 The next item of business this afternoon is a debate on motion 15907, in the name of Derek Mackay, on the budget Scotland number three bill. Before the debate begins, I am required understanding orders to state whether or not any provision in this bill relates to a protected subject matter, that is, whether it modifies the electoral system or franchise for Scottish parliamentary elections. In the case of this bill, it does no such thing. Therefore, the bill does not require a supermajority to be passed. The Cabinet Secretary will be very relieved to hear. I invite all members who wish to speak in this debate to press their request to speak button as soon as possible, and I call on the Cabinet Secretary, Derek Mackay, to open the budget. Of all, a majority would be super for the budget tonight. I am delighted to lead the debate on the final stage of the budget bill, a budget that ensures that we provide the necessary certainty that the country deserves and expects. I thank all the Parliament's committees for their deliberations, especially considering the process changes that we made following the agreement of Parliament. I can confirm that I have responded formally to the Finance and Constitution Committee's report on the budget. This budget safeguards Scotland as best we can, using all the powers and resources at our disposal with a clear focus on the priorities as a nation—education, the economy, the NHS, the environment and support for our communities to name just a few. Education is a top priority for the Scottish Government benefits from more than £180 million pounds to raise attainment in schools. It will transform early learning and childcare with a record £500 million expansion. It will continue its investment in skills and talent through investing more than £600 million in Scotland's colleges, £1 billion in universities and £214 million on apprenticeships and skills for young people. On health, the budget will deliver on our commitment to pass on health consequentials in full, including in increasing the health resource budget by more than £738 million—an increase of around £500 million in real terms. That increases the investment in social care and integration to more than £700 million. It also provides an additional £27 million directly for mental health services, taking the overall funding for mental health to £1.1 billion. Under the circumstances, the 2019-20 budget delivers a fair financial settlement for local government by providing over £11.2 billion, which is a real-terms increase of almost £300 million. Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills for taking the intervention on the issue of fairness, is it fair that a chief executive earning £120,000 a year will get a tax cut as a result of this budget, but Dundee City Council will have to cut their education budget by £3 million? First of all, the education budget is going up in the city of Dundee. The education portfolio is increasing in real terms as well. Why is it that the shadow cabinet of the Labour Party is adopting the Tory tax plans and income tax when the Scottish Government is rejecting the Tory tax plans on income tax? Overall spending power for local authorities next year will potentially be up by some £620 million higher than it is currently, although, at the same time, we are protecting household budgets by continuing to protect a cap on council tax increases, with overall levels of council tax continuing to be significantly less than in Tory run England. On a cross-party basis, local government has lobbied for more discretionary taxes—yes, I will. Graham Simpson. I thank you for taking the intervention. Why is it that every single council in Scotland is having to make cuts? As I have just expressed, the Scottish Government is giving more money to local councils. A real terms increase to local government coming from the Scottish Government and improved spending power of more than £620 million. Do you know what, if I had followed Tory tax plans, £500 million would have to come out of public services to fund their tax plans or the calamity of Brexit to think what that would do to our public services across Scotland? What we have done is listened to local government on a cross-party basis, and that includes Tory's demand for a power that they now say should not be transferred to local government. What hypocrites in a Conservative party? I have reached a deal with the Greens to take forward our empowerment agenda. On local tax reform, we will see the empowerment of local authorities supporting local democracies to develop local solutions. We will convene a cross-party arrangement around talks on replacing the current council tax and publish legislation by the end of this Parliament to implement any agreement. On the agreement to support new powers for local authorities, we will formally consult on the principles of a locally determined tourist tax and introduce legislation that would permit local authorities to introduce such a levy if they consider it appropriate in local circumstances. We will also support an agreement to the amendment to the Transport Bill that would enable councils who wish to use such a power to introduce a workplace parking levy. The use of such a power will be entirely an individual choice for each local authority, and has already been noted in the chamber in England and Wales, Tory run England, where councils already have the power. Nottingham is the only council to have used it. As I understand it, neither Glasgow nor Edinburgh, those who are perceived most likely to deploy the levy, are intending to promote it in financial year 2019-20. How about this? Rather than focus on what is not happening in 2019-20, maybe the Conservatives should focus on what is happening in 2019-20. The budget delivers a competitive package on business rates measures to help our businesses to grow, prosper and be successful. It delivers the most generous business rates relief package anywhere in the UK worth more than £3.5 billion, with capped poundage increases below inflation, ensuring that 90 per cent of properties in Scotland pay less than in other parts of the UK. It continues the growth accelerator to provide a further competitive advantage for Scotland's businesses. Our economic action plan sets out the measures to build a strong, vibrant and diverse and dynamic economy, an ambitious national infrastructure mission, the national investment bank and the investment of more than £5 billion of capital funding in our infrastructure. Investing £1.7 billion in transport and connectivity, £180 million towards city and growth deals, and we are also establishing an £18 million advanced manufacturing challenge fund and boosting town centres with a new £50 million capital fund. A record £826 million will be invested in housing, delivering affordable homes in communities across Scotland. The budget expands the use of our new devolved social security responsibility powers to create a system based on dignity and respect, with a total forecast expenditure of £435 million in financial year 2019-20. It delivers real action to tackle poverty and support families on low incomes, investing more than £100 million to directly mitigate against the worst impacts of UK Government welfare cuts, including mitigating the bedroom tax in full. On the subject of tax, as approved by the rate resolution this week, the budget ensures that 55 per cent of Scottish taxpayers continue to pay less than they would if they lived elsewhere in the United Kingdom, with Scotland continuing to be the lowest and the fairest tax part of the UK. I ask Parliament to approve the budget later today. I must draw attention to the work of the chief economist's works published today. The chancellor's budget was constructed on the basis of an orderly Brexit, as was the Scottish budget. With just over a month to go before Scotland faces being dragged out of the EU by the UK Tory Government, we face the real and increasingly likely possibility that the UK will crash out without a deal. That Government continues to believe that the best outcome for the UK and for Scotland is to remain within the EU. The choice is not no deal or the Prime Minister's deal, in fact the Prime Minister's deal would make Scotland poorer as well. The UK Government is systematically damaging our economy, austerity by choice, Brexit by design and any form of Brexit damages our economy and our people. Even though investment decisions have already been impacted, our economy has proven so far to be resilient with GDP growth and record low unemployment. That economic success is now at risk by the increasing Brexit uncertainty and, in particular, the no deal scenario. Today, the chief economist in the Scottish Government has published a report, and I think that it is important that the people of Scotland know that, showing that a no deal Brexit would lead to a major dislocation of the Scottish economy. I know that deal Brexit would be expected to push the Scottish economy into recession during 2019. There is the potential for the economy to contract by between 2.5 per cent and 7 per cent by the end of 2019, depending on the way in which a no deal Brexit evolves. Such an economic slowdown would be expected to result in unemployment rising from its current record low level, potentially soaring by 100,000 people in Scotland being made unemployed. That would be an economic shock on the scale of a 2008 financial crisis. Scotland should not have to pay such a heavy price for the incompetence of the Conservative Government. Murdo Fraser. Surely the finance secretary sets out the scenario of a no deal Brexit being so appalling. Is that not an argument for SNP MPs to back the deal on the table for the Prime Minister? You see the choice. Remember on the street of Downing Street, outside number 10, when the Prime Minister said that there was a choice. Hard deal, no deal or no Brexit. We will take no Brexit. Thank you very much. That is a false choice. A false choice, the Tories are asking the people of Scotland how much damage would you like to come upon the people of Scotland. That is what the Tories, through their gamble and their recklessness, have taken us to. It is appalling and the economic credibility of the Tories is about to be shattered at before our eyes. No deal Brexit is not just a hypothetical, it is impacting on our economy now and must be avoided at all costs. That is what happens when we leave the economy of Scotland in the hand of the Conservatives. Of course I am working on an economic response in the event of a no deal Brexit, but we will have no choice in this Parliament but to revisit the spending proposals and priorities to limit the economic self-harm being imposed upon Scotland by Westminster. With all the best will in the world, devolution and the current limited powers will not be enough to mitigate the economic catastrophe that is coming our way. There are new converts to the notion that Westminster is broken, including some of its members. I am just wondering what took them so long to realise it. In sharp contrast, Scotland's Parliament must show leadership, stability, consensus, compromise and, importantly, delivery. That Parliament is at its best when all parties engage constructively and surely the nation's finances and the decisions that we make on our public services deserve serious engagement. After all, decisions are indeed made by those who turn up. Although this year, unionist parties may have been in the room, credible budget alternatives were absent. Whether that was the Lib Dems and the Tories putting their constitutional obsession before public services or the Labour Party too busy arguing amongst themselves, it was only the Greens who engaged constructively. The passage of the budget today provides £42.5 billion of investment in our public services and our economy to the benefit of the people of Scotland. In approving this year's budget, we make the investments for the here and now, whilst building for our future, safeguarding Scotland. I also hope that this is a turning point for the Opposition, who would gain so much more for its constituents by working with us on the budget. Our Parliament in Scotland can offer the modern, progressive style of politics, focused on the common good with looking at the opportunities and challenges that we face together. That is why I have strived to deliver stability, sustainability and economic stimulus, and that is why I am so proud to commend this budget to the chamber today. Thank you, cabinet secretary. I now call Murdo Fraser to open for the Conservative Party. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Oh, Mr Lyle, do not worry, I am coming to you very soon. Presiding Officer, when the finance secretary introduced his budget to Parliament at stage 1 just three weeks ago, I described it as a pay more, get less budget. That description still holds. It does not do justice to what is turned into an omnishambles budget. For over the last three weeks, this is a budget deal that has faced criticism. Criticism for a lack of transparency, criticism because of the tax hikes that are being introduced that will hit the poorest families in Scotland, the hardest, and criticism because of the cuts in local government services that are being handed down, which mean that families across Scotland will be paying more in tax at the same time as they are seeing the services that they depend upon being reduced. Let me start with the issue of transparency. Both the finance secretary and indeed the First Minister told Opposition parties throughout this budget process that every penny in the budget had been accounted for. Yet we now know that there were additional Barnett consequentials from the UK Government, which the finance secretary was given notice of on Friday 25 January, some six days prior to the stage 1 debate in this Parliament. Barnett consequentials are mounting to an additional £148 million. No doubt when Patrick Harvie and the Green Party negotiated an extra £90 million for local government, they thought that they were getting a good deal. Little did they know, I suspect, that Mr Mackay was holding back another £54 million to boot into the Scotland reserve. It does not say much for the Green Party's negotiating skills, but it says even less about the transparency of the Scottish Government's budget process. An extra £148 million, thanks to the UK Conservative Government, but they keep that information to themselves. Mr Harvie will tell us whether he knew about this extra £54 million or not. Patrick Harvie is very well aware that, just as Murdo Fraser is not simply being put into the reserve, it is being used to move it from one financial year to the next in order that a teacher pay settlement—a much-needed teacher pay settlement—will be funded nationally. Murdo Fraser is saying that the Scottish Government should not be funding that teacher pay settlement. Murdo Fraser. Patrick Harvie could not answer my very simple question. Did he know about his extra money or not? He did not answer that question. The lack of transparency in the budget has also been criticised by one of the SNP's economic advisers. The economist Richard Marsh, a member of the Scottish Government expert group advising on economic modelling and statistics, and a researcher for the SNP's Sustainable Growth Commission, has gone so far as to report the Scottish Government to the UK statistics watchdog saying that the budget presented confusing data which buried key facts. He said that strict clarity guidelines had been breached for political reasons and that figures in their budget were misleading the numbers in the Scottish budget report. He said that they were, and I quote, arranged in a way to persuade the reader of the merits of the Scottish Government's narrative around the budget. It is time that the finance secretary reflects on the way that his budget information is presented to Parliament when even his own Government's advisers are criticising the way that it puts forward. If he really wants the Opposition party to engage seriously on the budget in future, he needs to stop his practice of getting extra money and not telling Parliament about it as he should. It is not just in terms of transparency that the budget has been criticised. The growing income tax gap between Scotland and the rest of the UK breaking and SNP manifesto pledge has been attacked by business organisations. The CBI in Scotland warns that diverging income tax will be a major issue for companies keen to attract the best talent. The Scottish Chambers of Commerce warns that it could take years to repair the damage of higher taxes, and the Federation of Small Business in Scotland says that the tax changes in the budget will erode the small business community's trust. The greatest criticism of the budget has come in relation to the ludicrous plans for a new car park tax, a tax on which we have virtually no detail, despite being asked to vote on this budget package in a couple of hours' time, a tax on which could cost workers £500 a year, a tax on which will be regressive and hit the poorest hardest, and a tax on which there has been by the finance secretary's own admission no economic analysis done. The Scottish Government has claimed that this is a localist policy, but it has taken the decision centrally to exempt NHS buildings. However, not all NHS workers are employed in NHS buildings. As we have previously pointed out, GP practices will employ large numbers of staff but are not classified as NHS properties. Yesterday, we asked about this in the chamber, the health secretary didn't even seem to know what the policy was, saying that NHS workers would be exempt directly contradicting the finance secretary's position. In the shambolic Government, the left-hand does not know what the right-hand is doing. I will give way to any member of the Scottish National Party front-bench who can tell me whether GP buildings are exempt or not. No answer, because they do not have a clue about their own policy. We are elevating Mr Mason to the Government front-bench, not before time, Presiding Officer. John Mason, I thank the member for giving way in his compliment. The answer is that we have not yet started the process. The Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee will be doing a consultation. It will be this Parliament, not the Government, that makes the decision. I am not sure that Mr Mason will get promoted that quickly on the basis of that intervention, but I applaud his valiant attempt for stepping in with his front-bench filter, because yesterday, I am not sure if Jeane Freeman is here, Jeane Freeman told us that GP practices would be exempt. Mr Mason is now telling us that they do not know the answer to that, so they need to make up their minds. If NHS buildings are exempt, why not local government workers? Why not teachers? Why not social workers? Why not police officers? Why not emergency service workers? Why not those in the private sector who may well be on lower pay than their public sector equivalents? The First Minister was suggesting at the weekend that councils could rule out the car park tax and protect their local residents. That completely misses the point. There are tens of thousands of workers who commute every day in their cars from one council area to another. Today, every council group leader in Scotland, every Conservative council group leader in Scotland has pledged not to increase the car park tax. It is time that the SNP did the same thing. Already, we see SNP-led councils, such as Edinburgh and Glasgow First Minister, talking about introducing the charge. In Edinburgh, I think that the council leader suggested that it should be paid not by employers but by employees. The employees should pay. Does Mr Mackay agree with Adam McVay on that point? The intervention is meant to be where I asked the question in Mr Fraser's answers. The question is this. Do those Conservatives, who are against the workplace parking levy, are also the same Conservatives that come and visit me, demanding the power over local discretionary taxis so that local government can make decisions for themselves? Presiding Officer, I do not blame local councils across Scotland. They have had their budgets slashed by this finance secretary to go to his door and complain about that fact. We know that there are even those in the SNP who have complained about the regressive tax. John Swinney warned previously that a workplace parking levy would lead to people simply parking their cars in nearby residential areas. He was right to do so. Both Bruce Crawford and Fergus Ewing are on record opposing those plans in the past, and much more recently, Richard Lyle told this Parliament that I am not for your parking charge levy, and I speak on behalf of thousands of motorists who have been taxed enough. There speaks the voice of reason on the SNP-backed benches as time Government ministers started listening to him. In reality, there was no need for those tax increases. That was a budget where the Scottish Government had more money from Westminster, a block grant increasing in real terms by some £520 million, as against last year, according to SPICE. According to SPICE, the Scottish Government's overall budget is up in real terms compared to when the Conservatives first came to power in 2010, not that we think it listening to the SNP. However, the budget delivers not just tax hikes, it delivers a slashing of the core grant to local government, according to SPICE, some £230 million in real terms. We see that in our local papers every day this week, as councils across Scotland set their budgets, having to reduce teacher numbers, cut the length of the school week, lay off school crossing patrollers, close libraries, close leisure centres, making cuts in the real services that people in Scotland may depend on, the finance secretary may be in denial that those things are happening, but they are happening on his watch and he has to take responsibility for them. I am sorry, I would give way, I am in the last minute. What we should have had is a budget that is focused on growing the economy, because growing the economy increases our tax revenues. Every 20 new additional rate taxpayers that we attract to Scotland generates at least £1 million in extra revenue. An extra 2,000 additional rate taxpayers will give us a minimum of £100 million annually extra to spend on public services. A 1 per cent increase in Scottish productivity will deliver £2.3 billion extra in GDP and £400 million in tax revenue. That is the way that we get more money for public services, with an expanding economy and rising wages. What a pity that, instead of going in that direction, we have an SNP Government that would rather hike up taxes for working families, penalise the poorest with a regressive car park tax and at the same time, slash our local public services. The Parliament should tonight, at decision time, reject its omni-shambles budget. The Scottish Labour Party will oppose this budget. The SNP has ignored the calls for a fair budget, awarded tax cuts to high earners and posed cuts to councils that will reduce jobs, close services and hit vulnerable people hardest. The debate over council funding has been central to the budget process. The cabinet secretary and SNP MSPs are kidding themselves on if they think that there are not going to be any cuts in council services. The reality is that there are £230 million of cuts across the country. We can trade the figures back and forward. The real test is when you look at the decisions that councils are considering on the ground. If you take Dundee, for example, where there is going to be a £3 million cut in education services, that will include a reduction in teaching posts of 26. What does that say about education, supposedly being the number one priority of this Government? In Clackmannanshire, the funding to the Citizens Advice Bureau faces being closed down and also support for food banks being reduced. Vulnerable people are going to be hit in that area. Murray services are going to be slashed, including library services and the proposed closure of swimming pools. The reality of the budget is that there are cuts, cuts and cuts all over the country. Child poverty is a scandal that stains modern Scotland—230,000 kids. Would James Kelly like to explain at this point what the headline tax rates would be under a Labour Government in Devolve, Scotland? Under your proposals, Mr Mackay, a lawyer on £190,000 will pay less tax. A chartered accountant on £100,000 will pay less tax. A chief executive on £120,000 will pay less tax. That is why workers in the streets of Dundee are demonstrating that they fear the loss of their jobs. What Labour would propose is a top rate of tax of £0.50—something that the SNP previously supported but then stepped back from. We would also extend tax being raised in a higher band. That would raise a significant amount that would mitigate the crisis that we see in the country and address issues like child poverty. It is something that should shame every MSP in this chamber that there are some kids in the country who are leaving for school in the morning who have not had a proper breakfast. That is an absolute scandal. That is why Labour proposed raising child benefit by £5. That was supported by charities and churches, and it was even given some support by Kevin Pringle in the Sunday Times, someone who carries some weight with SNP MSPs. The Government also failed in mitigating the two-child cap. That is a horrendous Tory policy that has been imposed by Westminster, but we had an opportunity in this Parliament to do things differently and it failed. On rail services, passengers continue to suffer delayed trains and cancelled trains. We see only today that the performance figures for ScotRail have plummeted to the lowest level ever. That is why Scottish Labour demanded a fairs freeze, another demand that is ignored by the Scottish Government. It is time that it started listening to the concerns of rail passengers and stripped the belly of the contract, giving us a fairs freeze in a publicly-owned railway. One of the changes from the first stage of the budget was the introduction of the proposal for the workplace parking levy. That is clearly a flawed proposal. First of all, in no way— I am grateful for the member taking the intervention on that point. Was it a flawed policy when his colleagues promoted it in both the Glasgow and Edinburgh local authority election manifesto? As the United Nations Trade Union has pointed out in recent days, any tax that imposes a tax on workers as they take their car to work is an unfair tax. It will be opposed. James Kelly did not answer John Finnie's question. I wonder if he will do so now. If it is such a bad policy, why did Labour propose it in their manifestos in Edinburgh and in Glasgow? It is a simple question. Let us have an answer. James Kelly? As the First Minister will be aware, your Government has carried out no economic assessment of this policy. You are proposing to bring it forward at stage 2 of the transport bill, and therefore limiting any proper scrutiny of the policy. It is a flawed policy, and it will be rejected by workers across Scotland. What we needed in this chamber was a budget that used fair taxation to stop the cuts and tackle poverty and inequality. What we got was a budget that would cause crisis in Scotland's communities. That budget lets people down, and we will oppose it at 5 pm. Just a few weeks ago, I took part in a public meeting in the White Hell school, which was debating with people from the Labour Party, the SNP and the Conservatives, and a great many people in the community debating the impact on their community if their poll was closed. As community centres and leisure centres across that city were all threatened, we all know the scale of what was under consideration before the budget agreement that secured not only new money but new flexibility for local councils. Today, my colleagues on Glasgow City Council, as they debate their budget this afternoon, are able to put forward a balanced budget proposal that involves saving all libraries, all sports facilities and community centres, protecting budgets for schools, including for additional support for the children who need it most in just a moment, and new measures such as a climate emergency fund to save money through energy saving, cutting waste and investing in renewable energy, Glasgow Crossrail and active travel—things that would not be possible were it not for the agreement that we have reached. I have time for one intervention. As the cabinet secretary tells the truth when he says that there are no cuts to any council's budget given the deal that the Greens and the SNP have struck, and if so, why are councils from Shetland to Dumfries debating lists of cuts that are as thick as you can find in every council across the country? If there are no cuts to be found, then tell us why they are doing that. Patrick Harvie. I am certainly not accountable for the words of the cabinet secretary, but I will say to Mr Finlay as I have said before. If he is willing to listen to the answer, I have said to him before that I have not pretended that this results in a perfect budget. We know that councils are facing rising demand for services, inflation costs and, indeed, in places such as Glasgow, the cost of an historic decades-long failure by the previous administration to meet the equal pay bill for councils. However, in Glasgow and indeed in Edinburgh, when my colleagues are putting forward a budget in Edinburgh that boosts care for older people by £9 million, an £80 million drive to a new programme of new high schools and also putting forward some of the same measures on the climate emergency, councils across Scotland are in a far stronger position to meet those challenges that they face as a result of the work that they have done. I will not pretend that it solves every problem, but I do say that it is a vast improvement. I say again to all political parties that this process would only have been better if every political party in here had engaged positively and put forward proper, constructive, costed proposals, as the Greens tried to do. I want to say something about the workplace parking levy. The reaction to this would be funny if it was not so dismal. This is a proposal legislated for down south by a Labour Government, used by a Labour council, proposed by Scottish Labour councillors, supported by Lib Dem MSPs and councillors in the past, voted by Tory councillors in the past. The fact that they have decided that this is an intolerable policy when we propose it but not when they propose it is simply a mark of shameless political opportunism. Coming in a week after young people across Scotland and the world have taken radical action themselves to demand urgent responses on air pollution and on climate change, some people appear to be losing the plot over something as trivial as this policy. That is not even in. Yes, indeed. Presiding Officer, this policy, the workplace parking levy, is not even in this budget. I will tell you this. It will never be in a Scottish budget, because this is about giving powers to councils where local decision makers decide that it is in the local interests. I want to finish with one appeal across the whole political spectrum. We now have the opportunity to do something radical to decentralise fiscal power in this country, something that Parliament should have done much earlier in its 20-year history. We have the opportunity to start devolving non-domestic rate reliefs. We have the opportunity to give new tax powers and new environmental levy powers to councils. We have the opportunity, finally, if all political parties take it, to scrap the broken unfair council tax that creates so much injustice in our society. I only hope that all politicians will step up to that opportunity and make sure that we get better improvements year on year as a result of the changes that we have negotiated in this year. That is shaping up to be the worst of Scottish budgets. You can tell the SNP to agree that their MSPs have spent so much of the last fortnight talking about which bits of the budget they do not support. In stage 1 debate, I said that Patrick Harvie had sold out local government for the vice convenership of the car park working group, but I may have spoken too soon. The entire SNP has run a mile from the proposal, so it looks like Patrick Harvie is going to be doing this all by himself. The SNP has lost any pretense of financial competence. I am yet to see any evidence that the tax change that was implemented last year has driven people out of the country, but the tax burden has to be managed with care, as we do not want to see falling revenues as a result of adverse behavioural change. I think that the SNP has lost its senses. Their record is now five new taxes, none of which were in the SNP manifesto, and two broken tax promises in just one year. If people think that taxes will rise at every budget and over a range of areas, this country will get a reputation for being high tax, and we may see the result in falling tax revenues. The Greens have been bought very cheaply. It turns out that the extra money for councils was already available. There were £123 million of October consequentials, £148 million of January consequentials, hundreds of millions of underspend this year, plus hundreds of millions of underspend next year that this Government's track record all but guarantees, plus increased tax receipts from the public sector pay increases, and £54 billion put into reserves. The Greens did not get all the money that was available, and the Greens said to councils that we have closed your £237 million funding gap with £90 million cash and permission to cut adult social care by £50 million—quite astonishing. Then they said that they do not expect councils to cut their social care, but they still closed the gap. It never added up, and it is a clear trick. Local Government financial reform has been delayed until the next Parliament, the next Parliament, yet more talks on top of all the other talks that we have had that have amounted to absolutely nothing. On council tax, the Greens used to say that the council tax was unfair, so unfair that they wanted to go up this year and become even more unfair. On the parking levy, the inventor of the plan, John Finnie, tweeted the wrong information about the Nottingham scheme. He said that he only paid for the 11th car parking space—not true, you pay for all 11. The budget is a list of policies that they do not understand, of cuts they cannot hide, of taxes they are putting up when they promised they would go down. What a budget this is turning out to be. Of course it could have been different. We offered to work with the SNP. We have done it before. In previous years, we voted for the budget. They remember that we voted for the budget when we secured extra support for early education and childcare, despite their opposition, for colleges, despite their opposition, for school meals. We have been prepared to work with the SNP. However, with the First Minister travelling the world to tell all about her plans to break up the United Kingdom, in the wake-up of the break-up of the European Union, it is no surprise that we might be just a little bit concerned. There is no way that we could support a budget of a Government determined to drive forward yet another divisive independence referendum. We asked for a cessation so that we could work together on this budget, but they could not even agree to a short cessation. Such is their obsession. We have successfully harried the Government to invest in mental health services, but the Government is now playing catch-up and we remain unconvinced that the funds announced will feed through to real change quickly enough. Last year, we said that mental health spend should rise to a total of £1.2 billion. A year later, it is still £100 million short. That is £100 million for new health professionals in the NHS, in schools and the police. We needed a budget that put teachers at the very centre of our developing economy in the years to come, and a proper and fair deal for local government was important to us. This year, we could have worked together on the needs of local government, on the funding of mental health and the support for teachers, but Dennett Mackay declined. I am sure that the finance secretary will be taking down his Catalan flag from his flagpole in Renfrew this weekend. It turns out that the Catalan pro-independence parties have insisted on a dialogue over independence as a price for them supporting the Spanish Government. Who says we are not allowed to put independence on the constitution at the heart of the budget debate? We will not support a Scottish Government that will use this budget as a stepping stone to independence and the economic damage that would bring. The budget could have been very different if it were not for the one-track mind of the SNP and its sidekicks of the Greens. Thank you very much. We turn now to the overbarth of the debate, and I call Angela Constance to be followed by Dean Lockhart. After the stage 1 debate a few weeks ago, I had hoped that the chamber would be in a more mature, reflective mood today, prepared to discuss and debate the big budget issues of the day on how best to grow our economy and how to make Scotland fairer. I know that I, for one, will not be quoting poetry Mr Mackay, because he is the only man that I know that, if a woman quotes Tamara Shantler atm, he takes it as a compliment. Instead, what we have heard over the past few weeks is a real heavy dose of hysteria. Hysteria is about 32 local authorities in Scotland getting the same powers along with 32, 32, 326 local authorities in England in relation to workplace parking. Despite having this power since 2000 and despite local government in England suffering a 17 per cent real-terms reduction to their budget in the last four years, only Nottingham City Council has used that local power. Of course, Tories and others will not let the facts get in the way of some good old-fashioned scaremongering, because what their campaign is about is reducing the debate about a £42 billion budget to the lowest common denominator. What their tactics are really about is diminishing debates in our Parliament to that of a parish council and an episode of the Vicar of Dibley. What we should be debating is where power lies and what other decisions should be made at a local level and how we can improve local democracy and local accountability. With 36 days to Brexit, we have heard all the full outrage about how dare the First Minister put a foot outside Scotland to represent our future economic interests when we run the risk of having our GDP falling by seven percentage points. That is playground politics at its best, at its worst, and it is a poverty of aspiration. I have listened carefully to what the Tories and others have said about taxation, but what interests me is that you never hear the Conservatives bemoan the fact that Scottish taxpayers pay twice to insulate the most vulnerable in our society from the harshest of Tory welfare austerity. Our citizens pay for both the Scottish and UK social security systems, and they have the right to expect fairness, dignity and respect from both Governments. Labour, as we have heard today, continues to advocate for a £5 increase in the... Yes, sure. Neil Findlay. The harshest is indeed the two-chill cap, is it not regrettable that we are not taking action in this budget to eradicate it? There is a very serious point about the role of mitigation, and I want to get on to the point that Mr Findlay raises. Although I regret that the Labour Party has not produced a costed alternative budget about how best we use our resources and powers in this place, the Labour Party, as we have heard, advocates a £5 increase in the near universal child benefit. I, on the other hand, would rather give an extra £10 to £20 to the children most in need, and by doing that, according to the IPPR, we would lift 40,000 children out of poverty, as opposed to 10,000 to 15,000 children. However, the challenge to Labour and the challenge for folk like me is where do we get that quarter of a billion pounds that it would cost annually to do that? That is a challenge for me and you as well as the Government. Can we please start to lift this debate about how we get wanes out of poverty, as opposed to convening our horizons to mitigation? Mitigation prevents a step backwards, but it does not enable a step forward. What we, in this Parliament, need to start recognising is that mitigation comes at a cost. In the UN rack and tour on extreme poverty—not a man imins his words—Mitigation comes at a price and is not sustainable. Frankly, it is outrageous that one Government has to use its resources to protect its citizens against the actions of another Government. Therefore, I for one will always argue for more powers for this Parliament, and Mr Rennie, I for one will always be a campaigner for independence, but I will not, however, ever demure from the debate about how best we use the powers and resources that we currently have available. I will never shirk from the debate or the hard work of building consensus about the best ways to grow our economy and make Scotland fairer, because the questions of the day are not about car parking charges. They are about how we reform our public services, recognising that resources are never infinite but needs always are. How we ensure that this generation of young people are not the first to be worse off than their parents. How we welcome new Scots from the EU and beyond. How we pay for the social democracy that we want. How we end poverty. How we, for the sake of our economy, step out of the short-term political cycle and have the courage and guts to plan and invest for the long term. That is what a budget debate in this Parliament should be about. The budget process is for grown-ups. It is about finding the basis of agreement in these difficult times to provide stability. That, at the end of the day, is what we are all elected to do and it is what the country rightly expects us to do. In the right resolution debate earlier this week, the Scottish National Party declared that its tax proposals are based on the key principles of being progressive and protecting low-paid workers, raising additional government revenue and supporting the economy. However, as always, once you look beyond the SNP spin, it becomes clear that the budget delivers on none of those principles. The reality is that the budget is regressive and will only serve to penalise low-paid workers in Scotland. Everyone earning £27,000 or more will have a lower take-home pay than their friends and colleagues in the rest of the UK. Those are ordinary, hard-working people, nurses, police officers and teachers who are now having to pay for the SNP's high-tax, low-growth agenda. The budget also delivers higher council tax bills for low-income households across Scotland, with many families facing an increase of more than £500 a year. However, worst of all, the budget introduces a new tax, the car park tax, which could cost low-paid workers an extra £500 a year. Organisations across Scotland have rightly warned that that is a deeply unpopular and regressive tax. It is not based on the ability to pay, and it will hit the lowest-paid workers the most. I will in a second highlight to John Mason that yesterday Unite warned the SNP that that tax will penalise workers just for turning up to work. The Scottish Food and Drink Federation has warned that full-time workers on lower-level wages would fall below the national living wage if they have to pay the car park tax. I thank Mr Lockhart for giving way. Will he at least accept that the parking levy is not in the budget in the first place, and secondly that it still has to go through its parliamentary process and we will examine all the details of it? Mr Lockhart, you should know that your party has agreed with the Greens as part of the budget negotiation process for this unfair tax. Presiding Officer, if the SNP thinks that increasing the tax burden on low and middle earners, increasing council tax bills and imposing a tax on workers for parking their car at work is fair, progressive and protecting low-paid workers, then they are clearly out of touch with the hard-working people of Scotland. The SNP has also declared that this budget will raise additional Government revenues to support public services. It is true that increasing the tax gap with the rest of the UK will in itself raise £68 million in revenue for the next current financial year. However, that has to be seen in the context of total forecast income tax revenues for next year being revised downwards by the SFC by £660 million. Now that Scottish income tax is under the control of the SNP, we are now seeing the real negative budgetary consequences of Scotland's economy growing at just half the rate of the rest of the UK. The Fraser of Allander has made it clear that the new fiscal framework puts an explicit burden on the Scottish Government to secure growth rates at least equal to the rest of the UK. The Fraser of Allander goes on to say that if Scottish income tax revenues grow just one-third of a per cent slower than UK levels, the Scottish budget will be short by £250 million. However, that is exactly what is being forecast by the SFC and the OBR, slower income tax revenue growth in Scotland compared with the rest of the UK, which will significantly reduce the budget that is available for public spending in Scotland. The member will, of course, then welcome the fact that the Scottish economy grew faster than the UK has a whole last year. Does he accept of what is his opinion on whether Brexit will help us to grow the economy or hinder that? Dean Lockhart Well, for nine of the last 11 years that the SNP has been powered, the Scottish economy has grown slower than the rest of the UK, and the SFC is forecasting five more years of stagnation under the SNP, so that is the answer to your question. The budget will only make this worse by increasing the tax gap with the rest of the UK. The Chartered Institute of Taxation has warned that taxpayers will now take steps to relocate away from Scotland or incorporate their business and take themselves out of Scotland's tax base. The finance secretary has to recognise that under the fiscal framework, the priority must be to increase Scotland's tax revenues relative to the rest of the UK, but that budget does precisely the opposite and will create a vicious cycle of ever-higher taxis having to be imposed on a declining tax base in Scotland. The SNP has also claimed that its tax policy will support Scotland's economy. Every leading business organisation in Scotland disagrees. The CBI has warned that Scottish business will be unable to compete with rivals across the UK in the event of further divergence of tax rates. The Scottish Chambers of Commerce has told the SNP that the sooner politicians realise that supporting economic growth rather than hiking up taxis is the route towards increasing revenues, the quicker Scotland will prosper. The Federation of Small Business has told the SNP that its latest tax increases will erode the trust of the small business community. We have a straight choice here. We can either believe the SNP that higher taxis will grow the economy or we can believe every leading business organisation in Scotland that higher taxis will damage economic growth. I think that it is clear which side of the argument is correct. After 11 years of SNP Government, we are already seeing the longest period of low growth in Scotland for 60 years. That budget will only cause further damage to Scotland's economy as forecast by the SFC. By introducing the deeply regressive car park tax, the budget also shows the people of Scotland that this is a tired government, a government out of ideas, out of touch and fast running out of time. That is why we will be voting against the budget at decision time today. Thank you. I call Tom Arthur to be followed by Pauline McNeill. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. It is an honour to have the opportunity to contribute to this stage 3 budget debate. I would like to begin by highlighting one single budget line that I am delighted to see contained. That is the £180 million towards the attainment challenge and £120 million to go direct towards head teachers. I am sure that the whole chamber will join me in congratulating the outstanding work of teachers, staff, pupils and parents in Renfisher and Renfisher Council officials on their achievement this week. Significant year-on-year improvements in listening, talking, reading, writing and numeracy with the attainment gap closing across all measures. Renfisher is an area in which we have some incredibly challenging circumstances for some of our young people. That is an achievement that I think we should be incredibly proud of teachers, pupils and staff in Renfisher Council. I hope that the Parliament will show its appreciation. I think that what has characterised much of this debate has been a great deal of heat, but not a great deal of light. It has been remarked by many that we are marking the 20th anniversary of devolution, which a promise was of a new kind of politics, a new kind of a Parliament. A Parliament where the architects of our electoral system envisaged that all parties would have to work together to collaborate, and this would be necessary no more in setting a budget for the Parliament. Unfortunately, a lot of the debate does not seem to be much of standing when confronted with reality. In the previous contribution, Dean Lockhart spoke about the different rates of growth between Scotland and the rest of the UK. He quoted SFC figures, and he is perfectly entitled to do so. I think that we need to drill down a bit further. For example, if we look at the GDP per person differential between Scotland and the rest of the UK, it narrows. If we look at the per capita working age GDP between Scotland and the rest of the UK, the difference in the forecast of the SFC disappears completely. Why would this be the case? It is a demographic issue. We have an older population, so we face a significant challenge in growing our population so that we can fund our public services. That is something that is going to be made incredibly difficult by Brexit, and yes, there are challenges for the Scottish Government, there are challenges for us in this Parliament and in continuing to make Scotland an attractive place. When we have a Prime Minister, who is Home Secretary, who is architect of the hostile environment, a Prime Minister, whose former Cabinet colleague stated on national television last night that she believes that the Prime Minister has an immigration problem, that is deeply concerning. As Angela Constance mentioned, mitigation might be able to stop us taking a step back, but we will never be able to take a step forward when powers over immigration are held in London and are exercised by someone with the views and values of the Prime Minister. Another key area with regard to growing our economy of course is productivity, and it is a challenge that has received much commentary both within this Parliament and by many thinkers outwith. I wish to quote from a recent article in the Respected Society Now, the Economic and Social Research Council's journal. It is from Professor Philip McCann, who is a professor of urban and regional economics at the University of Sheffield. He made some interesting remarks regarding productivity in the UK. He stated that the first and most striking difference between the UK and other nations, says McCann, is a massive variation in economic productivity between its regions and nations. Those different levels of productivity in turn drive levels of affluence and influence social conditions, and are regarded as a key determinant of economic success. McCann's message is that among the industrial economies, the UK has some of the world's biggest inter-regional differences in productivity. He has an example to make the point. On some measures, the UK has bigger productivity variations than the whole of the Eurozone. It has regions that are less productive in many parts of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Baltic States and the former East Germany, and almost half of the UK population today lives in areas that are poorer than West Virginia or Mississippi in the US, where British TV companies go to make documentaries about poverty. To suggest that somehow the challenge in productivity is exclusively an issue for Scotland and exclusively an issue for the Scottish Government, is not something that stacks up. I think that we have to be a bit mature, more mature in how we discuss productivity in a range of other measures. I think that there is much else that he adds, but I think that something that is very with, while bearing in mind, is when he articulates regarding those variations within the UK. He states that the higher productivity areas that he says include London and a wide wave of the south-east, the east and parts of the southwest of England, as well as Scotland. He then goes on in this article to praise the work of the Scottish Parliament and how it has enabled a more data-driven approach. He highlights how smaller territorial units of around £4.5 million are able to address issues of productivity far more effectively. Those are some of the things that we have to take on board. We can come into the chamber—I am as guilty of it as an expert—and we can engage in cheap politics and exchange blows and get progressively more erasable as a debate progresses, but that is ultimately not going to make a difference for the people who we are sent here to represent. What does make a difference for the people who we are sent here to represent is the money in the attainment challenge. The money is going to go into schools in my constituency, the money of its enabling headteachers like Jackie McBurnie and St Anthony's in Johnston to go and deliver such outstanding results if it becomes the first Scottish school to receive the UK Literacy School Award. I hope that in next year's budget—the conversations about next year's budgets can start imminently, but we can take a more mature and constructive approach and live up to the aspirations that the architects of devolution have for this place. There are some things in the budget that I agree with—the introduction of a new best start grant for low-income families and the widening criteria for funeral expenses. The care is supplement, though it could be better still. On the whole, the budget does not meet Scotland's challenges to protect public services. Scottish Labour will oppose the budget as it stands. We believe that it further entrends austerity in our communities and will much deeper cuts to our public services. The pressure on local authorities has never been greater and services are so acute. I do not really remember a time when local authorities were more hard-pressed on funds and where communities faced cuts in basic services than headteachers writing to parents about unprecedented cuts. Life is hard for many people struggling to make ends meet, utterly shafted by a decade of wage stagnation, rising prices and job insecurity. One in four children in Scotland lives in poverty, and the Government has repeatedly rejected the calls of Labour and a broad range of the third sector, including the child poverty action group, to top up child benefit to lift children out of poverty. Meanwhile, we remain in the dark about what the proposed income supplement will look like, and the analysis by the Fraser of Alunodder shows that 0.1 per cent of the Scottish budget is targeted at low-income families with children. The effects of child poverty, discussed in this Parliament on many occasions, should not be underestimated. Children from higher-income families significantly outperform those from low-income households at ages 3 and 5. By 5, there is a gap of 10 months in problem-solving development and of 13 months in vocabulary. Three-year-olds and households with incomes below £10,000 are two and a half times more likely to suffer chronic illness than children in other households. As well as being harmful to children and families, child poverty has a wider cost to society. A 2013 study estimates that the high levels of child poverty in the UK are currently costing the country at least £29 billion a year. That includes the policy interventions and long-term losses to the economy, lower educational attainment, poorer mental health and physical health. Labour analysis shows that a top-up of £5 a week could benefit a total of more than 270,000 families across the country who would see their household income top by at least £520 a year. It is wrong to say that income does not matter to low-income families. Hard cash makes the difference. If you want the evidence, look at the Labour Government's introduction of working tax credits in 2010, which has lifted tens of thousands out of poverty, so do not tell me that hard cash does not matter. It does. I want to say a few words on the tax on work. In a moment of complete madness, in my opinion, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance offered the Green Party the prospect of powers to devolve and introduce a workplace levy on car parking without any consideration of the detail or who it would defend or, indeed, what the object is. I will take an intervention if you just let me make a few more points. I will be happy to do that. A part of the deal is to legislate from this. So far, I have not heard one word in defence of the substantial case for the levy. All I have heard is who said what to who. Frankly, I am not interested in that. This Labour group here is opposed to the devolution of working tax debt. We are opposed to this, and I am personally immovable on this. There is zero understanding—I will in a minute—if you think that this is a real prospect for working families—44 per cent of adults who do not pay income tax because they earn less than £12,500. Cabinet Secretary, far from scaremongering, why would you risk a policy that will tax people to go to work? I will take your intervention. Before this happens, can our mind members not to use the term you? You must speak through the chair. My intervention was for some moments ago, but the point is that Labour and local Government is campaigning for discretionary taxes, but my intervention is on the point of detail to fund the commitments that Pauline McNeill is asking for. Can Pauline McNeill tell me the detail from the Labour Party? How would they be funded? Rather, Cabinet Secretary, it is for you to tell us why you support this policy, but she seems reluctant to do it. Let us take this argument a little bit further. There is already talk of exemptions, but not so far of exemptions for low-paid people or even in Scotland's largest city, who can still not get a reliable bus or train to work. It beggars belief that there are three pages in this budget devoted to public transport, but no revolution in the bus industry. In fact, you cannot even make the trains run on time. A child could see that you would put investment in public transport first before you would consider a levy. That is an indicator that this has not been thought through. You have already lost the argument if you have not seen it out there. I challenge the SNP and the Greens will you conduct a public consultation and see what the public thinks about a tax to work? I am confident that the public will tell you where to go with the end-conclusion, light unite, light unison. I asked the Glasgow MSPs in this chamber, will you back this tax to work? Hands up all the Glasgow MSPs who are going to back this tax to work. You are defending it, not one single substantial work. The most centralising Government, not all of a sudden, believes that abandoning it now stands up for working people. That is what you were elected to do. Your passion does you credibly. You still kept using the term you. I will be determined. Keith Brown, followed by Miles Briggs, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to speak in favour of the budget proposals of the Scottish Government. I believe that they show a progressive agenda being pursued by the Government, despite what is obviously one of the most financially difficult backgrounds that are caused by two things. First of all, the failed austerity agenda of the Conservatives and the complete economic failure of the previous Labour Government. If you remember, the legacy of the Labour Government, in the last five words, there is no money left. That was Labour's legacy. It is interesting that it must be a difficult budget because look at the action of the three parties other than the Greens, the Opposition parties. The Tories do not want to be seriously part of this because they know that a half million, £5 billion tax cuts and more spending for everything does not add up, so that is why they do not come up with a budget proposal. Labour, I think, is simply incapable of coming up with a budget proposal. I was approached by a Labour councillor asking if I would put an amendment to the budget, presumably because he felt that he could not get an amendment past a Labour group in the first place. Then we come to the lonely figure of Willie Rennie, who wants everyone else to give up on what they believe in in order to even have a discussion about the budget. Even his former colleague Margaret Smith described that as bizarre and stupid, and that is why the Liberal Democrats have had no input into the budget at all. I spoke in the previous stage of the budget and I made the point then that there is a very difficult national context given the austerity squeeze. That has resulted in a slashing of the Scottish budget by over £2 billion over the past decade by the Tory Government, and I also mentioned the financial consequences of Labour and its disastrous PFI projects. Of course, that had the usual outcry from the Labour Party, desperate to avoid any responsibility for the size of the challenge faced by local authorities. Last year, the Labour debt legacy Local Government Inherited was £434 million nationally, and thanks to contracts signed under the previous Labour executive in its place, those debts will have to continue to be paid for decades to come. In Clubmanusia, which was mentioned by Richard Leonard earlier today and by James Kelly, three high schools were built because the lower Labour Party chose to go for PFI. Saddling Clubmanusia council with debts of around £8.5 million this year, that is 17 per cent of their education budget before they can spend a penny on schools. I will tell you that neither the Citizens Advice Bureau nor the schools that were mentioned earlier on will close if it is anything to do with SNP. Of course, I cannot speak for the Labour Party. The situation in the Stirling council, which I also represent, is a little better. The debt repayment share total is £11.7 million last year, which is 14 per cent of its entire education budget. The reality of that legacy has to be faced by councils as they try to set their budget. It is taking place not just against that background but also against the background of failed Tory austerity and pernicious welfare and benefit reforms. Patrick Harvie mentioned earlier on the increasing demand both on councils and on public services, and that is certainly not helping things in my constituency. Unfortunately, this Parliament does not yet have the powers to implement fairer policies right across the board, which have dignity and respect at their core. However, what it can and does do is mitigate some of the worst excesses of the Tory welfare policies in order to provide relief for at least some of the appalling consequences of those unfair policies. I am happy now to give way to any Conservative member who is willing to say that they are committed to the mitigation of the bedroom tax. I know that they have clarified their position on the bedroom tax today by saying that it does not exist, but if they want to come forward and say that they support the mitigation for 70,000 families up to £650 on average per year, support it now and support it beyond 2021, I am more than happy to hear from them. I think that silence is going to be greeted with real concern by people across Scotland, because that to me means that the Tory tax, which is supported by the Liberal Democrats when Willie Rennie's party was in office, is the Tory tax. The absolute bunkum that we have heard from Dean Locker expressing concern for hard-working poor families in Scotland on tax proposals is that they are willing to take away that mitigation for the bedroom tax and impose the Tory tax, which apparently does not exist on the people of Scotland. That is a huge benefit—£30 million per year and 70,000 families per year. In addition to that, the benefits for carers—or Pauline McNeill mentioned the best art grant—is that going to go as well if the Tories get the chance to do that? Those are the real things that affect people in Scotland. Angela Constance is quite right to say that we do not have all the powers to deal with this, and a sensible argument has to be undertaken about how we can properly address child poverty and rising poverty. It has to be done in conjunction with the Government of Westminster that is willing to play its part. That is not happening just now. The bedroom tax is appalling. I know that it was first looked at and brought in by the Labour Party, Andrew Adonis, but it has been taken to new measures and it is a real bind for the people that are having to pay it. It is perhaps not the tax that is most obvious, because it has been mitigated, as the First Minister said earlier today. People sometimes are unaware of the fact that they will certainly be aware of the fact that the Tory party wants to take away, as we see today, the mitigation that is there and fully impose that particular burden on families in Scotland. Will the people in Scotland continue to support their London masters and the absolute destruction and dissolution of Westminster that we have seen this week with people who, at the start of the week, were Labour MPs, some of whom were Tory MPs, sitting down shaking hands on the same benches? Not one of the Tory MSPs here has said what their view is on the view of those Tory MPs that have left, which said that the Tory party is in the grip of the ERG and the DUP and has abandoned every principle that it has. They are willing to speak up about it, not one single Tory MSP will speak up about the biggest threat to the welfare of families in Scotland, which is a hard Brexit or any Brexit at all. Where are they going to find a spine to speak up for the people of Scotland? Where are they going to find a spine to propose a proper, responsible amendment? The member is just closing. I am afraid that you must conclude. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate and support the Scottish Government's proposals. I call Miles Drake to follow by Kenneth Gibson. In my time as an MSP, I have not seen such a negative reaction from members of the public to any budget proposal, like I have seen to the SNP car tax. I know that the First Minister has not had the opportunity to speak to many Scots recently, but it is important that, in the coming weeks, SNP members and ministers start to listen to the growing concerns at the impact that the SNP car tax will have on businesses, on workers and on the economic attractiveness of our country. The finance secretary has already admitted to this Parliament that there has been no consultation whatsoever on the proposed new tax. Not a great place for our councils when they are looking to take this forward. As each day passes, SNP ministers seem to be digging themselves into ever-deeper holes, deeper than some of the worst potholes on our roads. Nicola Sturgeon claimed that people who did not live in areas where the tax is to be imposed, which now seems to be Scotland's major cities, would not be affected. That is just not true. Miles Briggs, for taking the intervention. When the draft budget was published, Miles Briggs welcomed many elements of the draft budget, including the extension of free personal care. Does Miles Briggs have any shame in voting against making the resources available to deliver the extension of free personal care? Miles Briggs. As Pauline McNeill outlined, parts of the budget are welcome, but this is not a budget that is going to deliver anything for Scotland. The things that we have forced the Government to do, I will take credit for, but this is not the budget that will help our country to move forward. The impact—it was interesting that the cabinet secretary did not want to talk about his car park tax, because hard-working families across my Lothian region are the ones who will pay the price. Many of my constituents who live in west, mid and east Lothian drive to their work here in the capital and will be the very people affected. Car journeys from commuters and residents outside Edinburgh last year saw 12,381 commuters from west Lothian, 10,316 commuters from mid Lothian and more than 10,000 from east Lothian. Many people who live in west, mid and east Lothian but who work here in Edinburgh have looked to take advantage of cheaper house prices. I am grateful to the member for getting away. Mr Briggs may be happy to see that vast volume of traffic flooding into Edinburgh city centre every day. Does the Conservative party have any proposals for tackling the pollution and climate change crisis that this kind of short-sighted, unsustainable approach to transport policy is causing? Mr Harvie, I think that you summed up this policy when you said that this was a trivial policy. This is not a trivial policy. This will impact on everyone in Scotland. This is an impact on people and their businesses. It will impact on our GPs, our care homes. This is the impact that you have not explained. Maybe you did not think through the policy. Maybe it was not yours. Maybe the cabinet secretary suggested it for votes. We do not know, but I am proud to represent Edinburgh and Lothian. As our capital city, it remains a vibrant and successful city, but SNP ministers are increasingly risking that. Edinburgh in the south-east has outperformed our Scottish economy last year and is actually performing still. The only part of our economy is still growing. I know from speaking to businesses across my region that they increasingly feel that this finance secretary and this Government is taking the economy of the Lothians for granted. This Scottish Government budget has demonstrated that increasing deficit in debt levels that this Government is spending is also building up. Last year, for example, the deficit was over £13.4 billion, equivalent to 9.7 per cent of our GDP, while the UK rate was at 1.9. The Scottish Government debt has hit £1.5 billion this year, as SNP ministers borrow the very maximum on the nation's credit card. It used to be said that, as night follows day, the fundamental truth of any Labour Government was that it eventually ran out of other people's money, but it now seems that the SNP finance minister has joined the same club. I have only got two minutes left having taken three interventions from SNP members and Patrick Harvie, which is maybe the same thing. Deputy Presiding Officer, the fundamental fact of this SNP green budget is that it will hit small town Scotland, hardworking Scots who play by the rules, work hard and who are trying to get on in life and build a better life and future for them and their families. Deputy Presiding Officer, my colleague Murdo Fraser famously last year lamented the deal struck by the finance secretary and the Greens in this Parliament, when he somewhat cruelly said to Derek Mackay that he had done a deal with the lentil munching sandal-wearing watermelons. While looking at this budget in the round, what is clear is that in the last few weeks we have seen that this SNP green budget, the lentils have fermented, the sandals have snapped and the watermelon in it is truly rotten. Deputy Presiding Officer, we had an opportunity with this budget to deliver a budget for jobs and growth for our country, for our constituents. All that we have got from SNP and Green members is a tax on small town Scotland. I think that they will pay the price in 2021 for all their new taxes. Over half of councils plan on dipping into their reserves this coming year, and three quarters will increase council tax by the maximum amount in 2019-20. Children's services and education is the number one financial pressure for the second year running ahead of adult social care, which is still under severe demand pressures. Cuts are increasingly visible, with half of authorities feeling cuts are now, and I quote, negatively affecting relationships with local communities. Eight in 10 councils say that they are not confident in the sustainability of local government finance. Indeed, one in 20 councils are concerned that cuts are so deep that they will struggle to deliver the legal minimum level of services, and 80 per cent of no confidence in the current funding model. Now more than ever, we need a thriving, resilient local government sector to weather the storm of national uncertainty, but years of chronic underfunding has left local government on life support. No, those comments are not about Scotland. They refer to English local authorities and were made only last week in public sector executive by local government information unit chief executive, Jonathan Carr West. Richard Watts, chair of the local government association's resources board, said that the survey illustrates the severity of the challenges after a 40 per cent cut in UK government funding for English councils. Emphasising the upcoming spending review will make a break for vital council services. For COSLA, Tory councillor Gail MacGregor told the local government and community's committee the duty funding cuts, and I quote, local government is collapsing in England and Wales. Whilst asking for more resources and fundraising powers, councillor MacGregor failed to say how much additional funding COSLA sought, or it would come from, neither did any opposition MSP. Today, we have got Tory MSPs bleating about alleged cuts in Scotland, whilst a UK government to which they display dog-like devotion eviscerates local authorities south of the border. The hypocrisy is simply breathtaking. Meanwhile, Labour MSPs will be disappointed that this budget does not include Labour's manifesto commitment to introduce workplace parking charges. However, it allows for an amendment to the transport bill, giving local authorities the choice of whether or not to introduce a parking levy, a power labour Lib Dem, and Tory councillors asked for, about which their parties now criticise or take an intervention. Do you want lament? Ms Lamont, your microphone, please. Sorry, I wonder if you could clarify. Are you saying that the job losses and the public service cuts and the closures are all alleged across Scotland? Rather than the reality that far too many communities are going to have to experience? Labour's absence of memory—this is unbelievable. I was a Glasgow counciller when Labour cut 9 per cent from the city budget in one year and 3,500 jobs. That is a budget that increases local government funding. However, as we know, Labour is in truly dire straits. Once it covered the plains like the buffalo, when I was re-elected to Glasgow city council in 1995, it numbered 77 while I was the sole SNP councillor. Those days, sightings of Labour members are becoming increasingly rare, with 4,674 in Scotland chucking it last year and 18.2 per cent fall. The impact of Richard Leonard's leadership is similar to that of the Black Death on a medieval town. With eight of their MPs resigning this week so far, it is only Thursday, Project Corbyn has hit the rock, so what to do while having a credible alternative? Any alternative to the budget would be a good start. However, as I go the way of the dodo to prevent extinction, Jackie Baillie, Neil Findlay, John Lamont and James Kelly could perhaps form part of a captive breeding programme. Who will the Silverback Biro wonder? Members of the public could pay to go up but not feed back. I can hear their meeting calls now. A decade ago, Labour set out its conditions for supporting the SNP's budget of the day. John Swinney met those demands in full only to be told by Labour's finance spokesperson, Andy Kerr, that he could not carry his own group. Ultimately, Labour did at the second attempt for fear of an election back that budget. It is sure though that even negotiating an agreement with it is no guarantee that it will deliver. No doubt that is why Labour does not even bother to engage any more, moaning about whatever the SNP proposes but rarely a UK Tory Government that imposes austerity. It has made them increasingly marginalised. I have taken in intervention. One is enough. I urge the SNP to back the budget and come to the table, but I do not mind some positive suggestions next year, although I will not be holding my breath. It is funny how Labour are always deaf to the 28,000 local government jobs that have gone in Wales under their administration. However, Mr Corbyn says that that is because of UK Government cuts, but he ignores UK Government cuts to this Parliament. The Lib Dems, one is all suspicious of any Parliament or a country with the word Democrat in its title, like Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democrats in Russia, People's Democratic Republic of North Korea, or Democratic Campachia. The famous five led by a leader in cable of taking interventions to LASNP, with 62 MSPs to take intervention on the table— Sit down a minute, Mr Gibson. I cannot hear what people are saying, but I want to hear what people are saying. Mr Gibson, please. I have told you, Mr Gibson. Willie Rennie and Coe need to participate. I know that they fear losing unions' votes to Tories and Labour, but I am sure that their tactical voters will forgive them. The budget strengthens Scotland's stability in the face of Brexit uncertainty and takes our economy forward. It fully funds its economic action plan, improves the competitiveness of our business environment and will bolster growth. My constituents will benefit from a 3.6 per cent increase in NHS Ayrshinan's budget to £720 million. Resource and capital available to North Ayrshire Council increases by £26.6 million from £279.842 million to £306.502 million and a 9.5 per cent uplift. We will introduce Frank's law, which shockingly mills Briggs, who campaigned for it, will now vote against. We continue to support young people to develop a workforce with a skills base fit for the future by investing £600 million in Scotland's colleges, more than £1 billion in our universities and £214 million in apprenticeships and skills. Of course, there are some who do not want Scotland to have an outward-looking economy in society, who would rather our First Minister stayed at home, ran disgust, trained in future relations in France and did not address the assembly nationality to set out Scotland's vision to support EU nationals post-Brexit or promote Scottish business in North America. The Government's bid budget rejects an insular indecisive Scotland, reluctant to embrace the future, but one open to talent from around the world to new opportunities and to prosperity for all. When we look back on this parliamentary term and the budgets agreed, it will be remembered for the shameful attack on local council services. When SNP and Green MSPs rubber-stamped the budget today, it will mean that across Scotland in the days and the weeks ahead, councillors of all political persuasions and none will once again have to wrestle with the painful choices of which of their community services do they cut, which of their neighbour's jobs do they act. To me, it is taking place just now in council chambers up and down Scotland. They are not about which services to trim, they are about which services to scrap. The undeniable fact about this budget is that local councils face a £230 million real-terms cut this year alone. That is not my figure, it is a figure from the independent Scottish Parliament information centre. Extra burdens have been landed on councils as a full funding to meet those burdens and existing services, and that means cuts. Let us end this myth that those cuts to councils have nothing to do with the decisions of this Government. That is somehow it is all somebody else's fault. The Scottish Parliament information centre has made clear that between 2013 and 2018, the Scottish Government cut council revenue budgets by 7.1 per cent, while its own budget fell by 1.3 per cent. Just as austerity from the UK Tories is their political choice, attacking local council services by this SNP Scottish Government is their political choice. I thank the member very much for giving way. If he would like to give more to local government, would he reduce that from the NHS? Colin Smyth. What I would do, I would start by not going ahead with the tax cut that the SNP are proposing in this budget. People on £124,000 a year will be paying less tax this year than they were last year. That is something that anybody interested in progressive taxation should be ashamed of. For SNP speakers today to pretend that there are no cuts to councils is to close their eyes to what is happening in their own communities and to turn their backs on their own constituents. I have far more respect for the SNP and this Government. If it had the guts to stand up and admit that the choices that it wants to make means that local government will have to make cuts to many existing services. However, for anyone to deny that these cuts are being made at all, it is just not being honest with the people of Scotland. In my south Scotland region, I asked each council to tell me what this budget means for them. I asked every one of them, will there be cuts? Every one of them said yes. SNP Labour-run-dom Feas and Galloway told me that they will have to make cuts and raise taxes to fill a funding gap of over £15 million. SNP East Ayrshire is £8 million, South Ayrshire is £10 million, Scottish Borders is £9 million, Midlothian is £7 million, East Lothian is £10 million in a second and South Lanarkshire is £11 million. I have looked behind those figures to see what those cuts mean for people. I am grateful to Mr Smith for giving way in all seriousness. I understand and respect his anger and wish that the budget was better even that it achieved perfection. Does he understand my frustration that a group of six of us have worked hard knocking our pans out for months to find costed proposals to make improvements while dozens of Labour MSPs offer nothing in the way of constructive, realistic proposals for change? Colin Smyth. When Patrick Harvie can be bought off with £90 million and a £42 billion budget, it is no wonder that the SNP do deals with the Greens. I know that the SNP has no intention of doing a deal with anyone else because keeping the independence coalition together is more important than keeping council services. That is what is important. I have given away already and I will probably not have enough time to give any more. I have looked behind some of those cuts. Let's look at the reality of redundancies in council jobs, including cuts in teaching posts and learning support at a time. A third of Scottish children leave primary school without the expected attainment levels in literacy and numeracy. The action of leisure services is when a third of Scotland's school children are obese. The ending of lifeline taxi card schemes for older people when we live in an ageing population. I could list more and more from the pages and pages of cuts in the reports sitting on the desk of councillors, as we speak. It is heart-breaking and it should same every single one of us. However, what is even more shameful is the way that the SNP demean their own councillors by pretending that cuts do not exist. Enough is enough. It is time to stop those cuts. To be honest enough to say that if we want high-quality public services, we have to properly use the progressive tax powers of this Parliament, not cut taxes for the rich, as the budget proposes. At a time, the SNP says that the budget does not cut taxes. Will the rally attest? It is an indefence, and he said that it is the UK budget. You could reverse those decisions because you have the power to do it. It is indefensible that someone earning as much as £124,000 will pay less income tax this year than he did last year. Most higher-rate taxpayers, including people earning more than £100,000, will receive £140 tax cut with their schools and care for the elderly services that are the very fabric of our community's face cuts. Astonishingly, between the draft budget and the final budget today, we have seen a deal done that chooses not to raise progressive taxation such as the top rate of income tax but increases regressive taxes on the poor. Councils are facing raising council tax by nearly 5 per cent. Of course, we now have plans for a new car park tax on workers. I recognise that fiscal measures have a role to play in protecting our environment, but that is a regressive tax that the company boss is paying the same as the company cleaner. The exemptions that the Government proposed mean that the chief executive of the health board on £100,000 will not pay, but the carer who works for a charity and has paid their minimum wage will pay. No wonder Unison says that it devalues the contribution of council workers and other staff who, like their health service colleagues, deliver vital services. No wonder the GMB says that it is an attack on the take-home pay of workers. No wonder Unites says that the levy is a desperate attempt to resolve the Government from the funding crisis today. That budget could not be an opportunity for progressive politics. It is a chance to stop the cuts to council services. The SNP and Greens are good when it comes to the rhetoric of ending austerity, but that budget shows that they are all talk, ordinary workers and services that are paying the price. We are tight for time, if members could be mindful of that, please. Stuart McMillan, followed by Liz Smith. I will be voting for the budget today and all parties to do so, to put an end to the oppositionist and ill-thought-out reasoning to vote against it. Every budget is challenging and no budget, whether it is in Parliament or a local authority, will be perfect. Patrick Harvey touched on that earlier on in his comments. How can it be that every politician will actually want more money to be spent on a wide variety of items and the pot of money is not bottomless? Consider that this is the apartment of minorities once again, as it was intended to be apparently, and ensure that it is incumbent upon all the parties to put forward genuine proposals and enter into genuine dialogue to try to get some wins that they actually want. Unfortunately, the haplists, the Tories and the hopeless Labour have proven once again to be failures at wanting to improve the budget, and then there are the Lib Dems. I will be voting for the budget tonight. Here are just some of the reasons why 55 per cent of income taxpayers will pay less than those in the rest of the UK. 99 per cent of income taxpayers will pay the same or less than last year. It will deliver a whopping £729 million extra for health and care services. It provides £180 million for attainment, including £120 million to head teachers to close the attainment gap. We heard from Tom Arthur earlier on the success that is going on in the Renfrewshire Council, and more than £5 billion of capital investment, including more new homes for my Greenock and Inverclyde constituency. Building on the new homes in recent years, including those in Slymur and Port Glasgow, which the housing minister went to only a couple of months ago, and the 200 that were passed through planning last week in Inverclyde Council versus the Olson Stevens high school site in Port Glasgow. Those measures and many more are in the face of the continued Tory obsession with austerity, which has seen Scotland's resource block grant slashed by £2 billion and £2 billion in real terms since 2010. Johann Lamont Can you explain why you justify a disproportionate cut to local government, which is meaning a loss of jobs in public services across Scotland and, as far as I am aware, also in your constituency? How on earth can you describe that as a fair budget that you are happy to vote for at 5 o'clock? Will the member remember to speak through the chair, please? Stuart McMillan First of all, that is not true. Secondly, I am going to come on to local government in a minute. The fact that the Scottish National Party is still managing to do these things speaks volumes for the excellent way that Derek Mackay is doing his job as a finance secretary. Instead of the opposition parties greeting and governing from the sidelines, they should be thanking Derek Mackay for delivering a budget that is going to deliver for our country. They should also be asking what more they can do to stop their head offices in London from working against Scotland and Scotland's budget. The Scottish Government will also continue to spend almost £100 million mitigating Tory welfare cuts, including the bedroom tax, which Michelle Ballantyne shamefully claims does not exist. Murdo Fraser touched upon £100 million earlier on in his comments. Mr Fraser, that £100 million that Mr Mackay is putting in to mitigate could be better spent on something more progressive for a nation as compared to solely trying to mitigate against the worst obsession of Tory cuts. I will give Michelle Ballantyne an opportunity to stand up to apologise to the 80,000 Scots that are affected by this callous policy, if she wants to do so. Michelle Ballantyne People in the room quite clearly know that what I said is that it is not a bedroom tax. It was the removal of a spare room subsidy, not a tax. Stuart McMillan It is a subsidy, it is not a tax. Once again, the Tories are proving yet again that they do not understand and do not comprehend what is going on in the real world in our streets, our communities and Scotland. The £100 million is also in addition to the investment in food banks from £1.5 million to £3.5 million, which is a consequence of a brutalist Tory regime with no heart, no compassion and absolutely no clue of the real world. If the Scottish Government had extra money to spend, it could invest in many other ways as compared to solely mitigating against Tory cuts. Only last week, the UK Government's work and pension secretary, Amber Rudd, admitted for the first time that universal credit is driven people to food banks. If the Tory UK Government can finally admit their policies and are leading people to destitution in food banks, why can't the Tories hear in the Scottish Parliament? I will give the Tories another opportunity to apologise to the population of Scotland for their obscene policies, but do any of them agree with Amber Rudd? Silence says it all. I am sending time and time again that this chamber hears the question and demands that the Scottish Government spend more money on a wide range of issues. Miles Briggs has been a regular campaigner for Frank's law and increased in carers allowance. Is he going to vote against that tonight at 5 o'clock? Also, in October, the Tories also demanded that the Scottish Government ensure all Barnett consequentials as a result of the increased health spending that goes direct to the NHS and social care. That budget delivers that and even exceeds it. Are the Tories seriously going to vote against another one of their own demands? Also, in October, Monica Lennon was claiming credit for Labour— Mr McMillan is just closing. Monica Lennon was claiming credit for Labour as the First Minister announced that there will be access to school counselling services. That budget delivers that. Are Labour seriously going to vote against that and also one of their own demands? On Monday 4 February 2002, Labour-led Inverclyde Council, Labour-led Dem Scottish Executive, 4 million pounds worth of cuts to Inverclyde Council budget. The council at the time said that this is a standard procedure and I am confident that officers will come up with recommendations to address this. We are dealing with it as we do it in the year. Please close, Mr McMillan. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Liz Smith, followed by John Mason. Deputy Presiding Officer, when the budget process began in this chamber on 31 January, my colleague Murdo Fraser set out why the context of this debate was so crucial, most especially in terms of the prognosis for economic growth and employment in Scotland, the gap between income tax rates in Scotland and the rest of the UK and the responses from business and investors. Obviously, since that stage 1 period, these issues have been very hotly debated in the chamber, and that is quite right. However, it is also important to look at what people outside the chamber are saying, and I will come to that in just a minute. Let me start with what we heard earlier, namely that one of the Scottish Government's own economic advisers complained that the budget was presented in a format of confusing data, and he said that it had a narrative around it that was designed to sway opinion in favour of Scottish Government's interpretation of that data rather than the data being presented on an objective basis. That makes for the difficult scrutiny of the budget. That criticism of the presentation of the budget came hard on the heels of the cabinet secretary for finance when he was providing evidence in front of the finance committee that he had not undertaken any individual analysis of the proposed car parking tax, just as Pauline McNeill pointed out earlier. That was just that it was much more something to do with the deal that had been struck with the Greens. I think that the cabinet secretary will come to regret that. I won't, if you don't mind, Mr Wightman. The cabinet secretary will come to regret that, because neither of those are signs that point to a Scottish Government, which is intent on providing the Scottish people with maximum transparency about the implications of major policy announcements. Derek Mackay. I thank Liz Smith for taking the intervention. Liz Smith said that she will be turning to what the outside world think about the Scottish budget. How would Liz Smith respond to the business community, who have said in writing in media reports that it is important that the budget passes to give Scotland the necessary resources to get on with the job? They didn't want a position where a budget could not pass, which would have been the case if I was left to negotiate with only the Conservatives. Liz Smith. Cabinet secretary, you have succeeded in uniting the business community, industry and half the public at least of Scotland, many of your members, against the car parking tax. I am not going to take any lectures on that basis. We have been accused of being hysterical and being all kinds of things about the car parking tax, but unfortunately for the Scottish Government this is not about real devolution of powers to local authorities in the way that they think, because this is unravelling before their eyes. The tax is a Scottish Government policy, the brokerage of the deal with the greens, whereby the implementation and the exemption for at least those workers using NHS buildings was decided by the Scottish Government, not by local authorities, but never mind, says Mr Mackay, because it would be up to local authorities to consider further exemptions. However, it turns out that there are a whole lot of complexities and complications about those other possible exemptions—very well explained by some members this afternoon—complications that have been caused by central government. Please do not come to the Scottish Conservatives and tell us that we are being inconsistent. It is the SNP that is being wholly inconsistent about this policy, and I think that most of Scotland agrees with that. However, it is not just about the budget that we are seeing this issue, because in education we have had the same dilemma about whether policies are taken at central government level or whether they are in fact devolved to local authorities. We were told in 2017 and in 2018 that the school governance bill was a flagship bill to devolve power to headteachers, because—and I quote John Swinney—headteachers are best places to take decisions in their own schools. I could not agree more with that, but suddenly the bill was scrapped and the status quo endures. We were told that the new regional collaboratives would be further devolution of power, yet many of the people involved in these collaboratives are complaining constantly that they are at the behest of central government and the education agencies telling them what to do. When it comes to peff funding—a very good initiative, as Mr Arthur rightly pointed out—it seems that a headteacher is not quite as free to spend the money as he or she originally thought, because his ideas—or her ideas—have to be spent and considered by a local authority first. Kate Forbes, you raised that debate about localism. Does Liz Smith agree with Tory councillors in Edinburgh, who believe that local car parking decisions should be made by local authorities? I personally do not agree with the local tax at all because of the basis in which the SNP has set this out. Where I take huge exception to the SNP is the fact that they are pretending that this is a measure—a policy measure—that has been devolved to local authorities when it is no such thing. It is the Scottish Government central level that has been setting the parameters of the debate, and that is what people do not like. Can I finish on two points? I still cannot get into my head why the cabinet secretary believes that he is able to refute the evidence from the chancellor's announcement in October last year that he has an addition of an extra £950 million to the Scottish block grant, and he tries to tell us that he has less money. I do not understand that, and I do not think that many members in the chamber actually do. Nor has he explained why he thinks that increasing the tax burden in Scotland is going to deliver the economic growth and the investment and all the jobs that we need to have to ensure that Scotland can flourish in the future. It is on that basis that I will be voting against this budget. John Mason, followed by Mark McDonald. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I speak in support of the budget today. I have to say that it is a very reasonable budget given the circumstances. The uncertainty of Brexit is damaging both for businesses and for individuals. Confidence in Scotland and throughout the UK is at a low ebb. The UK is not in a good place economically, and we have to do the best we can with what we have. On Tuesday, we focused on income tax, and I am comfortable that we are being more progressive while trying not to provoke serious behaviour change, such as rich taxpayers leaving the country. I am also comfortable that we are aiming to free up local authorities to introduce more local taxes that might suit them, for example the tourist tax and the parking levy. Longer term, I would also support a replacement for the council tax, which I think is a challenge to get us all to agree, but I believe is achievable. On the expenditure side, we are trying to be fair to various sectors because, frankly, none of us in here or out in the real world can get all the expenditure that we would like. If we give more to local government, it means less for health. If we spend more on preventative healthcare, it means less for hospitals and reactive drugs. If we spend more on primary schools, it means less for secondary schools. I am disappointed that Conservatives and other members simply do not seem to understand this simple arithmetic. If I could mention a few things that have been mentioned during the debate so far, and there have been certain themes and certain points that have come up a number of times from speakers, one of which is clearly the parking levy. We need to get a few facts out into the public domain. Murdo Fraser was the first person to mention that. He knows, as we all know, that there is a legislative process for anything like this. The Government will have to consult the committee, which in this case is the REC committee, who has said that it will definitely be consulting. There will have to be an amendment examined, debated at stage 1, at stage 2 and at stage 3. We have a long way to go on this issue. The Government and the Greens have put forward a plan. It will be consulted on at committee, but it will be Parliament that decides on this for the way ahead. For members to start suggesting a lot of detail that just has not even been consulted on yet is, quite frankly, nonsense. Let me finish this bit and I will come back to the member if he wants. It has been suggested that the parking levy is automatically unfair. As we have said, we have not even discussed the details yet. Let us remember that many of the parking places are for directors and top people paid in city centres. If I look at Glasgow city centre, for example, it is not the cleaners in the council who have a parking place. It is either the councillors or the directors or those kinds of people. Even if we look at the Scottish Parliament here, as I understand it, the car park downstairs is not used generally by the cleaners and the security people, and all of those are used by MSPs and potentially by top paid workers. I agree that we need to consult and I agree that there can be exceptions, but on the whole, the parking levy will hit the highest paid people. I said that I will take an intervention when I finish this point on parking levies. I would also say to Dean Lockhart again that the parking levy is not in the budget. Yes, the Government has made an agreement with the Greens, but the transport bill would have to be amended and there is no certainty that that will happen. The parking levy has not yet been studied in detail. Liz Smith made that point. Absolutely, we are all agreed and open about that. She complained about the way the budget facts had been presented in a number of areas. I wonder if she would also complain that some of her own colleagues have been spreading conjecture as facts, for example using a £500 figure, which is absolutely no basis in reality. I think that I said I would give way to Mr Greene. I thank Mr Mason for giving away. First of all, the committee has not come to any public arrangements as to how it will process the amendment, nor is that public information for the benefit of the chamber. However, if it is defeated by the committee at stages 2 or stage 3 by the Parliament, what effect does Mr Mason really think that that will have on next year's budget discussions if a deal that has been done between the SNP and the Greens is renegad upon because of the processes of the Parliament? John Mason. I am certainly not going to speculate what is going to happen in the next year's budget. The Greens are more than able to speak for themselves, but, as I understand it, they have asked for the Government agreement to introduce an amendment, and that is as far as it goes. I am sure that the REC committee, as Mr Greene knows, is a fairly independent committee that will look at things logically and objectively. I think that both he and I will be doing that as part of the process and we will see where that takes us. I fear that I am going to run out of time here looking at those issues. I also mentioned something else that was said in the debate, which was from Labour. The only clarity that we have had is that it wants to raise the 46p to the 50p. I think that it is taking a big risk in making a 4p jump that would give a 5p difference between Scotland and the rest of the UK. We know that there can be behavioural change. I would suggest that, if we are going to change it, we go one pence at a time and we do not do a very large jump. I was also going to say something about manifestos and how they give a direction of travel, but manifestos are dependent on a party becoming the majority government and they can impose their decisions and their directions of government. Any minority cannot impose its manifesto and needs to compromise and needs to get agreement with other parties, and that applies to everyone else as well. Overall, I am more than happy to support the budget. Mark McDonald followed by Emma Harper. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Much as I accept the mathematical relevance of my position, I state at the outset that I will be backing the budget at 5 o'clock this evening. I want, however, to offer a few thoughts in the hope that they might be well received or at least received in relation to consideration for future years. First, on taxation, I have long held the view that the step from £43,430 to £150,000 is too great. It is a point that I noted James Kelly making in the chamber on Tuesday. I asked Spice to run some potential scenarios and they concluded that the introduction of a £44p rate at £75,000 and a £48p rate at £150,000 would realise an additional £120 million that could be spent on priorities. Although that might not seem a huge sum in the global budget, I do believe that it addresses principles of tax fairness and also opens up potential revenue streams that could be utilised for various priorities, some of which members have highlighted in the chamber this evening. I feel that we need to get away from this nonsense narrative that taxation somehow equals theft. It is a means by which the state invests in services and support for communities from which everyone benefits regardless of their income. In fact, people who are on generally high incomes have tended to benefit disproportionately as a result of, for example, education services that are invested in infrastructure services that support businesses and the employment of workforce, who have to be educated and supported as well. I recognise that the Tories support the concept of a smaller state. That is a valid philosophical position, albeit one that I disagree passionately with. However, I think that they spend a little bit too much time talking about how taxes should be reduced and not enough time talking about where they would disinvest in order to realise that vision of a smaller state. Perhaps they would benefit from sharing that vision more openly in the chamber so that we could have a proper discussion in relation to that. I think that we need to think seriously about how we encourage and promote greater collaboration and co-operation, not just across the public sector but between public, third and private sectors. There remain too many silo approaches out there, too many services where owning the spend equals owning the saving rather than looking at how benefits can be achieved across sectors. This Parliament had to legislate to ensure health and social care integration took place. It should not need legislation to encourage greater collaboration. One means to address that could be to look at funding less on a sectoral basis but more on a geographical basis and use, for example, community planning partnerships as a means to encourage local budget setting and planning for priorities. That, I accept, would require a radical shift in how we do budgets in Scotland, involving much earlier start to the process. If we want to truly encourage localism, it would be a good step to consider, not necessarily for next year but for future budget years. Finally, I think that we need to consider how we best involve the people in our budget process. A number of years ago, I visited Malmö in Sweden as part of a local government committee visit. The local authority spoke highly of their citizen jury model, where a selection of citizens chosen by the electoral role and balanced for representation of gender and ethnicity are consulted on proposals and feed into the budget process. I think that there is merit in exploring such an approach in Scotland, which could ensure that we hear voices beyond the perennially engaged as we consider what the priorities of the Parliament would be. We could be informed in that process of the priorities of the people. I do not expect those thoughts necessarily to go very far, but I hope that by putting them on the record they might at least achieve some consideration from ministers for future years. The last of the open debate contributions is from Emma Harper. I am pleased to be able to speak in this important debate as a member of the Parliament's Finance and Constitution Committee. I would like to focus my comments this afternoon on a few key points—the investment that this Government has made in our NHS, the protection afforded to workers through the rates resolution, as well as the uncertainty that Brexit has, and indeed continuing to cause for businesses and our economy. I welcome that the budget delivers almost three quarters of £1 billion, £729 million extra for health and care services in Scotland, with a particular focus on mental health. The investment has allowed the Scottish Government to increase mental health funding to £1.1 billion and to increase mental health funding for young people by £12 million. The £12 million will provide around 350 school counsellors across Scotland's secondary schools, allowing young people across my south Scotland region the opportunity to speak about their mental health openly, with qualified professionals who can provide targeted and faster support for any problems that may present themselves. Additionally, I am pleased to see that our higher education institutions will benefit from 80 additional counsellors being implemented over the next four years, as well as an additional 250 school nurses who will be in place by 2020. I am also pleased to see that the rates resolutions agreed by the Parliament will protect our middle earners. I spoke in the debate on Tuesday about that as well. I have focused on nurses, allied healthcare professionals, teachers and social workers, by ensuring that their levels of income tax remain fair, proportionate and at the lowest levels in the UK. Indeed, when speaking, yes, I will, Colin Smyth. Your microphone is not on, Mr Smyth. Oh, there you are. Thank you very much. You have lit up as you stand there. Not for the first time, Presiding Officer, not for the first time. Does Emma Harper accept what the budget means when she mentions teachers, is that dozens of teachers will be axed in Dumfries and Galloway when they set their budget next week because of £16 million worth of cuts in council services? Emma Harper, if I may just do one word answer because of time, Presiding Officer, I will say that. Indeed, when speaking in the rates resolution debate, I pointed out that nurses on a band 5 salary, 68 per cent of all nurses will be having their salary protected. They will be either on the basic or intermediate rates of income tax, paying 20 or 21 per cent in rates. The equivalent of around £4,425.50 per year is the lowest in the UK. Tuesday, I highlighted the efforts that the Scottish Government has taken to ensure that Scotland remains an attractive place for business, families and people. The cabinet secretary in the budget has committed to freezing the higher rate tax thresholds for higher earners such as consultants, radiologists and surgeons at £43,000 and £150 for the top rate earners. Those professionals are absolutely needed in Scotland and many are EU citizens and they are welcome in Scotland, but they are being met with nothing but chaos, hostility and sheer disrespect from an out-of-touch UK Government. It would be remiss of me not to mention the uncertainty that Brexit has caused for businesses and the Scottish economy. Indeed, at the Finance and Constitution Committee meeting, we have taken evidence from numerous experts warning of the real risks of Brexit to businesses and our economy. One such example comes from the OBR, which the committee told us that it had a forecast prior to the EU referendum, showing that, assuming that there had been a vote to remain in the EU, our economy would have grown by roughly 4.5 per cent between the time of the referendum and now. That is a figure that I always remember as it shows the extent of the damage that the Tories have done to Brexit and the infighting that it has had on the country and our economy. However, I am pleased that we have a Government in Scotland working to mitigate its consequences, and I ask the Scottish Government to continue to do all that it can to protect Scotland from the UK Government's Brexit chaos. While I am conscious of the time, I would like to briefly touch on other steps that the Scottish Government has taken in the proposed budget, which will benefit people across Dumfries and Galloway in my South Scotland region. The budget will deliver over £435 million of direct assistance through social security interventions. The investment of £3.5 million in the fair share food fund will assist national projects such as fair share, which provide food unused by the big supermarkets such as Asda, Tesco and Morrison to communities across Scotland. The cabinet secretary, Aileen Campbell, spoke about that at portfolio questions earlier today. That investment will help the staff and volunteers at Somerhill Community Centre in Dumfries, whom I just visited last week. Somerhill receives a weekly delivery from fair share, which is then distributed to families and people across north-west Dumfries, from Loxidon, including to Sandside as well as to the Aberlour charity and to the Somerhill community also. That is a really important support investment for the people in my area. In conclusion, the budget sees record investment in our NHS, our schools, our social security system and in our people, families and public services. It sees 55 per cent of people pay less in income tax compared to other parts of the UK. Most importantly, it allows Scotland, in a time of Brexit chaos, to remain an attractive place for people and families to come to live, work and study. I urge members across chamber to vote for this budget at decision time. We now move to the closing speeches. We are really pushed for time. Andy Wightman, two minutes please. Officer, greens are pleased with what we have achieved in this budget. We have long argued that local government finance powers and autonomy need to be substantially reformed and enhanced. By securing a deal that begins the overdue process of strengthening the fiscal powers of local government, we hope that this will be seen in future as an important turning point. A fiscal framework, a three-year funding deal, the clearest commitment to date to scrap the regressive council tax, new fiscal powers over tourism and workplace parking and a budget that provides greater resource and flexibility for local councils are achievements that we are proud of. In a Parliament where no party has a majority, a coalition has to be built to secure support. Parliament has now instigated a new approach to budget scrutiny. However, how the budget is developed and negotiated is a quite separate matter, one that is substantially in the gift of ministers. As we have seen this year, there has been no shortage of outrage and opposition, no shortage or lack of colourful rhetoric, of rescue deals, capitulation and betrayal, all accompanied by a stink lack of serious engagement in budget negotiations. In future, I hope that we can do things better, and I want to conclude with a proposal to achieve that. In 2019, the finance secretary should convene round-table talks in September to discuss specific proposals, both of his own party and government, and of other parties. Such talks should be followed by further detailed discussion and negotiation following the UK budget. Such efforts, and they will only be efforts, can then inform the draft budget published in November or December. Building on whatever progress and trust has been established, detailed negotiations can then take place over the budget bill in Parliament. That might even involve parties publishing their proposals and submitting them to scrutiny by the finance committee. Such a process could ease tensions, build trust around red lines and aspirations to be properly assessed and tested. Ultimately, although there is no guarantee, and parties would be free to rule themselves out of the process, increase the chances of a budget for Scotland building a shared collaborative endeavour. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Our communities deserve better than this budget. Scottish Labour cannot support an austerity budget that inflicts cuts on public services while delivering tax cuts to the wealthiest in our society. Instead, Scottish Labour wants a budget that will help lift people out of poverty and help to build stronger communities with well-resourced public services. We asked the Scottish Government to include our anti-poverty policies in the budget, but they declined. The result is a budget that is a total disappointment from a Government that claims to be progressive and ambitious for Scotland. Derek Mackay is fair of a finance secretary. I asked the Labour Party how they would pay for it. I got no answers. Can Monica Lennon tell us here and now, beyond the top rate of tax, what would any other rate of tax be under a Labour Government to fund those policies? Last chance, explain your position. Monica Lennon I think that the cabinet secretary should be on his last chance, because that is simply not true. James Kelly and Scottish Labour colleagues entered discussions in good faith, and we got nothing out of the cabinet secretary. What the cabinet secretary failed to talk about if he cares to listen was child poverty. At the front of our minds, when we went into discussion, we were the one in four children in Scotland who are living in poverty. Frick Benchers thinks that it is funny, but one in four children in Scotland are living in poverty. Ms Campbell, would you please stop shouting? Perhaps the cabinet secretary of our community agrees with Scottish Labour, because when we asked for a £5 child benefit top-up, there was clear evidence that that would lift 30,000 children out of poverty, a policy that has wide support in Scotland from charities and trade unions. I know that I am going to make some progress, because Derek Mackay said no to that, Aileen Campbell knows the answer. That is part of the budget that we could have had, even the SNP's highly respected former special adviser Kevin Plingell described that as a missed opportunity. Scottish Labour is sick of seeing our public services and workers' struggle. We asked for more funding for public services, because when they are properly resourced, all of our communities are stronger for it. Instead, shamefully, the SNP budget will cut council budgets in real terms by £230 million, taking total cuts—no, it is not wrong, cabinet secretary—since 2011 to £1.5 billion. Derek Mackay spins those cuts as efficiencies, but let's make no mistake—those are devastating cuts that put lifeline services at risk. Every single MSP in the chamber knows that to be true. On tax, as James Kelly outlined, Scotland's tax bans require progressive and fair brackets. Labour would make the riches pay their fair share, but the SNP tax plans are weak, rewarding higher earners with tax cuts. On rail, as Colin Smyth said earlier, we are proposing a fair freeze, because we are listening to the people of Scotland who have made their voices heard about poor rail services over crowded trains and the unaffordable hike in fair costs. Again, the Scottish Government is not listening. Railfairs have increased while ScotRail's performance has plummeted, another missed opportunity to do something about the cost of living. Look at the big picture, the big challenges that Scotland faces. Audit Scotland warns that the future of our NHS is not sustainable. We are not seeing the transformational change needed to reform and integrate health and social care. The Government needs to be transparent about the funding that our NHS needs. Chronic underfunding has pushed health boards to crisis. The health secretary's on-board NHS Ayrshire in Arran has been underfunded for years and faces cuts of more than £40 million next year. Surely the health secretary believes that her own constituents deserve better than that. I thank Monica Lennon for allowing me to make the intervention. Can Monica Lennon then explain why she will be voting against an increase in the NHS budget of over £700 million tonight, and if she wants even more money for public services, by how much would tax have to be increased to pay for Labour's demands? Monica Lennon. The budget is weak. It is not tackling the challenges that are underlying. It is not simply about more money for the NHS. Let us look at the facts. Life expectancy has stalled. The death rates have begun to rise for people who live in our poorest communities. Health and equality in Scotland are worsening. Cuts to council services are shutting doors on the most vulnerable people in our community. That is not helping Cabinet Secretary. The Cabinet Secretary has dismissed Labour's progressive policies from the outset. Perhaps again, he should have listened to former adviser Kevin Pringle, because he was right when he said, poor people die younger, but the poverty that kills them lives on. The levels of poverty in Scotland are unacceptable. Our poverty proof proposals for the budget would have saved lives, because if we have policies that tackle poverty, we tackle the causes of ill health, and that is the issues that matter in this budget, or should have mattered to this Government. Adam Tomkins, up to eight minutes, please. There is record employment in the United Kingdom. There are more jobs in the British economy now than at any point in our history. Across Britain, the employment rate is up, and the unemployment rate is down. At the same time, wages are rising. Youth unemployment is down, and we have more disabled people in Britain in work than ever before. The OBR is forecasting that all this is set to continue. With 800,000 more jobs, it costs Britain to be set to be created by 2023. That is what Conservative Government delivers. Meanwhile, in the SNP's Scotland, we have slower growth, higher taxes and worse public services. That is Derek Mackay's achievement, and that is Nicola Sturgeon's legacy. What Scotland needs is a budget for growth, a budget that attracts jobs to the Scottish economy, a budget that brings taxpayers to Scotland and not one that drives them away. What Scotland needs is a budget for business, a budget for the high street, a budget that boosts the Scottish economy, not one that punishes it. Let me make some progress. However, what we are getting from the SNP Green Alliance is the very opposite of what Scotland needs. What we are getting are higher taxes on workers, higher taxes on families, new taxes on jobs and tax hikes, which the SNP promised in the election campaign that they would not inflict on hard-working Scots. However, nationalist campaign pledges are not worth the paper that they are printed on. Those are not tax rises on the rich. Everyone in Scotland who earns more than £27,000 will pay more tax than they would in England. In effect, a tax rise on teachers, a tax rise on senior nurses, a tax rise on police officers and a tax rise on firefighters, a tax rise on middle-income earners, a tax rise on ordinary hard-working families. If you earn £49,000, you will be paying a whopping £1,300 more every year in income tax in the SNP Scotland than you would be if you lived south of the border. Is it any wonder that the FSB has said that the SNP's latest tax rises will erode the trust of the small business community? Is it any wonder that the life sciences sector has warned that income tax differences between Scotland and England will hurt their ability to recruit the skilled workers that the Scottish economy so badly needs? Is it any wonder that the CBI has warned that income tax could become a major issue for companies keen to attract the best talent? In one minute, I will give the way to the cabinet secretary. Is it any wonder that the Scottish chambers of commerce have warned that it could take years to repair the damage of Derek Mackay's higher taxes? If he wants to respond to any of those points, I will happily give way to him. Derek Mackay To know from Mr Tomkins exactly where in Scotland's public sector, the £0.5 billion cuts should come from to pay for the Tory tax cuts that they want us to implement and mirror the Chancellor's Tory tax cuts for the highest earners in this country. Is that none of those tax rises are necessary because the Scottish Government's budget is already increasing by half a billion pounds in real terms in this year? None of those warnings are remotely surprising, but what is shameful is that Nicola Sturgeon's SNP is deaf to all those warnings. They do not care about growing the Scottish economy, all they care about is pandering to the hard-left tax policies of Patrick Harvey's green party. It is not that the Greens do not believe in growth, they are positively opposed to it, and they are so vehemently anti-car that they probably think that the invention of the wheel was a retrograde step. Yet this small collective of unpopular politicians is the group that Derek Mackay chooses to do his budget business with. And where has this ill-fated alliance of nationalists and Greens led him to the genius idea of the car park tax, so genius that it's been in several Labour party manifestos? A proposal that John Swinney, Bruce Crawford and Fergus Ewing have all spoken out against in the past. SNP MSP Richard Lyle recently said this about it. I am not for your parking charge, Levy, he said, and I speak on behalf of thousands of motorists who have been taxed enough. Well, quite. Yet each of these great heavyweights of the SNP will be voting for this tax tonight. John Swinney, Bruce Crawford and Fergus Ewing all voting for something which they don't believe in and which they know is wrong. Why? Because appeasing the Greens is more important to them than sound public policy. As for the claim that this is not really a tax rise at all but some sort of welcome empowerment of local authorities, this isn't about localism at all. The devolved tax powers of this Parliament mean that we can vote either to raise or lower tax rates. If the SNP was serious about localism, it would grant the same powers, the same freedom of choice to local authorities. However, the only power that is being given to councils under this proposal is a power to impose new taxes. We can choose to put taxes up or down, but under this proposal councils can choose only to put it up. That isn't localism. That isn't localism. As Unite the Unions, Scottish Secretary Pat Rafferty has said just today, Presiding Officer, the car park tax is a desperate attempt to absolve the Government from the funding crisis that they have presided over. If implemented, he said, if implemented, we would have the ludicrous situation where we would have local authorities taxing workers for turning up to work. We shouldn't worry, Presiding Officer, because Mr Harvey thinks that an additional £500 a year tax on low-paid workers is trivial. That is the word that he used this afternoon. In a few moments, we will have the unbridled joy of listening to another budget speech from the Cabinet Secretary. Since he announced his harebrained car park tax, a number of questions have emerged about it. We know that he did precisely no economic modelling of this tax before announcing it. We know that there was no impact assessment. We know that he did not think it through. In the three weeks since he announced it, he has had time to address the concerns that have been brought to his attention. Will he answer any of the following questions about this tax in his summing up? First, where employers pay this tax on behalf of their employees, will this count as a benefit in kind for the purposes of income tax? Second, does he agree that this is a regressive tax that will hit lower-paid workers hardest? Third, if NHS properties are to be exempt from the new tax—a decision taken centrally, by the way, reinforcing the point that this has nothing to do with localism—will GP surgeries also be exempt, and if not, why not? Fourth, will teachers be expected to pay for this tax for driving to work? Fifth, if the tax is passed on to employees, will it be subject to VAT, putting up the cost to workers even more? Six, if firms do not comply with this unwanted ill-conceived tax, will they be fined, landing businesses in Scotland with even more costs, even more bureaucracy and even more expense? Six, on answered questions about just this one aspect of Derek Mackay's shambles of a budget. Let's see if he can answer any of them. Derek Mackay, 10 minutes please, cabinet secretary. I thought that that contribution from Adam Tomkins is a disservice to Adam Tomkins and to this Parliament. The reason I say that is what we have been asked as parliamentarians to do tonight is to vote on a budget of £42.5 billion for our public services, our economy and our people. That speech was not about the workplace parking levy, but about parking. It is a diversion from the reality that we are facing right now. This is the budget that we are being asked to approve tonight, and that is where people should have focused their minds. I will say this, but it was remarkable. Adam Tomkins referenced the current economic indicators in the UK. Of course, he did not tell you that unemployment in Scotland right now is at a record low of 3.5 per cent outperforming the rest of the United Kingdom. If the SNP Government is responsible, we will take responsibility for record low unemployment in Scotland right now. Those economic credentials are indeed strong. The fiscal commission that informs the budget and the debate was not mentioned by the Opposition at all. It told us what the real threat to Scotland's economy is, and it told us why the subdued nature of the economic performance, of course, has not outperformed in the past year. It told us that the greatest threat to Scotland's economy is not the workplace parking levy. It told us that Brexit was not mentioned by the Conservatives in today's contribution, which takes me to the second paper that I want to speak about once again. I have to say that I am disappointed from the Labour Party, too. The chief economist has published a report saying that, if there is an audio Brexit, which most of us agree is increasingly likely because of the actions of the Prime Minister and her red lines. What they are taking this country towards is a recession with their eyes wide open, a recession. What does that mean to people? 100,000 people are unemployed, a contracting economy, business failure, the most vulnerable, hardest hit. That is what those people are taking us towards, and they should be ashamed of themselves for that catastrophe. The fact is that I will take an intervention. Oliver Mundell, I thank the cabinet secretary for his intervention, despite his amateur dramatics. Does he not think that the best thing that the SNP could do to protect the Scottish economy is to get behind the deal that the Prime Minister is trying to secure for the whole of the United Kingdom? Derek Mackay? I might appear dramatic because I believe every word I am saying. I am not that sure that the Conservatives feel the same. The alternative to a no deal is no Brexit. We have set out compromises that the UK Government has steadfastly refused to listen to, willing destruction and negative impact on the Scottish economy. Even the Prime Minister's deal damages the economy as well. If there is tax divergence coming, it is coming through the actions of a right-wing extremist Tory Government who chooses an act of fiscal irresponsibility to give tax cuts to the richest in society at this time, when yes, our public services need support. However, we all know who the Tories really want to tax. Let's remember who they want new taxes for—the poor, ill health, prescription charges, education, tuition fees—and do not dare to be poor and have more than two children in Tory-run Britain. What a disgrace the Tory party has become. If I followed the Tory tax plan, we would cut half a billion pounds from our public services, rather than grow our public services, which is what this budget supports. I will take a further intervention. Can I say to him that care provision in Edinburgh is not good enough? Those are not my words, but the words of Jeane Freeman in a letter to me that I received this morning. Before 5 o'clock, can he tell me how cutting £14 million from Edinburgh's health and social care budget and £9 million from NHS Lothian is going to help my constituents desperately waiting a care package? Because this budget offers a substantial increase to social care, a record amount in health spending, a substantial increase to local government, a real-terms increase in resource. By opposing the budget, the Labour Party is opposing additional expenditure for those services in Scotland. That is what we are voting on tonight. Let me return briefly to Conservatives, who we have heard many positions from. They want to raise less and spend more. I am finding out about council tax decisions at this point in time, and, despite everything that you have heard from the Conservatives about council tax and other taxes, I understand that Perth and Kinross council, Tory-led, is increasing council tax by 4 per cent. 4 per cent is in what you promised the electric and we have increased local government budgets, which just goes to show on so many matters in relation to the Conservative party. You can take as many positions as you like. You do not need to defect. You can take any position that you like in the Conservative party and stay within the party. I say this in all seriousness. The Labour Party knows that it brought no credible budget alternative to my office, and when it asked to name councils whose budgets were going down, James Kelly ran away from his own question. No wonder that he ran away. Let's take Glasgow City Council. More resources coming from the Scottish Government and, of course, clearing up the mess left by the Labour Party while they denied justice to women on equal pay and this Government and the SNP administration, rather than taking the women to court, took them to justice and those payments will be named. Willie Rennie is the only thing that I am left with with his contribution in the budget today that he wants me to show him my flagpole. I do not have a flagpole. I have a patio, and I will show him the patio, because what I saw in that is that I stand firm foundations in the budget. I am not taking one from Mr Rumbles, either. The budget might reflect in my language in relation to Willie Rennie, but it is a very interesting offer. We are proposing a £733 million increase in NHS resources—I am winding up—increasing the total spending on the NHS in £13.9 billion. Local Government is increasing in real terms by £300 million, £2.4 billion on education, enterprise and skills, enhancing social security, £5 billion on capital investment, supporting our infrastructure for now and the future, and expanding the childcare of our country. Real terms protection for police resource budgets, investing in the economy through the national investment bank, the national infrastructure mission for Scotland, the most competitive package of non-domestic rates release, more supporting investment into transport, a record investment in housing, a £50 million fund for the town centres of Scotland. Murdo Fraser spoke about a parliamentary shambles, and he certainly speaks from authority when he talks about the shambles that is the Westminster Government. In Scotland tonight, we have an opportunity. Scotland expects us to deliver. This budget delivers for Scotland, and I would encourage all members of the Scottish Parliament to deliver tonight and vote for the Scottish budget. Thank you very much, and that concludes our debate on the budget. We are going to move straight to decision time. There is one question to be put as a result of today's business. The question is that motion 15907, in the name of Derek Mackay, on the budget Scotland number 3 bill, be agreed, and because this is a stage 3 of the budget bill, we will move straight to a division, so members may cast their votes now. The vote on motion 15907, in the name of Derek Mackay, is yes, 66, no, 58. The motion is therefore agreed, and the budget Scotland bill number 3 is passed. That concludes decision time. I close this meeting.