There has been a significant cut of 66.5 per cent in the total Scottish financial transactions budget in 2021-22. That is two thirds of a budget slashed by the United Kingdom Government, and it amounts to a reduction of £412 million. The Scottish Government has mitigated that as far as possible, but that cut has led to some difficult choices about the use of the allocation in 2021-22 and has, of course, resulted in a reduction in the first home fund budget and the need to close the main help to buy Scotland scheme.

I wish that Tom Mason and his colleagues, who continually go on at us about increasing the housing supply, would go to their Westminster colleagues and tell Rishi Sunak to give us that money back, because it is required to deliver homes to meet Scotland’s need. It is a pathetic scenario that the UK Government has cut budgets to the extent that it has. Two thirds of a budget has been slashed.