, and I'm happy to close there. Many thanks. I don't know, Colin. Dr Richard Simpson, five minutes please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I've come late to this. I haven't served on the committee, but I've watched some of the ambulations of the committee over the period of time. We've reached a point that is on the whole, a very good one, and this bill will be supported tonight unanimously, I'm sure. There is the international recognition that independent fiscal institutions play a vital role in supporting the operation of a country's fiscal framework. There's been a rapid growth in the number of such institutions over the last decade, particularly as Gavin Brown said since the 2008 financial crisis. Prediction is a difficult game. Who would have known the oil price today would have been what it is? Certainly the Government weren't able to predict that, and I don't blame them all together for it. Their comments on the GERS today are not being relevant, seem to be extraordinary. However, we've no argument with pricing the Fiscal Commission on a statutory basis. It's a significant improvement on the basis of what it was before, when it was helpful, useful, but was essentially an adviser to the Government. The next questions that we're facing us today have been only half resolved. The first one, of course, is the question of producing the macroeconomic forecasts. The Deputy First Minister called it a winding road, and it certainly has been, but the resolution is in line, at least with the original view of the committee on that issue. Although the SNP members, as we've heard, have been following the Deputy First Minister rather like the Duke of York up and down the hills, except, in his case, he abandoned them at the top, as Jackie said. The IMF, in evidence, said that the Scottish Fiscal Commission could contribute to the credibility of the Government's fiscal policy by assessing the realism of the Scottish Government's forecast. However, having independent forecasts is a much better way of doing it, but they are to have their own forecasts, so we will watch with interest, in my case, from afar, to see if those forecasts actually do match. Of course, we have got the very welcome amendment today that, if they don't match, the Government will have to give Parliament an explanation. I think that the important thing is that these are five-year rolling forecasts. That, I think, is critical because we've had, I think, in the whole of the period of the Parliament, perhaps we haven't had the necessity for it, but we haven't really looked far ahead. Audit Scotland has repeatedly said that all our institutions fail to look ahead. They look on an annual basis. They are still trying to balance the books at the end of a year, and that is not the way that we need to run the country, particularly when we go through huge changes as we are in health with health and social integration. That will take five to ten years. Balancing the books on an annual basis is going to be difficult. The OECD talks about nine principles—local ownership, independence and non-partisanship, mandate, resources, relationship with a legislator, access to information, transparency, communications, external evaluation. Again, Gavin Brown gave us some of the additional wealth of information behind those, and I think that many of those have been met. However, the one that hasn't been met as a result of the rejection of what John Mason described quite extraordinarily as tokenism—I don't understand that because there's been a consistency over time on this issue—is the question of measuring the performance against fiscal rules and sustainability. That seems to me to be the bit that is now missing. I think that it's a great pity that we're not going to have that. To say that Audit Scotland would do this is just quite inappropriate. It's not Audit Scotland grow. I've got a great time for Audit Scotland. They've been hugely valuable, as Mary Scanlon and I said and committed the other day, enormously important contribution that they've made, but that's not the contribution that they are making. I do welcome that, despite the contorsions of the SNP members on this issue, which have been quite revealing in terms of how our committee structures worked in this Parliament. At least, the Deputy First Minister, if I understand him correctly, has agreed to reexamine this, particularly if we get greater flexibility in setting our own fiscal rules. I think that that at least is to be welcome. I would very much welcome the changes to the appointment system. Some might want to go further and have hearings on the chair before they're appointed. I would certainly favour that, but the Finance Committee at least will be able to call members in evidence. I think that the reciprocal arrangements for co-operation between the Commission and the OBR is welcome, and the external valuation, although there's lacking in detail on this, I think again that that's important. I think that I'd make one final plea, Deputy Presiding Officer. Ever since the Parliament has started, there's been a lack of strategic clarity and transparency in the budget process over a period of time. I don't deny that the books have been balanced and that's great, but, nevertheless, it's looking ahead, as Audit Scotland has said, and I mentioned earlier. I think that it's this long-term view of where we're actually going to go that it is really important. I hope that some of the discussions that we had in that opening session about Oregon and how it worked and how well it worked might be reflected in where we go in the future. Seventeen years on, there are so many issues on which we've had no progress, health inequality, child poverty, although there was initial progress, in fact, said by the OECD's mayor amongst the fastest they'd ever seen, as going backwards. Homeless target has not been met. There are so many social objectives that we need to meet, and it has to be done within an overall framework, which I think we will partially have tonight, and I hope eventually have in full measure. I will be supporting the builders up. My party will tonight. Many thanks. I now call and join us to end up. Seven minutes, please, Deputy First Minister. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Let me begin with one of the comments that Malcolm Chisholm made about his concern about the fact that the Government would maintain its capacity to undertake the tax forecasting responsibility—we're not responsibility—that that function to enable us to be informed about whether or not we could come to a view that we accept the estimates made by the Scottish Fiscal Commission. I think that that's an elementary proposition. I think that the Government would be in dereliction of its duty if it wasn't undertaking that assessment to satisfy itself that a body not accountable to Government—accountable to Parliament, I concede—is able to formulate a set of numbers that will be so significantly influential on the public finances of Scotland that the Government will not want to be assured that that commission has come to the correct judgment and proposition or the correct range of functions. Members are absolutely right that there's not a precision about those points, but we certainly need to satisfy ourselves that the estimates that are in the forecast that have been put forward are appropriate and dependable for the purposes of the Scottish budget process. The arrangements that we've put in place whereby if the Government decides that those forecasts do not command the confidence of the Government, the Government is able, as is a part of the OBR framework as well, the OBR can be challenged by the UK Government. If the UK Government doesn't believe the forecast put forward by the OBR, there is a mechanism that enables the Government to undertake that approach. That is absolutely correct to enable the Government to properly exercise its responsibilities for financial management to the people of Scotland. Richard Simpson set out some arguments about the international evidence of external forecasting. If Dr Simpson was to look at the analysis undertaken by SPICE, he would find that the OBR model is the outlier. Robert Chote made that point when he came to give evidence to the French Committee that the OBR was the model that was not the norm. Of course, as part of the negotiation of the fiscal framework, I have accepted a proposition that is closer to that model. If that matters to the United Kingdom Government to get them to agree a reasonable fiscal framework, I am prepared to agree that, to get us into that position. I think that when we are coming to this considered judgment about it, we have to bear in mind the fact that the Scottish Government's position to begin with in this debate was founded. A very strong body of international evidence that indicated that the approach that we were taking was a robust approach that would fulfil the function that was envisaged of the Scottish Fiscal Commission. In the course of the debate, there has been a lot of discussion about the amendment that Jackie Baillie put forward today. Gavin Brown indicated that there were two functions that he thought had to be observed as a consequence or should have been observed as a consequence of that amendment. There was clarity about the responsibility for the long-term sustainability of the public finances. Secondly, the Government was observing its financial rules. On the latter, on observing the financial rules, my problem with a lot of what was put forward in the amendment debate is that the question of whether the Government is observing its financial rules are entirely black and white questions. They are matters of fact, as I explained to Baroness Goldie in response to her intervention earlier on. On the question of where does responsibility lie for the long-term sustainability of the public finances? That judgment ultimately, in my view, rests with members of Parliament, informed, yes, by the consideration of the French Committee, informed very significantly by the judgments of the French Secretary. Ultimately, that is the responsibility of Parliament to determine whether or not members of Parliament believe the public finances to be undertaken on a sustainable basis. Of course it falls to Parliament, but, as time and time have we heard again, members of Parliament will be aided by the analysis of the SFC. We will do our job better as parliamentarians in looking at the public finances if we have the analysis from the SFC. That is a matter of opinion in which Mr Brown and I are going to have to disagree, because I think that there is plenty of information and plenty of analysis that is available that will enable Parliament to form that judgment, which is ultimately a judgment for elected members of Parliament. It is not a judgment for people appointed by Parliament on its behalf. It is a responsibility that we all should take very seriously as elected members of Parliament.  It seemed to take Mr Brown by surprise that it was his own speech, but I can advise him that the source of that information was, in fact, the Conservative chief whip. Maybe Mr Brown will take a message from that revelation. I want to share with Parliament a little story about Mr Brown, where I was on my summer holidays last year, escaping from it all, waiting in the queue to get on the ferry at Obann for my summer retreat to the Argyll Islands, so magnificently represented by Mr Russell in this Parliament. As I pulled up my car to join the queue for the ferry to Mull, who was in the car next door, but Mr Gavin Brown and his family, so it was a real get-away-from-it-all break for the Swinney family. I want to say to Mr Brown that he has been a credible and commendable adversary for me in this Parliament, but also a friend in this Parliament. I commend him on his distinguished contribution to Parliament. Parliament will be the poorer for his—not being a member of the Parliament—after the election. If I may give some private advice to the Conservative Party, it will be significantly weaker for not having Mr Brown in its ranks. I thank Mr Brown for his contribution to Parliament. If Jamie McGregor will forgive me, I will have to bring my answer close. Mr Brown has not always been my strongest ally in all that I have brought to Parliament, but I thank him for his distinguished contribution to Parliament. That concludes the debate on the Scottish Fiscal Commission. We now move to the next stage of business, and I am minded at this stage to accept a motion without notice from Joe Fitzpatrick on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau bringing forward decision time to now. I now put the question. The question is that decision time we brought forward to now. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. Let's go to decision time. There are two questions to be put as a result of today's business. The first question is at motion 15870, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, on the Lobbings Scotland Bill, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is there for agreed to, and the Lobbings Scotland Bill is passed. The next question is at motion 15869, in the name of Don Swinney. On the Scottish Fiscal Commission Bill, be agreed to, are we all agreed? The motion is there for agreed to, and the Scottish Fiscal Commission Bill is passed. That concludes decision time, and I now close this meeting.


Chondrocyte are the main cell type in articular cartilage, and they are embedded in an avascular, specialized extracellular matrix, ECM, composed of collagen, proteoglycans, and non-collagen proteins. These cells are responsible for the synthesis and turnover of the ECM, and they play important roles in the regulation of cell phenotype through crosstalk with the ECM. Chondrocyte live in an anaerobic environment with a low oxygen supply, but they require oxygen for some of their metabolic processes. Oxygen is supplied by the synovial fluid, and this review focuses on the transcriptional and signaling mechanisms involved in chondrocyte differentiation, homeostasis, senescence, and cell death. Additionally, the effects of chondrocyte sulfate and other molecules as anti-inflammatory agents are discussed. This article was authored by Yara M. Michael Aksai, Raquel Y. A. Bakurin, and Nubia N. P. Rodriguez.


Okay, so now let us move on to the tutorial, okay, we saw a bunch of problems. So first is a concept question, okay. So this concept question, I have taken in two concept questions both from BJ10, okay. BJ10 has fabulous concept questions, okay. I strongly urge you to go through those concept questions because once we go through them, we will get a reasonable feel for the problems. Now what concept question this tells us is a 1000 Newton Boulder B is resting on 200 Newton platform A. So Iska mass, Iska weight is 200 Newton, Boulder Kavit is 1000 Newton. When trucks see accelerate, okay and this entire assembly goes over a frictionless and massless pulley, okay, both frictionless pulley and massless pulley it goes over this. And now, okay, this truck to which it is attached it starts accelerating, okay in this direction with a constant acceleration. Now we are asked that which of the following statements are true. So let us examine these statements and just use simple logic, okay. Let us not write down too many equations, only we will write down equations, okay. When we are at loss, okay to understand that like simple intuition will not give us enough insights. Then and only then we will move on to writing any equations. So let us think about it. First question. First alternative, the tension in the cord connected to the truck is 300 Newton, okay. So this is 200 Newton, okay this is 1000 Newton. So the total weight, okay is 1200 and it is said that the tension in the cord connected to the truck is 200 Newton that clearly cannot be right, okay. This clearly cannot be right. Second one, the tension in the cord connected to the truck is 1200 Newton. Now that is we have to think that if the truck would have been stationary, okay the truck where I have been stationary then this is 1000, this is 200 and then overall how much is it? It is 1200, okay. But is this true or is it not true? Let us think about it, okay. Now what is happening? Okay. Let me use the whiteboard. This is the assembly of A and B. So A plus B, okay is equal to the weight of them is 1200 Newton. There is some tension acting on it. This is the truck, there is some tension acting on it. Same tension will act on both of them and this has some acceleration, okay. Now note one thing that the acceleration of the truck by the constraint will be the same as the acceleration of this B and A together. Now what we want to know is if this tension is equal to 1200 because the sum of the weights acting is 1200. But note one thing, without doing a single equation we realize that if this tension is equal to 1200, then this assembly cannot accelerate. Only way this assembly can accelerate upwards because this tension will then balance this and overall force acting on this assembly in the vertical direction just becomes 0. So no acceleration. Only way it can have an acceleration upwards is if this tension exerts a force over and above this weight 1200. So this tension has to be necessarily more than 1200 for this entire assembly to go upwards. So what we can clearly say from here is that the tension in the cord connected to the truck cannot be 1200. Next, the tension in the cord connected to the truck is greater than 1200. That is the right answer in that case that because of the logic that we had just discussed. Second one, the normal force between A and B is 1000 is the second thing. Now is that true? That between A and B, let us look here. So let us look at this B diagram B. What do we have? B has some weight which is how much which is 200. There is a normal reaction between A and B. We do not know what that is. But the same logic again this B is accelerating upwards with acceleration A. So what will happen that if this normal reaction is same as 200, then this acceleration will be 0. So in order to create an acceleration in the upward direction, this normal reaction has to be over and above this 200. So NAB has to be more than 200 and this is the same effect. Say for example if you are standing in an elevator and the elevator start accelerating upwards then we feel that for example we are pressing more against the ground. Means for example if we take a weighing scale and stand on it, then we will see that weighing scale will actually feel more normal reaction than our regular weight. Why? Because that extra acceleration it is over and above our weight and that in addition to the weight that we have this normal reaction should be more and above this 200 because if it is 200 no acceleration. So only when this NAB becomes more than 200 can we have some acceleration. So I can say that this is something like the elevator effect. And so the normal force between A and B is 1000 Newton, sorry I made a mistake here. This is not 200, this is 1000 okay. So the normal force between A and B cannot be 1000, it has to be more than 1000. And the last is the normal force between A and B is 1200, so that we cannot say how much it is that completely depends on the acceleration okay. So we cannot say anything about E. So essentially what we can say here is that that the only true statement here that the tension in the cord connected to the truck is greater than 1200 okay. So this simple concept question okay we immediately understand all concepts about free body diagrams and without explicitly solving any problem we get a reasonable understanding about all these qualitative statements that are made about this simple problem. Now let us come to the second concept question. Again the idea is not doing a detail calculation but just analyzing it in brief details okay just brief details so that we get a feel about the problem that we are not doing anything in great detail but just to qualitatively understand what is happening here. So we have two systems shown starting from rest this is 200 Newton okay. On the left okay so two systems shown start from rest on the left two 200 Newton weights are connected by an inextensible cords. So these are 200 Newton weights they are connected by an inextensible cord. On the right a constant 200 Newton force pull on the cord okay so these are two systems one is this 200 200 200 200 okay and what we want to know is neglecting all the frictional forces what are the following are these following statements true okay or what are the what statements are true. Let us look at these statements one after one now note one thing if this system is in equilibrium or not let us ask ourselves neglecting all the frictions in the pull is this is 200 so the tension if the system is at equilibrium or if the system wants to be in equilibrium this tension has to be 200 but because there is no friction between this and that bottom surface any force acting here will start accelerating the block downwards. So what will be the tendency of this entire assembly the tendency of this entire assembly will be to slide downwards look at this system 200 it goes over the pulley this 200 Newton force acts on this so this will have a tendency to slide it to the right. So both of the systems have the tendency to accelerate this downwards this to the right and overall downwards now the question is that what statements are true block A and C okay have the same acceleration that block A here and block C here have the same acceleration now let us analyze the situation if this is 200 in this case we clearly see that acceleration is downwards now since the acceleration is downwards okay if I draw the free body diagram for this bottom one is 200 this weight is 200 and this tension is T and this acceleration is happening downwards from whatever logic we have used okay we clearly see that acceleration has to go only downwards now when acceleration is downwards if T is equal to 200 then acceleration has to be 0 but because acceleration is downward the effective force okay has to act in a downward direction so the weight has to be more than tension so tension clearly in the first case is less than 200 okay now what happens because the tension clearly is less than 200 this acceleration depends only on the tension okay because the tension is the only horizontal force acting on it so mass times acceleration is equal to the tension. So here the acceleration the tension is 200 here the tension is less than 200 and as a result block A and C will have the same acceleration is not right block C will have a larger acceleration than block A is right why because this will be 200 but here the tension acting here will be less than 200. Third block A will have a larger acceleration block C is wrong block A will not move again from the logic that we have used block A has to move none of the above is again wrong so the only right statement here is that that block C will have a larger acceleration than block A clearly because the tension here is smaller than the tension here and that is the only force acting on block A and C which are of the same masses in the horizontal direction okay so these two are two simple concept questions okay now let us solve problem number one the two blocks are shown to be originally at rest neglecting the masses of the pulleys okay neglect the mass of the pulleys and the effect of the friction in the pulleys and between block A and the horizontal surface okay so no friction here no friction involved here no friction involved here okay masses are negligible okay determine the acceleration of block B and the tension in the cable okay so tension here tension here and tension here okay so let us solve this problem for the next 5 to 10 minutes okay and we will discuss if you have any questions send them my way okay on the chat I will try to answer them there okay so this problem okay really straight forward problem so just note here is I can draw a free body diagram for this and this so let us if I use the white board for this mass on the top no friction only force acts is the tension because all the pulleys are frictionless w n and this is equal to m a for the top mass for the bottom mass what are the forces that act the forces acting are these two forces okay and this force and we neglect the mass of the pulleys here but we can as well write of a draw free body diagram like this we can as well draw t t t this is weight okay acting downwards and what do we know that this should be equal to 1 a 1 this should be equal to m 2 a 2 done these are two simple equations we can write okay this weight this weight is given so there are one unknown is tension okay this is a 1 and this is a 2 so tension is one unknown a 1 is other unknown a 2 is other unknown how many equations we have we have one equation here sigma f in this direction is equal to m 1 a 1 here we have the equation sigma f in the y direction is equal to m 2 a 2 so we have two equations and three unknowns so how do we take care of that we realize that the length of the string should remain constant so what is the length of the string this is x is x 1 plus okay we can just write down these two quantities y 1 plus y 1 plus y plus y plus y and these two are two constant lengths okay so we have x 1 plus 3 y 1 is the length or we can say that x 1 double dot plus 3 y 1 double dot is equal to 0 or a 1 which is the acceleration of the top mass plus 3 acceleration of the bottom mass is equal to 0 and we can immediately find out what are the three equations three unknowns we can solve for them now there is one variation that one person asked a question is that what if there were additional okay so these are this is just one string and because this is one string I can write a relation between them now suppose instead of having one string we had something like this one more string has to be added suppose so we can say I add another string here then what happens just note that if I had another string here then this problem is fully constrained not a mechanism okay not a mechanism at all so we have to use ideas from static equilibrium that we had done before in order to solve this problem okay so this is problem number one so why do not you have a go at I had already told that who have finished problem number one to go for problem number two okay there are a and b parts okay the same problem okay there are two different parts of it have a go at problem number two and you can go for problem number two b also this is little bit of a difficult problem problem three okay you have to do some thinking if you are if you want to be challenged go for this problem and later we will solve problem four problem five and problem six are also there okay so just have a have a go at problem number two a and when you are done with problem number two a solve problem two a go for problem number four after this solve problem number four problem two a then solve problem four so in problem two a okay let us briefly discuss this a three kg collar rest on the friction less arm a in case you have finished this problem go on to other problems go to problem four if you have done problem four go to problem six and seven in case you have finished everything go to problem number three the three kg collar b okay so this is a collar rest on the friction less arm a okay so this is the friction less arm the collar is held in place by the rope attached to the drum okay so the collar is held in place attached to the drum and rotates about o so this is the point about which the rotation happens in the horizontal plane the linear velocity of the collar b okay the linear velocity of the collar b is increase okay according to v is equal to 0.2 e square where v is in meter per second okay and t is in second so find the tension in the rope and the force in the bar on the collar after four seconds if this r is equal to 0.4 meters okay so as state forward so what we have to do is that we have to draw the free body diagram and the kinetic diagram for the collar equations of motion for the collar and kinematics of the collar so we have to combine all these things together and solve so first is this okay we are given that v is equal to 0.2 t square r is equal to 0.4 meter so how what are the forces that act on the collar in this collar one force is the tension other force is the normal reaction that the rod exerts on the collar okay so this is the normal direction that we have chosen because this is moving in a circle okay we choose that this is the normal that this is the tangential direction this is the normal direction as expected what are the forces that act tension here and the normal reaction from here now what do we know that Newton's laws tell us that this normal reaction should be equal to m at and this tension should be equal to m a n okay straight forward that f n is equal to a n f t is equal to m at now n will be equal to m into v square by rho v is the velocity here what is that velocity the velocity in the tangential direction rho is the radius of curvature which here clearly is r and what is the this tension t okay m dv by dt why because we are looking at at is what at is the acceleration in the tangential direction now what is the acceleration in the tangential direction clearly dv by dt because this v that is given to us is the velocity in the tangential direction so this tension should be equal to m dv by dt so ultimately what do we want we want to find out tangential velocity okay a normal acceleration and tangential acceleration so what is the tangential velocity expression it is given to us that a tangential velocity at any instant is 0.2 t square so this is given to us so after 5 seconds what we are asked is that that find a tension in the rope and the force in the of the bar on the collar after 5 seconds if r is equal to 0.4 meters so we are given that after 5 seconds what happens so the tangential velocity is 0.2 t square straight away put the numbers will come out to be 5 meter per second what is the acceleration in the normal direction okay the acceleration in the normal direction okay what is the normal direction this along the along the centre of the radius along the centre of the circle which the which this mass traverses so acceleration is given by v square by rho comes out to be 62.5 meter per second square and what is the tangential acceleration is nothing but dv by dt okay simple just this is the speed tangential speed so dv by dt will be the tangential acceleration so what we have done is that that we have used the path coordinates in this case we have used the tangential coordinate and the normal coordinate found out what is the velocity in the tangential coordinate it is given we take the appropriate derivatives we find out the acceleration in the tangential direction and correspondingly using v square by r we found out what is the acceleration in the normal direction so substitute in the equations of motion what do we see that sum of all forces in the normal direction what is that the only force here is this tension t should be equal to m a n a n we have already found out so we can find out what is the tension sigma f t is equal to m at so we can find out okay so just note that this is there is a confusion here okay so this should be t okay just there is a mistake in this slide so this sum of all the forces in the normal direction is t here okay so this n should be replaced by t and here okay the confusion came because t capital T is for tension whereas small t is for tangent and capital N is for the normal reaction and small n is for the normal component of the acceleration and so this n got replaced here this t got replaced here so this is not n or the normal reaction this is the t tension because that is the one which is contributing to the acceleration in this direction along the normal direction and this is n which is the force which is contributing to acceleration in the tangential direction and we can find out what this forces and acceleration are okay so this is t and this is n okay please note that and then the second part of the question is how would the motion change so this is happening in the horizontal plane second part of the question is how would the problem change if the motion was in the vertical plane the only way it will change is that that we also need to apply an mg component here and so the mg will have one component along the t direction mg will have another component in the n direction and we have to just proceed with that okay are there any questions on that okay so everyone is okay now let us move on to problem number 4 okay so very simple problem what is asked is that at a small ball of mass m is supported okay by a wire here okay a wire in the inclined direction and a chord in the horizontal direction okay this entire assembly is in equilibrium now suddenly this chord is cut and what we are asked to find out is a determine the ratio k of the tension in the wire immediately after the chord is cut to that in the wire before the chord is cut this is the wire this is the mass this is mg or the weight and when the horizontal chord was attached it will exert okay some force f okay and this is the angle theta now when we want to we first want to find out tension 1 before the chord is cut and tension 1 we can easily find out what because this is in equilibrium so if we take equation of equilibrium in the vertical direction then what do we have we have T1 cos theta is equal to mg so T1 will be equal to mg by cos theta now if we cut this wire then what happens we get a situation like this let us say this is T2 this is theta this is mg now let us use the path coordinates this is the tangential direction this is the normal direction now what we realize is that here this angle is theta so mg sin theta should be equal to m acceleration in the tangential direction straight away okay why because mg sin theta is the only force acting on this body in this tangential direction whereas along the normal direction what do we have we have T2 okay minus mg cos theta should be equal to v square divided by rho where rho is the length of this wire but since in this position okay when you immediately cut it the velocity 0 this has to be equal to 0 so what will we get we will get T2 is equal to mg cos theta and then T1 by T2 or T2 by T1 if you do it that is a ratio k that is asked of us that is nothing but cos square of theta so note one thing that the tension okay cos theta is always less than 1 so the tension suddenly decreases and which makes sense that the tension what it is doing it is preventing the body from moving out okay so keeping the body in equilibrium and the moment you cut this cord okay then the system no longer has to be in equilibrium and there is a sudden jump in tension because it can have an acceleration now in this direction which was previously not allowed and the tension was balancing this component of the acceleration and some part was balanced by this so the tension immediately jumps after you cut it and T2 by T1 sorry the tension immediately decreases after you cut and T2 by T1 will come out to be cos square theta okay so there are couple of questions okay let me answer them before we move on to the quiz okay so it is by center 1, 2, 3, 4 they ask that if there is no gravity then do we how it tackle the problem okay so that is what we discussed right that in problem number 2a that arm was rotating in the horizontal plane so this is the drum okay this was the sleeve and this entire assembly was rotating about 0.0 this is x this is y and then what did we see is that that if this is the horizontal plane then the gravity acts inside the plane of this paper okay so if you again look from the zx plane you will see that this is 0.0 this is the drum this is the rod this is the sleeve okay this is the tension wire connecting them and this is gravity but as we had seen earlier because the rod cannot go downwards because the sleeve cannot go downwards because of the presence of this rod there is no acceleration in the downward direction so gravity is not doing anything interesting but on the other hand if we put it in such a way that gravity acts in this direction then the only change that happens is that that we had a tension acting on it from the wire connecting the drum and the sleeve and the rod and the sleeve there was a normal reaction that acted from the rod to the sleeve in addition we will also have mg here nothing will change only thing that will happen is that we can resolve this mg into 2 components one like this and while writing out man equal to fn and mat is equal to ft this normal force will also have a component coming from the gravity and this tension will also have a this tangential force will have a component from tension as well as gravity and accordingly the normal force and tension will be modified okay that will be the only difference that will happen if the gravity also acts on it in the in the sense that the rod is not rotating in the horizontal plane but in the vertical plane.