 I think that you took it. To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to meet the opposition parties to discuss the reform of local government taxation. He is determined to consult others later in this parliamentary session to develop a fairer, more progressive local tax based on the ability to pay ond y byddwch i'r cyflawn. The minister is aware that councils across Scotland are being forced to make severe cuts. Edinburgh alone must find £67 million of savings by 2018. This Government has consistently argued for greater powers but at the same time has disempowered our local authorities. Parents taking part in a radio phone in this morning on the need to fund raise for basic school equipment weren't convinced that the council tax freeze is fully funded. Do we all engage in the debate in the debate on new powers for this Parliament? Is it not time to properly empower our local authorities with a fair tax to raise a greater proportion of their own income? I have said that the Scottish Government will work with others in fulfilling that manifesto commitment to the people and we will absolutely do that. To help inform that thinking, there is a recommendation of the local government and regeneration committee, which includes issues of empowerment and, of course, the commission on strengthening local democracies deliberations to consider as well. I wouldn't agree that we have disempowered local authorities. Essentially, the council tax freeze was supported by a majority at the Scottish Parliament election, so that gives us the mandate to do it. However, those resources have been to commit to the council tax freeze have been put into the local government to settlement to ensure that local authorities can freeze the council tax and were compensated so to do. Those figures are added to with the dering fencing, which has been very empowering to local authorities who have far more financial flexibility than they had before in making their own financial decisions. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am grateful for the minister's comments, but can he tell me how many people have actually benefited from the council tax freeze? With the Scottish Government, I urge all councils to deliver it again. Of course, we would encourage all local authorities to continue with the council tax freeze. All of council tax pairs have benefited around 2 million households in terms of the council tax freeze. I think that that is very welcome in terms of the household pressures that would have been faced over the past few years. The council tax freeze has been fully funded previously and will be fully funded again in financial year 2015-16, if councils choose to take advantage of that. Can the minister please advise the chamber as to what tax options, other than the local income tax, might be considered for local government between now and May 2016? Our manifesto commitment is to consult with others later in this parliamentary session to develop options for a fairer and more progressive local tax based on the ability to pay, so that it would not be appropriate to prejudge the result of such an exercise at this stage, but all potential alternative proposals that meet the criteria could be considered. To ask the Scottish Government what discussions the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth held with the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Food and Environment regarding the carbon assessment of the 2015-16 draft budget. I have had discussions with all members of the Cabinet, including the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Food and Environment, during the development of the 2015-16 draft budget. The carbon assessment sets out the impacts on greenhouse gas emissions of the spending proposals proposed in the draft budget and is one of a range of resources available to inform ministerial decisions on our climate change agenda and on our financial choices. I thank the Cabinet Secretary for Finance for that answer. The Cabinet Secretary will be aware that the Scottish Government's carbon assessment of the draft budget highlights the issue of imported emissions, and in some sectors such as health and local government that is particularly a cause for concern. The proportion of emissions accounted for by imported greenhouse gases is quite substantial. Can the Cabinet Secretary provide any details of any schemes in his portfolio or other portfolios that might be put in place to address the extent of imported emissions? The measures that we take to, for example, improve the energy efficiency of the Government of State and the wider range of public buildings would be one example of measures that we take to address those particular issues. I also say to Claudia Beamish that energy factors are very significant in underpinning the particular emissions to which she refers, and therefore the approach of the Government both in its energy efficiency policy in general in relation to the housing stock and our approach in relation to new house development into the bargain is designed to address the very issues that she raises. Of course, the carbon assessment has been a new tool introduced by the Government to focus on the choices that have to be made by ministers about financial issues but also about the wider implications for the environment as a consequence. Ministers will continue to pay close attention to the output of the carbon assessment tool in influencing our financial choices. To ask the Scottish Government what communication it has received from the UK Government regarding the extra £100 million of funding to be available for household energy efficiency. We were informed of the proposed measure on the morning of the holding of a Liberal Democrat party conference where the announcement was made, and only after the press were informed in a release, no further information was received since that date, 7 October, from the UK Government, despite attempts by officials on five separate occasions to seek such clarity. Perhaps stimulated by the publication of Mr Stevenson's question in this chamber, the high-level details of the amounts of the proposed funding for Scotland were eventually received from DEC yesterday. May I thank the minister and congratulate myself on my success? Is the minister aware of WWF's report on the economics of climate change policy, which shows that the installation of energy efficiency measures in the UK has dropped in 2011 and 2012? Does the minister accept that that drop and the current incoherence of UK policy makes it more difficult for us to meet our installation of fuel poverty targets? I do. It does not make our task any easier to efficiently administer a very good scheme because we do not know what the budget is and what the conditions are. The scheme is reserved at the moment to Westminster. Where we have power in this Parliament to administer the scheme ourselves, we would have been able to make a start. Now that we have the information, we will get on with it. I am pleased that we have paid out on 19,670 vouchers for households in Scotland. Indeed, we spend almost 10 times as much in Scotland as in England on energy efficiency per household. To ask the Scottish Government how many active business improvement districts there are. As on 31 October 2014, there were 27 operational business improvement districts in Scotland and proposals to establish a number of other bids are in various stages of development. I thank the minister for his answer. Paisley first's deadline for voting in our bid is drawing to a close. Can the minister outline what benefits he sees that business improvement districts could have for the great town of Paisley? I am excited to say that Paisley is indeed a yes town. I hope that they vote yes again as the bid closes the ballot on 13 November. £20,000 of grant support has been given as seed corn funding to support the bid. I am convinced that the partnership that it will create will take forward a range of projects for Paisley. It will be of great benefit, including retail support and outlets, promotion of arts and cultural, historical, social, recreational, educational opportunities, more events in the town centre and further work to locate Paisley as a serious visitor destination. All that shows how positive we can be about Paisley. Is George Adam suggesting that we encourage people to vote yes in Paisley once again? To ask the Scottish Government when it last met Scottish Enterprise. The Scottish Government ministers regularly meet Scottish Enterprise on a range of issues. According to the draft budget, £56 million of financial transactions was removed from the enterprise body's budget line for other initiatives. What initiatives was it initially planned for? The Government had made a prospective allocation to the enterprise budget to consider putting additional financial transaction capability into the work of the Scottish Investment Bank. When I evaluated the necessity of that investment versus the necessity to improve investment in housing expenditure, my judgment was that the propositions that were put forward to me by housing were more compelling than the necessity of additional finance for the Scottish Investment Bank, and that is why I decided to reallocate the resources, as I indicated to Mr Brown in the budget statement on 9 October. The cabinet secretary will be aware of significant and growing local opposition to the Kakenzie energy park, as proposed by Scottish Enterprise, with a local petition gathering already around 5,000 signatures. Part of that opposition is driven by a feeling that Scottish Enterprise has not engaged with the local community on its own aspirations for the site. Will he instruct Scottish Enterprise to do that as a matter of urgency? I hear Mr Gray's points, and I am familiar with the issue, because he has raised those issues with me in a meeting with the leadership of the East Lothian Council, which I was delighted to host. We have to get our arrangements properly in place here, and it is important that people understand exactly who we are with the Kakenzie site. The Kakenzie site is not in the ownership of Scottish Enterprise, so Scottish Enterprise has no site plan to disclose or to advance it anyway, because Scottish Enterprise does not own the Kakenzie site. It remains in the ownership of Scottish power to the best of my knowledge. I can assure Mr Gray and through him his constituents that, should Scottish Enterprise end up acquiring the Kakenzie site before any developments are undertaken or before any developments are considered, there will be full and active dialogue with the local community. We are delighted to arrange that directly with the local community, but we will also involve the local authority and any other interested parties in that process, and I am delighted to have those issues discussed with Mr Gray and anyone he wishes to have those issues discussed with. However, I stress that there is no active proposition in place, because Scottish Enterprise does not own that site. I give Parliament the assurance that, where that will happen, there will be full and wide consultation about any uses to which the Kakenzie site is put in the future. Can the cabinet secretary outline the measures taken by the Scottish Government to strengthen and support Scotland's economic links and overseas markets? The issue of international business activity is central to the Government's economic strategy, and, as we set out our thinking in due course, I expect the focus that we will place on expanding the international connections and business activity of Scottish companies will grow ever more significantly. We are working to encourage more Scottish companies to become active exporters. We do that through a wide variety of mechanisms, through the account management activities of Scottish and Highlands and Islands Enterprise. We are working directly with companies to encourage them to export. We utilise a range of Scottish development international offices around the globe—28 offices in 18 countries. The global Scot network has connected with more than 1,000 Scottish companies to offer support and advice from individuals who will be located in international markets about how companies can best enter those markets. Scottish Development International is currently working with partners to support 8,000 to 10,000 more businesses to develop the skills to go international by 2015, and that will be the focus of much of our activity in that respect. To ask the Scottish Government how much has been spent under the non-profit distributing model and on how many projects. On the capital value of investment in the non-profit distributing programme, it is included in the recently published draft budget 2015-16. Lee Murray? The draft budget refers to a £2.5 billion NPD pipeline, and £750 million of projects are currently under construction. Can the cabinet secretary advise how many projects funded under the NPD model of financing have been completed since its introduction? A number of projects have been completed since the NPD programme was under way. I do not have the complete list, so I will not give a definitive answer to Dr Murray at this stage, but a number has been completed. She is absolutely correct that there is over £750 million of activity under construction just now, and there is also £1.4 billion worth of projects currently in procurement. The Deputy First Minister at the weekend set out some further information on the proportion of the £1 billion extension of the NPD programme, which will take forward a range of projects around the country, investing in the school of state, in the health sector, in the college sector and in the announcements that I have made previously on the £2.5 billion NPD programme. Is the cabinet secretary able to set out what steps will be taken to inform and update the local community on the redevelopment of the Royal Edinburgh hospital in Morningside in my constituency, which is the single biggest beneficiary in the latest tranche of projects, with £120 million being invested in new state-of-the-art facilities so that people with mental health problems can be cared for in an appropriate clinical and therapeutic environment? I am happy to reassure Mr Eary that there will be extensive dialogue with the community as the project is prepared for further development. One of the elements of the NPD programme, which is a necessity, is that we embark on early consultation about the details of particular projects to avoid us running into project management and development issues at a later stage in the process, so that early dialogue and consultation with individual communities is essential to ensure that we embark on projects on the best possible basis, that they are well founded in views in the local community, and that the issues that Mr Eary raises about the creation of the appropriate settings for us to be able to support individuals to address their mental health problems is well understood in the design and delivery of those projects, which can have such a significant therapeutic benefit for the individuals who have those challenges. Question 7, Dave Thompson. To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on people in the Highlands and Islands having to pay a two-pence per unit electricity transmission surcharge. Presiding Officer, the Scottish Government is aware that customers in the Highlands and Islands face some of the highest electricity prices in the country. That is due to a combination of factors, including higher costs, associated with delivering electricity in remote areas. We are discussing the current arrangements for electricity customers in the north of Scotland with the regulator of GEM and the UK government, as this is currently a reserved matter. We engage regularly with energy companies on a range of issues, and consumer energy bills are frequently discussed. Even Scottish and Southern Enterprise are now backing national pricing across the UK for those charges. Given the scale of fuel poverty in my constituency and its link with fuel costs, what more can be done to alleviate the detrimental effect that the surcharge has on the wider goal of eradicating fuel poverty in the Highlands? We are very concerned about the level of energy bills across the country, but most especially in the north of Scotland. Mr Thompson is quite correct that his constituents in places such as Skyn, Lachaber, face perhaps some of the highest costs in the whole country. We are doing everything that we can with the powers that we have. For example, to alleviate the fuel poverty and to invest in energy efficiency, figures from Energy Action Scotland show that, on average, £3.52 is invested on energy efficiency measures for low-income households in England, compared with £36.48 in Scotland. I think that 10 times more in Scotland than England shows that we are doing what we can, but we do not have the powers in this Parliament to ensure proper regulation so that Mr Thompson's constituents and people who live on our islands suffer not only the worst weather but the greatest fuel poverty and the highest bills. That has been a complete failure of the regulatory regime in the UK. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I'm very grateful. Is the minister aware of the work of the Western Isles Poverty Action Group, who called to anend to the two-pence electricity surcharge in the hands and islands? As the minister will well know, many consumers in the north are facing full poverty and are facing higher fuel and transportation costs, with a bleak and a kensy and winter in prospect. Will the minister write to OfChem and Energy Secretary Ed Davie urging them to get rid of the hands and islands of these unfair charges and instead introduce the sharing of all network costs equally across all GB consumers? Mr Stewart's remarks are absolutely correct, and I do appreciate his sentiments on the matter. We absolutely believe that in the UK Scottish householders should not be penalised in this way, and they are through a total failure of regulation under successive Governments. Matters are exacerbated because one of the longer-term solutions to this is to connect the islands to the grid. By doing so, it generates additional benefit from community benefit and community ownership of schemes that the funding generated in places such as Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles would be sufficient to banish fuel poverty if the island leader's soul chose. I hope that Mr Stewart and his colleagues will join us and make representations to the Smith commission and use the opportunity to empower Scotland to cut our bills rather than continue with a somewhat touching faith and belief in the goodwill of the Tory Government—their former better-together allies. I agree with the ministers saying that, due to the relatively colder weather, constituents of the Highlands and Islands face greater fuel poverty, and they understand that we are very concerned about the transmission charge. SSE has indicated that it wants to see a national price. Has the minister raised that with the Competitions and Markets Authority, as well as the UK Government? If so, what was their response? I would expect that action from the Competition and Markets Authority would be akin to expecting a chocolate fireguard to operate effectively in this matter. We have got the regulatory authorities off-gem. They do not work. That is the problem. There is another problem that, sadly, Mr McGeager's colleagues and masters down in London have not dealt with. In Scotland, we have 35 per cent of the costs in the whole of the UK of transmitting electricity, but we only have 12 per cent of the generators, so they are paying three times as much for transmitting electricity. Of course, they pass that on to their consumers in the Western Isles, in Skye, in Lachaber, in Shetland and in Orkney. I urge Mr McGeager to look at other options to solve them, not least powers in this Parliament. The minister started off rather well in his initial response to David Thompson, but it has degenerated ever since. The Scottish Renewables Submission to the Smith Commission has emphasised the need to retain a single energy market across the UK, the only way of spreading that cost. He will be aware that my colleague Sir Robert Smith raised the issue with Dermot Nolan, the off-gem CEO yesterday in Westminster, whereupon Mr Nolan indicated that the idea of a single national tariff, as we have for Royal Mail, while complex, would be possible. I wonder if, in the discussions that he has had so far with off-gem in the UK Government, he might be able to indicate what progress has been made in those discussions. Well, we have been discussing these matters with the UK Government, with off-gem, for as long as I can remember, and for far longer than I have had the honour of holding this position. Indeed, it is the First Minister who has been leading the campaign in this issue and called for fairness of electricity costs throughout the UK. Project transmit was supposed to be the solution to that, but that solution is not expected now to deliver any amelioration of the unfairness to Scotland until 2016. That is what the regulators are doing at the moment. The regulators are responsible to the UK Government and, sadly, the regulators just have not delivered. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the latest figures on manufactured exports in Scotland. We welcome the index of manufactured exports increase of nearly 3 per cent during the second quarter of this year and continue to work as Team Scotland further to promote exports. Can I thank the minister for that response and can I say to the minister, am I right in thinking that this trend could be continued and ever strengthened if the Smith commission was to recommend that responsibility for all business taxation and employment law should be with the Scottish Parliament? Yes, the member is absolutely correct. I pay tribute to Scottish exporters. They are doing extraordinarily well through their own efforts and the quality of their goods and products and through the good offices of SDI, SE and HIE, but it is, of course, vital that we have access to all the levers over taxation. For example, if we were possessed of powers in respect of air passenger duty, then, according to the leaders of most of Scotland's airports, we would be in a position further to increase travel and thereby help to promote and stimulate trade and exporters and welcome more people to Scotland. The member is absolutely correct in calling for more powers to come to this Parliament on these matters. To ask the Scottish Government what impact exiting the UK would have on the Scottish economy. The Scottish Government firmly believes that exiting the European Union would have a deeply damaging impact on Scotland's economy. Europe is a vital market for Scottish businesses, accounting for 45 per cent of Scotland's international exports, worth £11.7 billion to our economy. Analysis published by the Centre for Economics and Business Research in March 2014 estimated that, in 2011, around 336,000 jobs in Scotland were associated with exports to the EU. Such jobs and economic activity in Scotland would be at risk if the United Kingdom was to leave the EU. Can I thank the cabinet secretary for explaining those risks? As a cabinet secretary, we will be aware that recent polling shows that, while people in Scotland would vote to stay in the EU, and our referendum people across the UK would vote for an exit. Does the cabinet secretary agree with me? Now, Carwin Jones, the Labour First Minister in Wales, underlines why it is essential that the UK exit from the EU. It must require a vote for that in each of its constituent nations of the UK, thus ensuring that the economic interests of all the nations of the UK family are represented. The point that Christine McElvie makes is the argument that was advanced by the Deputy First Minister. It is a strong argument to indicate the importance of Scotland's position as part of the family of nations that we were told existed within the United Kingdom is properly represented. Now that the view has been amplified by the comments of the First Minister of Wales yesterday, it is important that the whole debate is taken forward as part of the consideration of what would be a foolish move by the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. To ask the Scottish Government how it is taking forward the proposals in empowering Scotland's island communities. We are already working with the island councils and other key stakeholders to implement those parts of our prospectus for the islands that we can with our existing powers, including, for example, in relation to aquaculture, the rural development programme and island beef producers. With a further transfer of powers, for example, over the crown of state, we will be able to deliver more for the aspirations of the islands. I thank the minister for that answer. He will have seen today's publication of the submission to the Smith commission from the island, the island authorities, which are calls for, among other things, local control of the crown of state, devolution of 100 per cent of crown of state revenues, powers to ensure islands can benefit from renewable energy, powers to ensure war electricity and fuel costs in order to tackle fuel poverty, direct representation for the Scottish Government in Europe and devolution of welfare to the Scottish Government. Does the Scottish Government support that position and would he urge all those in the Smith commission to take account of the views of the islands in their deliberations? Yes, I would concur with those comments. I have had sight of our islands, our future submission to the Smith commission, not in full detail, but it looks to me as if there is much alignment with the Scottish Government's position. In terms of the consensus that could be reached in this Parliament, if Labour is true to its word in terms of the empowerment of the islands and what it wanted to do with the islands and the same for the Liberal Democrats and others, then maybe there are enough members of the Smith commission to produce a robust package for the islands that will be able to transfer powers to this place and then, in turn, allow us to transfer powers and further decentralisation and subsidiarity to that principle to local islands. I think that there is a great opportunity across the parties to support the vision as outlined in the prospectus that we offered to island communities. As the Scottish Government, what action is it taking to increase employment opportunities in the west of Scotland? Scotland offers the most competitive business tax regime in the United Kingdom, and the Scottish Government is delivering a range of initiatives to create jobs and attract inward investment. Business Gateway and Enterprise Agency support to start up and expand their businesses encourages job creation into the bargain. That includes RSA awards, which, in the west of Scotland, total £29.6 million in 1314 and £22.5 million in the first two quarters of this year. With half the 2014-15 remaining, the anticipated jobs created or safeguarded by those RSA awards represent 82 per cent of the 2013-14 total of 4,131 jobs. I thank the cabinet secretary for that response. The cabinet secretary will be aware that a number of Clyde and Western Barrenshire have seen a dramatic loss in manufacturing jobs over the last three decades due to, in the main, UK Government policies. However, with a vital role that the Scottish Government has undertaken in stepping in helping to help to save ferxonship builders in Port Glasgow, it demonstrated that areas in the west of Scotland actually have a manufacturing future. Therefore, what further assistance can the Scottish Government provide to encourage further manufacturing opportunities, either by existing companies or by further inward investment, to places such as Inverclyde and Western Barrenshire? Mr McMillan rightly refers to the important news that we had over the summer of the rescuing of the Ferguson shipyard. It has been a source of significant joy to me that we were able to bring about a resumption of manufacturing activity in that yard and to protect shipbuilding on the lower Clyde. That was one example of the Government working collaboratively with our enterprise agencies, with the local authority and with other interested parties in ensuring that that was able to be achieved. That approach will be deployed on any other occasions that we feel it necessary. The Scottish Manufacturing Advisory Service also offers a very specific amount of support to individual companies who are wishing to develop their manufacturing activity, and that will be available to companies in Western Barrenshire and Inverclyde to meet their requirements. To ask the Scottish Government whether it considers that local authorities should have the power to begin pursuit of tax debt up to 20 years after the liability arose. Under the legislation governing local taxation, responsibility for the administration and collection of local taxes lies with local authorities. It is for each local authority to interpret and apply the relevant legislation when seeking to recover local tax debts and to decide how best to seek payment of outstanding local taxes. However, the Scottish Government is aware of concerns about on-going pursuit of historic debt and therefore intends to bring forward legislation that will mean that local authorities no longer have the ability to collect debts from the defunct community charge. In doing so, it will ensure that local authorities are compensated in line with the current collection rates in respect of outstanding amounts of community charge, pole tax, which would have been collected. A constituent of mine has shown me what appears to be a tax demand for council tax from 12 years before the date of issue. It strikes me as an area of concern that councils can, under the current powers, do this and that individuals essentially have to be able to prepare and provide record stretching back over a decade and receipt of a tax demand. Can the minister give any indication whether, as well as the issue of the community charge, the wider question of the duration of time over which these tax demands can be made will be considered in the process of the legislation? I should be clear that the First Minister's intention, as outlined at First Minister's question, is what the Government will legislate for. We will carry out what has been committed to publicly. However, I am happy to see whether Government officials can assist Mr Beaget with the specific points around legislative burdens, because there are clear burdens and legislations around prescription and Limitation Scotland Act 1973, in terms of the timescales in which debts can be pursued. However, there is a difference between the poll tax liabilities, most of which are now out of reach technically anyway, and council tax debts, which there are far less of, fortunately, in proportion to the poll tax by nature of the two different forms of taxation. However, I am more than happy to provide further guidance to local authorities to ensure that there is clarity on both as we go forward with that legislation. Question 13, Graham Day. To ask the Scottish Government what impact air passenger duty is having on Scotland's tourism sector. We believe that air passenger duty is one of the most damaging of taxes to Scottish tourism, making it much more expensive to visit Scotland than competitor destinations. We welcome the submission made by Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen airports, which supports transfer of power over this tax to this Parliament. Graham Day. I wonder whether he would agree with me that APD is contributing to London airports being log jam with flights rather than facilitating direct flights here to Scotland. I think that we don't really have a UK aviation policy. We've got an aviation policy designed for the needs of London, and that has long been thus. The difficulty is that, to boost tourism, we need to make it easy and affordable for people from foreign countries to get here. Traffling by air is the gate to Scotland. Since air passenger duty in the UK is, by far, the highest of any major country in the world, the UK effectively plays a padlock on that gate. Thank you, Presiding Officer. To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has carried out of the impact of the recently announced land and buildings transaction tax on domestic and non-domestic property sales in the Scottish Borders. The Scottish Government's proposed progressive rates and bans for land and buildings transaction tax will ensure that the tax charge on 90 per cent of residential transactions and 95 per cent of non-residential transactions will be lower than or no higher than the current SDLT charge. The average price of a residential property sale in every local authority area in Scotland is significantly below £325,000. The value that the tax charge under land and buildings transaction tax is lower or the same as the SDLT charge. The redistribution of the tax burden will support the majority of first-time buyers and complement the Government's commitment to support home ownership in a balanced and sustainable way. In the most recent quarter, the LBTT charge on the sale of the average residential property in the Scottish Borders would have been £1,055 lower than the current UK tax charge. I thank the cabinet secretary for that reply, but the cabinet secretary will be aware that last week, Registers of Scotland published data that showed that the average price of a detached house in the Scottish Borders was over £250,000, meaning that many properties in the borders will be caught by the Government's new 10 per cent tax rate. What analysis has been carried out on whether the housing market will be skewed before and after the new tax is introduced to sellers, desperately trying to avoid this extra 10 per cent tax rate? Is the cabinet secretary concerned that that will result in the long-term lower tax receipts? The first thing is that I do not really think that the Conservative Party is in a strong position to complain to me about any factors that will happen in the market between the time of my announcement and the start of the financial year, given that the Conservatives were arguing that I should have announced the tax rates much earlier than I, in fact, set out the tax rates and tax bands as I did to Parliament several months in advance of the start of the financial year. Mr Lamont highlighted the fact that the average detached property was off the level that he said, which is still below £325,000, which means that there will be a substantial number of detached properties selling in the Scottish Borders, and the cost of the tax charge will be lower than it is currently within the arrangements in Scotland. Of course, the average house price in the Scottish Borders is £165,762, which is the figure for April to June 2014, which is very significantly lower than the £325,000. Mr Lamont needs to think about the encouragement of the property market in the Scottish Borders. All the evidence that I am hearing is that the property market in the Borders and throughout Scotland will be strengthened by the fact that I have substantially reduced the cost of acquiring a property for first-time buyers and for people moving up the next stage of the housing ladder, and I think that that will be warmly welcomed to Lentenberg to Scotland. The next item of business is a debate on motion number 11395, in the name of Elaine