 The next scheduled item of business is consideration of business motion 730 in the name of George Adam. However, amendments have been submitted very recently. In order to ensure that all members have adequate time to look at those amendments, I am going to move to topical questions at this time and then we will return to that item. I am glad that so many have turned up to listen to my very important question. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the reported comments by the general secretary of school leader Scotland that a reduction in budget will lead to class sizes increasing subjects being removed from the curriculum and a reduction in the number of teachers. I have my own perspective as to how pleasing it is to see so many people here. This Government has delivered the highest school spending and more teachers per pupil than any other UK nation. In Scotland, we have an overall pupil teacher ratio, which is the lowest in the UK at 13.2, compared to 18 in England and 18.5 in Wales. In our budget, we have sought to protect councils providing over £13.2 billion in the local government settlement for 2023-24. That funding package represents a real-terms increase compared with 2022-23, which enables a continued delivery of high-quality education for our children. As part of that, we will continue to provide local authorities with a specific funding of £145.5 million per year to support the school workforce. Investment education is at a record high with resource and capital spending of almost £200 million this coming financial year, one of the biggest rises in the history of this Parliament. Willie Rennie? I do not think that the minister heard what Jim Thule has said on Sunday. He was clear that this is direct evidence from the classroom. Teacher numbers would be cut, class sizes would increase and subjects would be removed. Is the minister saying that he is wrong? Minister. I do not think that Mr Rennie listened to my question. I thought that his question was predicated on the spending in the budget that we have laid out. As I have laid out very clearly, there is a real-terms increase. The education and skills resource budget is up from £2.9 billion to just over £3 billion. The capital budget has increased from £506 million to £566 million. The budget delivers a funding package that represents a real-terms increase compared with this financial year and enables the continued delivery of high-quality education for our children. Willie Rennie. I know what this means for the election promises that were made by his party last year. Will there be an additional 3,500 teachers and classroom assistants? Will the poverty-related attainment gap be substantially eliminated in primary and secondary schools? Finally, will teaching contact time be reduced by 90 minutes each week? We have laid out our manifest commitments, and we will look to take them forward. I can allow him to mention the Scottish attainment challenge, which is raised regularly in this part rightly, because it is an important issue. I can say that we will continue to invest £1 billion through the Scottish attainment challenge in this part, representing a substantial increase on last-term £750 million. That is specifically designed to tackle attainment gap and drive education recovery. As I have already mentioned, we are providing more than £145 million of additional annual funding to ensure the sustained employment of additional teachers and classroom assistants. We are doing what we can to make sure that we deliver for Scotland's young people at school. I thank the minister for his previous responses and welcome the continued investment in our education system. Can I ask the minister to advise how education spending in Scotland compares with the rest of the UK? I can hear the groans already, so clearly the tories already know the answer. Education spending in Scotland is £1,758 per person, which is over £300 more per person than England, £1,439 in England and £1,680 in Wales. We continue to support the recruitment of students into initial teacher education courses. The number of teachers per 100,000 pupils is 7,573 in Scotland, compared with 5,734 in England and 5,636 in Wales. I thank goodness for record levels in the block grant. It is not about inputs, minister, it is about outputs. Scottish education ought to be the gift that we give to Scotland's young people. With a promise of a better future yet under the SNP, there are now 900 fewer teachers. There are subject choices down, presentations at higher and stem, five-year low, dramatic fall in modern languages. We will now talk in the councils in central Scotland of shorter periods, shorter school days, a shorter school week, even fewer subject choices and rising class sizes as ratios are ditched and teachers are worried, more worried than they ought to be, about their safety in the classroom. It is hardly sunlit uplands, is it? Is the minister as embarrassed as he should be? I have to say that I am very proud when I go out to see the many achievements of young people, the length and breadth of this country supported by first class teachers. That is what I am proud to say that we have in Scotland. Mr Kerr did not mention that. Maybe he is not out there actually encountering what is happening on the ground in terms of the support that we have for young people in terms of the number. Mr Kerr has already made the point. I will reiterate it again. I thank Mr Kerr for giving me the chance to do so. We invest £145.5 million of additional annual funding to ensure the sustained appointment of additional teachers and classroom assistants. That is why we have the best pupil teacher ratios in the territory of the UK. I listened carefully to the minister's response. He clearly dodged the core question, which is around the manifesto commitments on which they were elected, 3,500 additional teachers and reductions in classroom time. Is it not right that the pledge to 3,500 teachers under this budget is dead in the water? I have responded to that question fully. We have laid out our manifesto commitments. We will work to take them forward. Rural schools have already seen whole subjects removed from the timetable. Surely the minister cannot be proud that, in parts of Scotland, you cannot take whole subject areas? That is not educational opportunities for all. How can it be right that my Dumfrieshire constituents, those at the likes of Moffat academy, have less opportunities today than I did when I was at school? You cannot be proud of that. I cannot attest to Mr Mundell's education, but I can. I will go back to the point that I have already made. If you go out and see what is happening in our schools and look at the area, I have responsibility for now. There is a much wider array of subject matter available in terms of technical qualifications at the senior level. I am pleased to see an increased range of subject matter and choice available to young people that, frankly, want to be available when I was at school. Mark Griffin What is its response is to the statement by COSLA expressing council leaders extreme disappointment with the proposed budget settlement for local government and its presentation lacking consistency with her partnership approach and their invitation to the Deputy First Minister to attend a special meeting. John Swin Despite the spectacularly difficult current fiscal context, the Scottish Government has increased the resources available to local government next year by over £570 million. I have also invited council leaders to work with us and other partners to design our services around the needs and interests of the people and communities of Scotland. That is how we will deliver sustainable public services in partnership. In addition to funding from the Scottish Government, local authorities enjoy a range of revenue raising powers that are not available to other public services, including newly devolved powers over empty property rates relief. Mark Griffin I did not hear very clearly where the Cabinet Secretary had agreed to join that special meeting with COSLA leaders, but hopefully that can be clarified next. The Government's claim on Thursday that local government would get £0.5 billion promoting a partnership approach unravelled within hours and, as I said at the time, little more than smoke admirers. The response from COSLA leaders unanimously across all parties and most significantly council leaders from the Deputy First Minister's own party was that this is another massive real-terms cut on council's core funding and will lead to socially harmful job losses and that cannot be taken more seriously. Services, as we know, will cease to exist. Asked the cabinet secretary on Thursday if he had assessed the cost to the NHS of cutting those preventative services and he did not provide an answer. So again, what is left to cut? Where is the impact assessment of what this austerity will do to the rest of Scotland's public services? The proper comparison of budgets, which Parliament expects of me as the acting finance minister, is from one budget to the next budget. Last year's budget to this year's budget, the local government finance settlement is increased by £578 million. Local government asked me, in the dialogue that I had before the budget statement, for an increase in their budget allocation of £1 billion. I was quite clear with local government that £1 billion could not be delivered in the current fiscal context, but local government was expecting a flat cash settlement that expected no more money. That is what they were encouraged to believe from the resource spending view of no more money next year compared to this year, but in fact I have delivered £570 million more. I think that that is a welcome settlement for local government. Mark Griffin has still no answer on the wider impact on Scotland's public sector landscape on those cuts, but on Sunday I heard the Deputy First Minister's comments about the need for reform and wonder where this Government has been for the last decade. Councils have been salami slicing in the face of 10 years of real-terms cuts and the days of salami slicing are over. It is now wholesale cuts services ended. Officials in SNP run Aberdeen City Council have started looking at everything that council does. Social work, council tax collection, free school meals, dog control, health and safety, even the welfare fund, it could all be privatised, it could all be outsourced. Given what Aberdeen is considering, along with all other councils, is it not the case that this budget has not been used to reform, it has been used to dismantle local government? No, it has been designed to create sustainable public services with an increase in the local government budget, which was not expected but has in fact increased by £570 million. I have offered local authorities the opportunity to be partners in how we take forward the reform of the public sector. That was exactly what I did when we designed the Covid recovery strategy. The Covid recovery strategy was agreed with the local government and I look forward to building on that as we take forward the local government settlement, which I stress, is £570 million higher than local authorities were expecting. The proposed uplift in the local government settlement of £4.5 billion is a welcome real-term increase in investment in our public services and local democracy amid the modes of challenging budgets and devolution. The Deputy First Minister's reference to the additional revenue-raising powers available to the Scottish councils is important. Can the Deputy First Minister underline how local authorities are set to benefit even more significantly in the coming year of the engagement with the Scottish Government on a new deal for local government, which could provide new services of revenue and unlock fiscal reserves? I am very keen to take forward that approach, as is the Social Justice Secretary sitting beside me here. We have already embarked on those discussions with local authorities and we look forward to developing that work into the new fiscal framework. There are, of course, other tax-varying powers that local authorities have in relation to empty property relief. We are legislating in due course during this Parliament for the visitor levy bill. There are other measures that local authorities have at their disposal, but what they can rely on is a £570 million increase in their budget, which they were not expecting. Llyr Smith. Cosla has also put on record that between the time of its written response to the national care service bill and the bill's publication in June 2022, there was, and I quote, no meaningful engagement between the Scottish Government and local government. Does the Deputy First Minister believe that this, combined with the concerns that have been outlined by Mr Griffin, is a very serious situation when it comes to so-called partnership working with the two Governments and the effective delivery of local services? Cabinet Secretary. I frankly do not recognise the world that Llyr Smith is talking about. Let me just explain the dialogue with local authorities. I had several discussions with local government about the preparation for the budget, including discussions right up until the eve of the budget. I had discussions with all of the political leaders in Cosla of all political shades of opinion. My colleagues involved in the national care service have been involved in dialogue with local government, but I would stress that local government has made it quite clear that, because of their opposition to the national care service, they do not particularly want to take forward dialogue with the Scottish Government on those questions. When it comes to the wider partnership working, I simply cite to Llyr Smith the work that the Scottish Government took forward in partnership with local government, which agreed the Covid recovery strategy. It was a jointly agreed proposition. I chaired a delivery board with the President of Cosla, taking forward those priorities. I do wish members of Parliament would reflect the reality of what is going on, not the invention of reality that we get from the Conservatives.