 is that it is about as clear as it can possibly make, by confidence and the ability of that particular organisation to succeed? Thank you. That ends portfolio questions. The next item of business is a debate on motion number 12101. In the name of John Swinney on the Budget Scotland number four bill, members who wish to take part in this debate should press a request to speak button now, and I'll just give a few moments for people to get themselves settled. I call on John Swinney to speak to move the motion. Parliament begins its consideration of stage one of the budget bill against an encouraging set of economic indicators today. Employment is at a record high and employment is at the lowest rate of any country in the United Kingdom, and Scotland's year-on-year GDP grew by 3 per cent in the 12 months to quarter three 2014, higher than growth in the comparable period in the United Kingdom. The Scottish Government believes that our approach to economic recovery is now becoming sustained, and we take forward further measures in this budget to boost the economy and address the inequality that inhibits our progress. I am sure that the Deputy First Minister would be disappointed if I didn't raise this important point that that economic growth, that employment growth, that unemployment reduction is based on an economic plan, which his party said would not work but is working for Britain. I made reference in my remarks to the fact that growth in Scotland had been higher than the comparable period in the United Kingdom, which means that the measures that this Government must be taking are having a more emphatic effect on economic recovery. The budget Scotland number 4 bill that we debate today will give effect to the draft budget for 2015-16, which I published in October, and the subsequent provisions that have been announced since then. I would like to thank the France Committee for the scrutiny report that provides a comprehensive overview of the draft budget, and I will address some of the issues raised today and respond in full in advance of the stage 3 debate next month. The committee asked me to provide an update on progress with agreeing the block grant adjustment with Her Majesty's Treasury in relation to the new devolved taxes. I wrote to the convener to confirm that we have finalised a one-year adjustment for 2015-16 at £494 million. There remain outstanding issues on the effect of forestalling and the time lag in tax collection. I am unable to confirm when those issues will be resolved, as they depend on negotiations with Her Majesty's Treasury, but the high-level agreement provides sufficient certainty to allow me to finalise the Scottish Government proposals for the rates and bans for the devolved taxes. I have prepared an updated forecast of the revenue that I expect to raise, which the Scottish Fiscal Commission has endorsed as reasonable. I have placed a copy of the letter that I have received from the Fiscal Commission in Spice. In October, the draft budget provided me with the opportunity of being the first finance minister in Scotland for 308 years to set national tax rates. Even that experience did not prepare me for the surprise of seeing the design of my national tax being replicated across the United Kingdom two months later by the chancellor. I was clear that I intended the design of the taxes and the associated bans to be influenced by the four maxims set out by Adam Smith, particularly that taxes should be proportionate to the ability to pay. I also said that the taxes would be revenue neutral. I will give way to Mr Brown. If it has been copied exactly as he maintains, why do we have forstalling? The point that I am making to Mr Brown is that the chancellor of the Exchequer, having had years and years to reform stamp duty land tax, took two months to look at Scotland's reforms and said, that looks like a good idea, I am going to do that for the rest of the United Kingdom. One consequence of the chancellor's announcement in December is that the amount of revenue that I need to raise to meet the commitment to revenue neutrality is lower than anticipated at the time of the draft budget. As a result, I have chosen to review the rates and bans applied to residential land and buildings transaction tax. In doing so, I will remain true to all of the principles that I established in October. My priority was then and remains now to help first-time buyers to enter the housing market and to assist people as they progress through the property market. Consistent with the principle that tax should be proportionate to the ability to pay, the burden of taxation should fall on each according to their ability to pay. I have designed the following rates to support the Scottish market. While the average house price in London is £510,000, in Scotland it is £170,000, and the average detached house is around £244,000. With effect from 1 April 2015, to provide further support for first-time buyers, the threshold for beginning to pay tax will be increased to £145,000, taking 50 per cent of transactions or another 5,000 homes out of tax altogether. A marginal rate of 2 per cent will apply to transactions between £145,000 and £250,000. To restore the benefit of my proposals to those buying properties up to the value of £330,000, I will introduce an additional marginal rate of 5 per cent between £250,000 and £325,000. Between £325,000 and £750,000, the marginal rate will be 10 per cent. In order to ensure that we are able to provide benefits for those at the bottom of the market, whilst retaining the principle of proportionality, the top marginal rate of 12 per cent will now affect all transactions above £750,000. As a result of my announcement today, more than 90,000 taxpayers, 9 out of 10 taxpayers, will be better or no worse off under the Scottish system than under UK stamp duty land tax. All those buying a residential property in Scotland for £330,000 or less will pay up to £400 less tax under land and buildings transaction tax or will pay no tax at all, and 99.9 per cent of residential transactions will pay less tax or no tax at all compared to the proposed rates and bans in October. Only those buying a home for more than £945,000 will pay more in tax under our new plans compared to our draft budget proposals. With 50 per cent of transactions lifted out of tax altogether, the measures that I am proposing today send a very clear message. In exercising our first judgments on national taxes, the Government has put fairness, equity and the ability to pay at the very heart of the decisions that we have taken. Ar ôl gus. Could the cabinet secretary tell us how much less overall in taxation will come in as a result of the changes compared to the earlier announcement? In October, I estimated that the taxes would bring £558 million. The block grant adjustment has been agreed at £494 million, so it is the difference between those two numbers. I will bring orders before this Parliament to set the rates of land and buildings transaction tax. I can also confirm today that I will bring forward orders to set the rates of non-residential land and buildings transaction tax and Scottish landfill tax at the rates that I announced back in October. Within the context of constrained public finances, which has seen our budget fall by nearly 10 per cent since 2010, our programme for government and this budget will contain a range of measures focused on making Scotland a more prosperous country, tackling inequality and protecting and reforming our public services. The draft budget outlines and supports a range of interventions that directly deliver economic stimulus and employment opportunities but also deliver longer-term assets that improve productivity and connectivity throughout the country. Through a series of measures supported in this budget bill, we will secure investment in infrastructure of around £4.5 billion in 2015-16, with investments in housing, in schools and in health services. Greater connectivity in our transport system will be delivered along with a superfast broadband network to more than 95 per cent of properties by the end of 2017. The convener of the finance committee may wish to note that it is anticipated that communities in Arran who are appeared before his committee during the budget process will be able to access the new network from spring 2016. In December, I confirmed to parliament that I would allocate consequentials on the autumn statement in order to continue to match English poundage rates and ensure that we continue to provide the most competitive business rates regime in the United Kingdom. We must ensure that the economic opportunities that emerge are available to all. The budget bill supports measures that reduce obstacles to labour market participation, including enhanced childcare provision and includes measures to create employment, education and skills development opportunities for those not currently in work or in training. Tomorrow, we expect to see the draft Scotland bill published. Although we do not believe that the proposals contained in the bill will go far enough, they are a step in the right direction and will enable us to add to our extensive efforts to break intergenerational cycles of poverty, inequality and deprivation. The budget bill allocates £81 million to mitigate the most harmful impacts of the bedroom tax and will continue to work with stakeholders and partners to ensure that the costs of delivery are kept to a very minimum in order to ensure that maximum support is provided to those most in needy. We will invest over £390 million to deliver affordable homes, of which £4,000 will be for social rent as well. We will deliver £30 million help to buy Scotland's small developer scheme to benefit SME developers and increase the reach of the help to buy scheme. We remain committed to eradicating fuel poverty in Scotland and I share the economy committee's concern that the delivery of the target will be increasingly challenging. £94 million of resources allocated to domestic energy efficiency in 2015-16 will add to the already hundreds of thousands of homes that are warmer and cheaper to heat as a consequence of our investments to date. Over the course of the spending review, we have had to take some difficult decisions in order to live within budgets and we have driven reform both to improve outcomes and to ensure that public finances are sustainable. As part of that, we have had to exercise significant constraints on pay policy, but we will continue to target our pay policy at those on the lowest incomes, with the very tight budget constraints that we face through measures such as the Scottish living wage and providing security to public sector workers through our policy of no compulsory redundancy. Our approach to reform is about ensuring that we are able to protect public services in Scotland, services upon which people depend and in which they have confidence. It has enabled me to provide a fair settlement for local government in each year of the spending review while providing additional resources for new responsibilities. It has delivered an overall health budget of over £12 billion for the very first time while exceeding our commitment to pass on consequentials from health spending in England in every single year since 2010-11. This morning, I had the pleasure of visiting the Glasgow south hospitals to see at first hand examples of how the additional £380 million being provided to the health service in Scotland in 2015-16 is being allocated to front-line services. It is decisions like those that go a long way to explain why voters believe that this party is the most trusted to protect the national health service in Scotland. A key part of our approach to public service reform, Presiding Officer, is the need to deliver a preventative approach. I welcome the finance committee's focus on this area and I will address the committee's conclusions. We are making sustained progress in delivering a shift of emphasis to prevention. That is why we have provided over £170 million to support further integration of health and social care services and have taken forward the three change funds that we set out in 2011. The approach on provision of care at home has resulted in an increase in the support to those citizens with the highest level of need, enabling individuals to remain in their homes for longer and with better support. 80 per cent of people receiving support at home now benefit from telecare, which increases the ability to deliver preventative services. There are over 400 individual improvement projects as part of our early years collaborative improving outcomes for children and for families. Over 1,900 people each year have received personalised support from trained mentors through the Reducing Reoffending Change Fund, which is designed to help to reduce reoffending within our society. However, the change funds, while important, do not represent the totality of the resources that we devote to prevention. We are aspiring to deliver a decisive shift, but we are also looking to address problems that surround the inequalities that have existed for some cases for generations in our society. The Scotland performs update that I published alongside the draft budget, which highlights examples of success in shifting to preventative interventions in Highland, in Perth and Canos, in North Lanarkshire and Aberdeen City, and I encourage colleagues to follow the detail that is set out in this information. In a range of the preventative interventions that we take forward, the examples may appear to be small, but the impact on individual children and parents are significant and have a beneficial effect in reducing the long-term demand for public services and the challenges that we face in the current public expenditure climate as a consequence. The Government will continue to focus relentlessly on delivering that shift of emphasis to introduce more preventative interventions to guarantee the sustainability of public services in the years to come. Over the coming weeks, as is the case in all budget processes, I will work with colleagues from across the political spectrum to secure support for this budget. It is a budget based on the Government's aspiration to deliver the more prosperous and fairer Scotland that our citizens so dearly demand. It sets out the basis upon which the Government believes that that can be achieved, and I move the motion that stands in my name. Kenneth Gibson, do you speak on behalf of the Finance Committee? Thank you. It is with pleasure that I speak on behalf of the Finance Committee in the stage 1 debate on the Scottish Government's budget bill for 2015-16, and on our draft budget report, which was published last week. Scrutiny of the draft budget works to a tight and demanding schedule. As members will be aware, we approach budget scrutiny on the basis of four principles. Affordability, the wider picture of revenue and expenditure and whether each is appropriately balanced, prioritisation, a coherent and appropriate division between sectors and programmes, value for money, the extent to which public bodies are spending their allocations well and achieving outcomes, and budget processes, integration between public service planning and performance and financial management. This year, we have focused our scrutiny on two of those principles, affordability and budget processes. We agreed before the summer recess that our main focus would be on affordability. In particular, we looked at Government proposals for the newly devolved taxes and whether revenue and expenditure were appropriately balanced. Continuing our commitment to scrutinising the preventive spend agenda, we also considered ways in which public bodies work together to deliver services across Scotland. We invited the subject committees to structure the scrutiny on the remaining principles of prioritisation and value for money, and I thank those committees for their valuable input. To support our scrutiny of the draft budget, the committee issued a call for evidence on the introduction of the land and buildings transaction tax. We received 20 written submissions in response and took oral evidence from a range of witnesses during the autumn before-ting evidence from the Cabinet Secretary on the Isle of Arran. As part of our Arran visit, we held workshops with local businesses, voluntary organisations and public bodies. We heard first hand from them about the impact of public spending on their communities and how that spending should be prioritised. I would like to place on record the committee's gratitude to all those who assisted in consideration of the draft budget. Turning firstly to affordability, the committee considered the need for a balanced budget. As the cabinet secretary has mentioned, the Government is responsible for raising the newly devolved taxes, land and buildings transaction tax and the Scottish landfill tax, with effect from 1 April. The draft budget states that the proposed rates are intended to be revenue neutral and set out at the forecast receipts for the two taxes in 2015-16. The committee scrutinised the robustness of those forecasts, along with commentary published by the Scottish Fiscal Commission. On the forecast for residential transactions, the committee identified a number of ways robustness and transparency could be approved upon. We recommended that a breakdown of expected receipts for each band is provided and published as part of future draft budgets, that the SFC produces an analysis of the behavioural response to the introduction of LBTT and that, like the OBR, the Scottish Government should aim to produce five-year forecasts. The committee noted the differences between forecasts made by the Scottish Government and the OBR for non-residential transactions. We recommended that updated figures relative to available outturn figures be provided alongside next year's draft budget. That recommendation was also made in respect of forecasts for revenues raised through the Scottish landfill tax. The committee also considered evidence in relation to proposed rates and bans for LBTT, and the evidence was broadly supportive of the proposed structure of the tax as it then was. However, organisations such as Homes for Scotland and the Scottish Property Federation expressed concerns that the rates might have a detrimental impact on those considering moving to larger residential properties, particularly those in property hotspots such as Aberdein or Edinburgh, and proposals for alternative rates and bans were made to address those concerns. As members are aware, changes to UK stamp duty land tax were introduced or announced in the Chancellor's autumn statement. I listened with great interest to what the cabinet secretary had to say in relation to the subject and looked forward to hearing the views of others later in the debate. Turning to the adjustment, the committee expressed serious concerns that a permanent agreement between the two Governments has not yet been reached. The topic has been in the committee's radar for some time, years in fact, and we have previously taken evidence from both Governments on the subject. Indeed, we expressed concerns in October 2013 about the lack of available detail and found then that there remains a considerable lack of transparency in relation to the block grant adjustment. Almost 18 months on, a report in the draft budget states that the committee, in a quote, finds it unacceptable that the Parliament is being asked to consider the draft budget without knowing what impact the block grant adjustment may have on the Government's spending proposals. The committee considered that the adjustment must be agreed and fully explained to Parliament prior to stage 3 of the budget bill. I am glad that some progress has been made in a figure of £494 million that has been presented to us, but we would also like further information on the run-up to stage 3. Our report highlights the need for greater transparency from both Governments and sufficient time for effective parliamentary scrutiny of adjustments to the block grant. We note that both Governments have agreed that an interim adjustment will be put in place for 2015-16 only and have made clear our disappointment at the lack of a long-term solution. However, as there is now no alternative, given the pressing deadlines for considering the draft budget, we recommend that there should be a reconciliation without turn receipts. The committee shares the concerns of the Cabinet Secretary in relation to proposed inclusion of a constraining factor. That would attempt to calculate what the devolved taxes would generate up to 2030 and adjust the block grant accordingly to ensure that neither Government was any better or worse off. The committee agrees that that would totally defeat the point of devolving the taxes. That point, along with other concerns expressed about the slow pace of progress in relation to the adjustment, will become even more important in light of the expected devolution of further fiscal powers following the deliberations of the Smith commission. I look forward to discussing this and related issues in our evidence session with the chief secretary to the treasury next Wednesday. We consider the preparation for the collection of the devolved taxes in detail. The committee has taken a keen interest in progress made towards ensuring that Revenue Scotland and its partners are fully prepared for the devolved taxes going live. We will continue to monitor that closely as we approach 1 April. Regarding prioritisation, we invited the subject committees to consider where there was a coherent and justifiable division between sectors and programmes. Audit Scotland said that a priority-based approach should focus on delivery of priority outcomes and allocation of money to services, which make the greatest contribution to delivering those outcomes. For this reason, we recommended that subject committees continue to focus on prioritisation as part of their budget scrutiny. That should include the extent to which public bodies within their respective remits are adopting a priority-based budgeting approach. A related subject is ensuring value for money and achieving outcomes designed as government and public agency priorities. The committee's consideration of last year's draft budget focused on the national performance framework. Our expectation is that public bodies should be able to demonstrate how their aims, objectives and activities contribute to national outcomes. We heard in evidence from Audit Scotland that the NPF is a major step forward, and there is evidence of its impact in aligning resources and action across different parts of the public sector in certain policy areas. However, Audit Scotland also considers that that the Government needs to demonstrate a more systematic approach to implementing its outcomes approach by clarifying the links between longer-term outcomes, its priorities and performance measures across all policy areas. The committee endorses this view. We believe that there is much scope for Parliament and its committees to utilise the data within Scotland performs, told the Government and public bodies to account for the delivery of outcomes. On our related theme, we recommended that much greater emphasis should be placed on the examination of the impact of spending on outcomes. I also wish to touch upon the committee's continued scrutiny of the Government's commitment to a decisive shift towards prevention, a subject that we have taken an interest in for several years now, and which the Cabinet Secretary touched on earlier. In addition to previously announced funding for change funds, including those relating to early years, care for older people and reducing re-offending, the Government states that community planning partnerships would play a decisive role in the shift towards prevention. Nevertheless, we remain concerned at the lack of progress to date being made in driving public sector reform in this respect. We are supportive of the Government's intentions in seeking this decisive shift. I recognise that there has been progress, particularly in relation to integrated working. However, we expect to see significant progress over the year, and I am heartened by Mr Swinney's comments earlier today. The committee also considered a variety of issues ranging from the impact of welfare reform and fuel poverty to the Government's progress towards achieving its climate change targets and realising predicted savings through its police reform programme. When we visited Darren, we heard of the impact of the lack of broadband connectivity in businesses and rural and island communities, along with issues relating to the availability of affordable housing. I know that the Government is well aware of the importance of those matters and that the relevant committees have addressed them in greater detail in their own reports, and I am sure that some of those themes will be picked up by others later in this debate. I said at the beginning of my speech that the committee's budget scrutiny was focused on affordability, while we also sought to monitor progress in relation to preventive spending, prioritisation and value for money. I hope to have succeeded in giving a flavour of the broad range of subjects that are considered, and I look forward to the Scottish Government's response and to hearing contributions of other members this afternoon. Thank you, Mr Gibson. I now call on Jackie Baillie and Ms Baillie, 10 minutes. Presiding Officer, I believe that this is the first time that a woman has occupied the post of shadow or, indeed, finance secretary from any party since the inception of this Parliament. If you hang around for long enough, it all comes in the end. I regard it both as a privilege and a challenge to be asked to do this job. I am sure that John Swinney would agree that there is nothing more important than stewarding the nation's finances to ensure that we have the money to spend on our priorities. Whether it is growing the economy, encouraging aspiration, tackling inequality, delivering social justice, they are all at the centre of our positive vision for Scotland. I want us to be ambitious for the country and for our people. In doing so, I want people to have trust in their Parliament and in Government when we make financial and economic projections. That is, of course, irrespective of party, because we need to get serious about how we do that. Labour is proposing that we establish a Scottish Office of Budget Responsibility, an independent watchdog that would scrutinise the budget and have oversight of economic and fiscal projections. It is now more important than ever before. It used to be the case that budget debates were all about how we would spend the money allocated by the UK Government. Now, and in the future, we will have the power to raise a substantial proportion ourselves. New powers over taxation, new powers over welfare and new powers over job creation, we will actually have to balance the books rather than only being concerned with one-half of the balance sheet. With that additional responsibility comes the need for better scrutiny for transparency in our forecasting. The finance committee believes so, respected economists believe so and the Smith commission also believes so. With the greatest respect to the cabinet secretary, the fiscal commission is a pale imitation of what is required. Although I have enormous regard for those who serve on the commission, the truth is that they are not independent of Government. Two of the members are indeed on the Government's Council of Economic Advisers. Now, you cannot both scrutinise and advise the Government. There is a conflict of interest there. Its remit is limited, the resources available to it amount to £20,000, and whilst the cabinet secretary, I know, will say, don't worry, it will all evolve and be put on a statutory footing, there is no evidence of this and no bill in the legislative programme to do this. A powerful Scottish OBR that draws from experience around the world is what we want for Scotland. We should have no fear of transparency in scrutiny, and this is urgent as we need to build capacity in Scotland for an OBR that can provide an effective scrutiny mechanism from day 1. The Scottish Government produced three oil and gas bulletins prior to the referendum. One was entitled, Oil Analysis shows boom years ahead and suggested that the proceeds could exceed $150 a barrel. The white paper suggested that it was $113 a barrel and is now consistently below $50 a barrel. That is the biggest threat to jobs in Scotland since Ravenscrape. Whilst the loss of revenue would take £6 billion a year out of our finances, the equivalent of every doctor and nurse in our NHS, the Scottish Government did not see it coming. We need confidence that what the Government is predicting is as accurate as it can be. In a second, a Scottish OBR is a modest measure. It does not cost a lot of money, yet it is such a critically important bit of the infrastructure that we need to do it and we need to do it now. Labour believes that we need to establish a resilience fund of at least £10 million in light of the crisis in North Sea oil and gas. That is not an oil fund, as some would have you believe. Rather, it is an emergency fund to help areas affected by significant job loss. I have been astonished at the SNP's glacial pace in reacting to the economic storm that is being caused by the falling oil price. They are not glacial in getting up just now. Can I say genuinely to them that we all in this chamber owe it to the oil workers and their families across Scotland to strain every sinew to provide help? Let me touch on the land and building transaction tax and make a couple of observations, because this is the first Scottish tax in 308 years, so this is a moment of record. Let me echo John Swinney's surprise for slightly different reasons. Having announced his intentions at the tail end of last year to make this a fair and progressive tax, it took John Swinney just 100 days to change his mind. That must be the fastest U-turn in history. I have to say that I feel for the SNP members of the finance committee who voted against the Tory proposal only now to find that the cabinet secretary had aligned himself with the Tories, but, of course, that is something they have been very comfortable doing in successive budgets since 2007. I am just curious as to whether Jackie Baillie has actually examined the proposal that was put forward by Gavin Brown at the finance committee versus what Mr Swinney has outlined here if she is seriously trying to suggest that they are the same thing. Does she not agree that what Mr Swinney has outlined here is progressive taxation? I am very happy to look at the detail of John Swinney's proposal, which was outlined in his speech today. Let me save her our part. We will support anything that helps homeowners and indeed the house building industry, so we will examine the detail of what he said today. I want to turn to local government, and I do not remember the cabinet secretary mentioning this. He used to tell us that local government got an increasing share of funding. He does not any more because it is not true. In 2010-11, it received 38 per cent of the Scottish Government budget. Now, I understand that it is 32 per cent, which is 6 per cent less. If it were to achieve the same share, it would be in line for an extra £1.8 billion more. Every single local authority in Scotland has had a real terms cut. There are now 40,000 fewer public sector workers. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation tells us that, by 2015, local government spending in Scotland is set to fall in real terms by 24 per cent. That is the funding for our schools and social care. In Edinburgh, it needs to make £67 million in cuts over the next three years, £22 million in the next year alone. It is talking about cutting 1,200 jobs. In Glasgow, it is staggering £29 million from its budget in 1-year-old loans. In Dundee, it needs to make cuts of £30 million in the next three years. It is talking about closing schools and cutting spending on textbooks. However, it is not alone. East Renfrewshire, West Dunbartonshire and Renfrewshire are all unpalatable decisions. They affect all local authorities, whatever their political complexion. That is, after all, about our children. Are we giving them the best start in life when we limit their opportunities in education? Are we taking care, no, of our older people when they are forced to cancel community alarms because they cannot afford to pay for them? I know that Mr Swinney and indeed the First Minister are shouting about the cuts that are visited on the Scottish Government by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition. In part, they are right, but it is not the full picture. The cuts passed on to local government are not just austerity. This is austerity plus from the Edinburgh Government. The cabinet secretary wrote to every council in October to tell them that the level of cuts that the Scottish Government had experienced since 2010-11 was 10 per cent. However, what he did not tell them was the scale of the cut that he was passing on would be greater still. Using his own figures and analysis, in Renfrewshire, it was a cut of 17 per cent. In Edinburgh, it was a cut of 20 per cent. He may shake his head, but those are what those local authorities are saying. The Scottish Government has set up a commission to consider local government finance, and we welcome that, but those changes will not happen until 2016. There is an urgent need now to act to protect our schools and care services. This is to be an issue to be resolved by the rough and tumble of debate in this chamber. However, I would ask the cabinet secretary to take this away and work with local government to see what he can do in the interim to alleviate the cuts. First Minister. Simple question for Jackie Baillie. I am hearing that she wants to give more money to local government. Can she, before she ends her speech, tell us what part of the Scottish Government budget Jackie Baillie proposes cutting? Jackie Baillie. I have exactly said that this is too big an issue to be resolved. It absolutely is. If you care... Order. Order. You are talking about £1.8 billion of funding. Order, Ms Baillie. Please stop. Can I have order in the chamber, please? Ms Baillie, I will re-compensate. Order. You are talking about... Ms Baillie, please sit down for a moment. Can we have order in this chamber, please? Ms Baillie, I will now give you another minute to finish your speech because of all the interruptions. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can I say to the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister that, actually, the scale of the cut in local government is so significant. It isn't achieved by the rough and tumble of debate in this chamber. It is actually about taking this away and looking at it in partnership with local government. We stand ready to help in that process, but unfortunately it doesn't seem that you care about funding local government to provide those front-line services. Finally, I want to spend my remaining time focusing on health because it is obvious the pressure on our NHS this winter. The health minister agreed to put 100 million into the NHS over the next three years to deal with delayed discharge. That is welcome, but the Scottish Government has to recognise that this is a drop in the ocean. There are other very pressing issues in the care sector that they will be aware of. Levels of unmet need are rising. We fund crisis rather than funding prevention, so I hope that the money does make a difference, but I fear that we will need to return to a debate about social care soon. Equally, the problems in our NHS aren't just caused by delays in getting people out of the back door of hospitals. There are serious pressures on the front line, too. Thousands of Scots are waiting too long at A&E or having planned operations cancelled at the last minute because of a lack of beds. It makes no sense to have unused capacity in our NHS. So, today, we are calling for another £100 million. In this coming year, the remaining Barnett consequentials to establish a front-line fund to increase the capacity of NHS services to operate seven days a week. In conclusion, that means extending capacity to build final surgery at the weekend's diagnostics in the evening. It frees up beds so that people can be seen more quickly. Every day brings new stories about the pressure on our NHS. Our staff, who dedicate their careers to saving lives, are overshadowed and under-resourced. They need a front-line fund that supports staff and to support patients. Thank you. Gavin Brown, six minutes, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Well, I guess that the Deputy First Minister must be licking his lips at this stage, because getting the Labour Party on board to support his budget is going to be fairly easy. All he has to do is rename the Fiscal Commission, the Scottish OBR, and suddenly he's got 40 votes in the bag. He's going to have to work a little bit harder in order to get our full support, Deputy Presiding Officer. I can say categorically, to spare Mark McDonald's blush, that the proposal that I put forward to the finance committee is slightly different to the proposal that the Deputy First Minister put forward today. In all sincerity, I praise some of the actions that he's taken so far, because he has been particularly accessible in the last couple of weeks. He has, I think, been in listening mode, and I know that, while he has spoken to other parties, he has also, I think, engaged with stakeholders and, I think, tried quite carefully to take the temperature on the ground in relation to the residential rates of the land and buildings transaction tax. So let me praise some elements, and let me then outline where I still have some concerns and want to work with the Scottish Government to make progress before stage 3. Firstly, I think that he ought to be applauded for coming to Parliament today with an early decision or an early announcement. It's fairly typical in the budget process in almost every Parliament. I think that to wait till the final stage to pull a rabbit out of the hat so that you can generate some news and make something happen at stage 3. I urged him, and I know others did too, to say something earlier on, to try and ameliorate some of the displacement that I think was happening and some of the forestalling that we know was projected by a number of agencies. So the fact that we have an announcement today, the fact that he agreed to do so, I think that should be welcomed and applauded. Secondly, I welcome the fact that in relation to October, in relation to the rates that he put forward then, this is a tax cut. This is a reduction in the region of £64 million, if my maths was correct on the figures that he gave to Malcolm Chisholm. It will be £64 million smaller tax in April, then it would have been had he not made changes. And again, as a Conservative, I welcome that. I think that the... I'm grateful to Mr Brown for giving me in the interest of completeness. Would he also accept that the firm commitment that I gave to Parliament and to the France Committee was that the introduction of this tax would be revenue neutral for the changes that were applied by the United Kingdom Government? So the issue for me has been about remaining true to that commitment to revenue neutrality as the driver of what some of money was to be raised in taxation. Gaffin Price. Okay, when I said a tax cut, I meant relative to the rates on October, I wasn't trying to paint it as a tax cut overall. Yes, his exact wording, which I did have in front of me, was I've decided that the taxes raised should be revenue neutral, raising no more or less than the taxes that they replace. That's what he said on day one. That's what he said, I think, on most occasions since then. So I certainly... It's a matter of public record that that's what he said. Deputy Presiding Officer, in addition to that, we welcome the increased threshold. We called for it to be increased to £140,000. It has been increased further than that, to £245,000, and that does make it easier for first-time buyers. And the last area that we welcome is the fact that there is a 5 per cent rate, the fact that it doesn't go immediately from 2 per cent to 10 per cent, the fact that it is more gradual going up from 2 per cent to 5 per cent, and then 10 per cent. So for all of that, I'm quite happy to publicly praise the actions taken, but then I will go on, of course, to say where we still have some concerns, and I hope that we can think about tackling this and making more progress in the coming weeks. Deputy Presiding Officer, we will consider the changes carefully. I intend not to make snap judgments, but to review the numbers myself, and to engage with the experts and stakeholders as I have done over the last couple of months since the rates were first announced. Where I do have some concern is that we still have a sharp increase, and we have a jump to 10 per cent, at a comparatively lower rate than we do in the rest of the UK. It raises up, if I wrote it down correctly, at £325,000 up to the 10 per cent rate, which still, I have to say, on first blush strikes me as particularly high, or particularly low, to move up to 10 per cent. We acknowledge the points made by the Scottish Government that the housing market in London is different from Scotland, but at a UK level, it doesn't go up to that percentage until £925,000, and that's why our proposal was captured at £500,000 to try and recognise that difference. So I'm still a bit concerned that it goes up to 10 per cent at £325,000. Clearly, it's better than it, £250,000, but we will work hard to see if we can make progress on that. It still attacks on aspiration to a degree, to a lesser degree than it would have been, but the crossover point is a little bit higher than it was in October, but we still think that a scope to push that up further. Not just to try and help people to get the family home of their choice, but actually because of the impact that it can still potentially have on the market. I still think that there is a possibility for distortions to occur. I still think that penalising, particularly the segment between £325,500 part of the market, if you penalise that segment, it doesn't just have an impact in my view on that segment, there are reverberations around the housing market and there could be a wider economic impact. Deputy Presiding Officer, I get to close today as well, so I can come on to various points. The other part I would just make in terms of revenue neutrality, from looking at the number of sales on the modelling that I have seen, which is about 84,000, versus what the Scottish Government predicted, whether it is going to be 100,000 sales, I do wonder if they have been slightly conservative in their estimates and whether you could get to revenue neutrality with some further changes to the tax rates and bans that we will push for over the next couple of weeks, but I will leave it there, Deputy Presiding Officer. Many thanks, because we are incredibly tight for time this afternoon. Speeches of a maximum of six minutes, Mark McDonald, to be followed by Jenny Marra. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I welcome the strong economic performance that the cabinet secretary outlined earlier with employment at record levels and the lowest unemployment in the UK. I also welcome the continued support of the Scottish Government for agencies such as Skills Direct Scotland, Scottish Enterprise, SDI and SCDI, many of whom deliver excellent work and support for my constituents and organisations in my constituency in the north-east of Scotland. Indeed, in the last year, I held a jobs fair in my constituency at which Skills Direct Scotland provided workshops on CV writing and interview skills, which helped a number of my constituents in an area of the city, which, while the economy of Aberdeen has been buoyant, there were particular issues and get people into employment. That was despite the local Labour Party objecting to Skills Direct Scotland having any involvement in the process. However, the role of those agencies in the north-east is in sharp focus in recent months, given the on-going issues affecting the oil and gas sector. I welcome the establishment by the Scottish Government of the Energy Jobs Task Force. I think that it is a recognition that there needs to be intervention to ensure that those who are finding themselves in a position of redundancy or potential redundancy need that support alongside the work that the PACE teams will be doing in that area. However, it does underline that the key interventions that are needed in that area are those that must come from Westminster. Alongside the endorsement of the Scottish Government's budget today and the impact that it will have in supporting the work that is going on in the north-east of Scotland, we must also be very clear that where fiscal intervention is required from Westminster, we should unite in calling for that, whether it is through the reduction of the supplementary allowance, whether it is through introduction of an investment allowance for marginal fields, or whether it is through tax credits for exploration, which can boost exploration activity and ensure that when recovery and price happens, as experts are predicting it will, then the industry is in a position to take advantage of that, the most advantageous position to capitalise upon that. I would have a degree more sympathy for the positions that are being outlined by some politicians if they would acknowledge that, first of all, they campaigned for the UK to remain responsible for the oil and gas sector and to have control of the fiscal regime in the north-sea and actually pointed in that direction when it comes to calling for the key interventions that are required. Again, we hear today talk of a resilience fund and we have now at least got a rough figure that has been stuck to it. We still do not understand exactly where that funding is supposed to come from nor do we understand who that funding is supposed to be given to directly, how that funding would be dispersed and what purpose that funding would serve. I do think that it will be of great interest to the many communities across Scotland who have seen economic shock in recent times, that it is only now that the Labour Party has decided to call for a resilience fund in these specific circumstances. I will give way to Mr MacDonald on that point. I am very grateful on recognising the point that he makes about working out the detail. Does he at least acknowledge the value of the principle and will he call on his ministerial colleagues to endorse the principle of such an intervention fund for industries, like oil and gas at the moment in Aberdeen that are facing sudden shocks to the system? Mark McDonald. Until I understand exactly what the fund is to be used for and where it is to be directed to, I think that it is very difficult for me to say anything about the broad principle of such a fund. Having a pot of money is all well and good unless you are putting it in a targeted fashion. That is why I think that the interventions and I will take the ministers to think that that is why the interventions that the Scottish Government has taken in terms of the establishment of the jobs task force is the right one because it is something that has been established with a defined purpose in order to support those individuals and those companies where redundancies are either arising or in potential of arising. I will take the ministers. Fick Sheung. Could I have Mr Ying's microphone please? Mr Ying's your card then. It is, yeah. Could we have the microphone? Thank you, Presiding Officer. My apologies. Is Mr MacDonald aware that during its period as the UK Government the successive Labour Governments received in total in taxation from oil not £10 million but £93,000 million and not one penny during those 13 years was set aside for Scotland whether in a resilience fund or an oil fund from that £93,000 million. Mark MacDonald. I absolutely acknowledge that. I think that if anybody casts a cursory glance at the letters pages of the press and journal over recent weeks people in the north-east are not being hoodwinked by that either. I want to turn finally Presiding Officer to the issue around tax and Jackie Baillie said that she would be interested to look at the detail of the cabinet secretary's announcement in order for her to make the comparison between what was proposed at the finance committee and what the cabinet secretary announced. All she had to do was two things. One, read the annex to the finance committee report which outlines what Gavin Brown proposed and two, write down what the cabinet secretary announced to Parliament in terms of the bandings which I would not have thought would have been a stretch for Jackie Baillie and she would have seen that the threshold at which people do not pay tax was increased which will help more first-time buyers and also the threshold for the 5 per cent tax was reduced from that proposed by Gavin Brown from £500,000 which Gavin Brown proposed to £325,000 which the cabinet secretary outlined therefore ensuring that those who are buying properties at the higher end of the market are paying a fair share of taxation on those purchases. If Jackie Baillie wants to put out her pre-prepared lines she should at least have cognisance of what happens in the debate before she does so. Very briefly, Presiding Officer, because I did take to interventions adjustment in terms of the block grant I think that we need to learn the lessons from this in terms of what the UK Government has dragged its heels on in terms of future taxation and also late announcements as well. Something which has been highlighted by for example Professor David Healed when we're having to consult and announce our proposals early the ability of the Treasury and the Chancellor to pull the rug out in the way that he was attempting to do with stamp duty could arise in terms of income tax and assignation of VAT. We have to ensure that there is a fair financial playing field when it comes to devolve taxation in future. I must warn members if they take interventions they must be in their own time we do not have any time. Jenny Marra to be followed by Linda Fabiani. Presiding Officer, we know that there is a crisis in our A&E departments in Scotland today. You only need to open the newspaper to see exactly how bad things are. Over Christmas we heard reports from across the country of the pressures on our NHS. The Victoria infirmary in Glasgow used a porta cabin for casualty patient overflow. A man waited on a trolley in A&E for more than 20 hours at the Royal Alexander hospital in Paisley. Nine wells in Dundee admitted delaying treatment because the hospital was too busy and in Aberdeen the Royal infirmary had to cancel 80 operations in the first week of 2015. Yesterday Regmore hospital closed a ward. We are seeing a similar strain on our other front-line services. Last weekend a surgical ward at the southern general hospital in Glasgow was left without heating and hot water for more than three days. Nurses were working in their coats and patients sleeping with scarves and hats on in Dickensian conditions. I'm sure that the cabinet secretary will agree that having no hot running water on a surgical ward is unacceptable. The Scottish Government promised to invest in real terms in our front-line care in helping those at the four of our NHS but still patients have to cope with unacceptable conditions and staff have to deal with a lot of pressure. Presiding Officer, yesterday was further evidence that the Scottish Government is running to catch up when it comes to the NHS. The cabinet secretary showed a tacit disregard for all members of the chamber when she chose to go to the press before declaring a new piece of policy to this Parliament. But perhaps, Presiding Officer, she did not see it necessary because, as with the £65 million announced following the Christmas A&E crisis, this £100 million to tackle delayed discharges was simply a re-announcement of funds already allocated to health. Dofydd Patrick. The member could tell us is this new money or a re-announcement of money? What's her view? Because you can't have it both ways. My understanding of the Government's announcement yesterday, Presiding Officer, was that there's 30 million of Barnett consequentials in 35 million and 35 million the following year from the Scottish Government budget. I don't know if that clarifies his own Government policy for him, but I'm sure he'll let me know if it doesn't. But the announcement that the Government made yesterday, we know, is actually just 30 million this year, a fact downplayed yesterday in the announcement. Now it took the Cabinet Secretary seven weeks to decide where the allocated health consequentials were going to go. When she claims to know what the problems are in the NHS and she has claimed that delayed discharge was her top priority since coming into this job. Now that is seven weeks of planning time, an element crucial in helping our NHS and our local authorities plan for to help delayed discharge and as the boards come into being on 1 April. Presiding Officer, we will go into more detail on the NHS tomorrow as the Government is bringing its debate on the 2020 vision for health. But as Jackie Baillie said in her opening remarks, today Labour is calling on the Scottish Government to deliver a front-line fund for our NHS. The Scottish Government keeps re-announcing health consequentials but we would like to see them take burn at consequentials and put them into health and social care because the health and wellbeing are crucial to our communities across Scotland. Now that means if the member will just let me finish this point and then I'll come to him. Now that means not just the currently unallocated 29 million from health but the 71 million of general consequentials too. An NHS front-line fund would allow hospitals facing extra pressure to move to a seven-day a week operation. That means that hospitals would be able to better deliver care with planned surgery at the weekends and diagnostics in the evening. Now this is something that the Government has said that it will plan and do and its 24-7 has run pilots on but I don't believe has actually made any progress over the last couple of years. Time is running out there is severe pressure on our NHS and that is why we are calling for it today. Yes, I'll take the intervention now. I just want to be clear because the resilience fund which has been talked about by the front bench my understanding from Jim Murphy's comments was that that was to be spent from non-health consequentials. Jenny Marra appears to be suggesting that all consequentials including non-health consequentials should go towards this front-line fund. I just want to seek some clarity on that. Jenny Marra and you're in your last minute. No, what I've said was that 71 million of general consequentials should be allocated to the front-line fund. Now, Presiding Officer, giving 100 million to a front-line fund will free up beds and get the patients the diagnosis quicker, better care and we will tackle patient flow through our hospitals. We are calling for this because A&E departments are having to put out calls for untrained volunteers to help with the waiting time crisis. Because the winter crisis in the NHS is becoming the everyday crisis for the people of Scotland and because everyone from Audit Scotland to the RCN are telling us that our NHS needs this investment. Presiding Officer, both the Government and the Opposition have correctly identified the biggest challenge in our health service as delayed discharge. But to inject more movement, improve patient flow and free up our hospitals, this money to free up evening and weekend capacity is the kind of modern health service that the Scottish people expect. I hope that the Cabinet Secretary will consider this proposal in his budget. Many thanks. I now call Linda Fabiani to be followed by Willie Rennie. Presiding Officer, what I think has always been very distinctive about the budgets that John Swinney puts forward, indeed that the SNP Government puts forward is that they are cohesive, that they look at the overall picture, that they look at actions for a purpose. And they do that with partners where appropriate whether that be business or whether it be trade unions. And they are based on three main strands, making Scotland a more prosperous country, tackling inequality and protecting and reforming public services. I would say again that John Swinney has come forward at this stage of the budget process with a cohesive budget. Unfortunately, I do not think that the main opposition has been able to really rise to that challenge and say, okay, we think that there are other things that could better be done to get fairness and equity in our society. I think, as always, we're still in the position where all they do is look for something that they perceive as a political weakness and harp on about it. And I have to say, as far as Jackie Baillie is concerned, it takes some brass neck for a Labour politician to accuse others of making over-optimistic fiscal forecasts when you think that Gordon Brown managed to get his borrowing predictions wrong by over £400 billion and that Labour's time in office national debt almost trebled. Yes, of course. Jenny Marra I mean that it's a good idea to free up the capacity in evenings and weekends in our hospital to improve patient flow through the hospitals. Linda Fabiani. What I would say to Jenny Marra is that I have total confidence in the health team of the Scottish Government to be looking at the health service in the round, working with their partners and coming up with the best possible solution. It's not about picking things out of a hat that one thinks will get them a headline in the front of a newspaper. Can I say, in the making of Scotland a more prosperous country, we do have a good baseline. Scotland's economy is on track to record its strongest performance this year since 2007. We're leading the way with the highest employment and economic activity rates and lowest unemployment of the home nations of the UK. Business startups in Scotland are at a record high. Can I say that some credit has to be given to the Deputy First Minister for managing this, despite what's been described by the IFS's spending cuts on a colossal scale. The OBR itself has noted that under the coalition Government's plans, total public spending would fall to 35.2 of GDP by 2019-20 and probably be the lowest in around 80 years. There are many quotes from many, many respected agencies. I'll tell you what. For me, the most telling quote is Ed Miliband confirming that the Labour Party too is wedded to austerity, backed up by his troops marching through the lobby to vote for the Tory's austerity cuts. Yes, of course. Jackie Baillie. I thank the Fabiani for taking an intervention. Labour and Tory spending plans are very different. Does she know that the Institute of Fiscal Studies shows that Labour's plan is either to spend more or tax less than the Tory's to the tune of £43 billion, and that's before additional revenue streams from the mansion tax or in the increase to the top rate of income tax? So isn't it the case that what she just said is more about spin than substance? Linda Fabiani. Can I say, Presiding Officer, that the local Westminster MP in my constituency of East Kilbride quite clearly doesn't understand what he did last week? Can I suggest that I would have thought that the Labour Party in Scotland might have understood the implications of what they did last week? Is she aware that that vote also endorsed George Orr's born's welfare spending cap? Tackling and equality is a real priority for this Government because we believe in common with many economists across the world that equality and cohesion are good for growth as well as for individuals. And the ability to share that growth is what is important. That's why the Scottish Government has taken the steps that it has in relation to the council of economic advisers and poverty impact assessments on-going in all their policies. We're doing what we can to mitigate Westminster's welfare cuts with over £100 million committed in 2018-15-16. But it's preventative spend that is the real issue here. That's what is so very important. I remember, and Kenny Gibson talked about it today as convener of the finance committee, but in the last Parliament too we did studies. I think that Malcolm Chisholm and I sat in that committee about the importance of preventative spend, especially in the younger years. It's a long-term issue. You can't change these things overnight. And if we can do one thing for Scotland if not agree on Scotland's constitutional future or indeed the powers that we should have here, surely we can come to the agreement that what is important is making Scotland a fairer, better, more prosperous country. Businesses are coming on board with that. Trade unions have always believed that and are working very well with the Scottish Government towards that end. So surely the Labour Party in particular, with the history of what used to be a movement, can recognise at longer term for our country, it doesn't need political sniping, it needs working together, agreeing certain principles that we can all move forward with, regardless of other arguments that we have about the constitution or indeed the results of the election. That's what's important. We talk about this new politics in Scotland. I believe that's what people expect. And I think that there's an awful lot of people who used to value the Labour Party who would expect that too. Thank you. Thank you. Call Willie Rennie to be followed by Michael Russell. Once again, six minutes is the maximum I can give you. The deputy First Minister knows that Liberal Democrats take a constructive and realistic approach to the budget process. We voted twice for his budgets in this Parliament. In fact, we've only voted against on one occasion. And it's not because each of those budgets that we voted for were perfect, not by enemies, but they were good enough. They were good enough for our support. First time round we supported the budget because we got extra money for our colleges and for house building. Second time round we voted for the budget because we got an expansion of nursery education for two-year-olds and free school meals, things that we had advocated prior. When we didn't achieve the things that we wanted to achieve with our realistic demands, costed demands, then we voted against, but we've only done that once. That will be our approach this year again, and I'm hoping that we'll have constructive discussions with the deputy First Minister as we have had in previous years. We understand the strains, we know the financial pressures, we know that the demographic time bomb that we all thought was somewhere in the distance is right here and now, and it's impacting directly on our public services. We understand that. We understand the impact of poverty, not just on the individuals that it affects directly, but also on the public finances that they're not contributing to the economy. We can't get the taxes that help to pay for our public services. We've also got the additional challenge of climate change, which we're all trying to grapple with and make sure that we invest enough in the right areas. All those three are considerable pressures, so we understand the pressures that the deputy First Minister faces with trying to get the budget to match. And this year, of course, he would have, if there was a different vote last September, an additional pressure of £7 billion because of the drop in the value of oil revenues if Scotland was independent. So we know the pressures, and we don't need any additional pressures, and I'm grateful that we do have the United Kingdom to maintain the investment in public services that we have grown used to in Scotland. And all of that is possible because we've managed to get the economy back on track. We're getting the country working again. We've got 168,000 more jobs in Scotland than when the UK Government came to power in 2010, and that's based on a plan that SNP members and indeed Labour members said would not work. And because we've got the economy back on track, still much more work to be done, we've also got additional Barnett consequentials, which we have to choose about how we're going to allocate. And I want to turn for the remainder of the speech to what we would like to see in the budget for this year. Danny Alexander has suggested that most, if not all, of the Barnett consequential should be spent on upgrading the A9 and the A96. Is that Liberal Democrat policy in Scotland? Willie Rennie. We fully support the capital spend on upgrading the A9, despite repeated promises from the Scottish Government. They've been very backwards at progressing that project, and we would like to see that accelerated, certainly on the capital side. What I'm going to primarily talk about here is on the revenue side, where the bulk of additional Barnett consequentials have been provided for. First of all, on the NHS, we know that the NHS is under extraordinary pressure. We've heard from Jenny Marra earlier on about some of the pressures in different hospitals. I would argue that the SNP took their eye off the ball during the referendum. Cancer waiting times have been missed, accident and emergency departments have been pushed to the limit, and insufficient funds are needed to prevent delayed discharges. I welcome the announcements in recent days to try to address some of that, but we also need to make sure that we get the right priority for mental health, because that's often the poor relation in the NHS. We've got additional funds from the Barnett consequentials, which we would like to see invested in the health service to deal with those particular difficulties. Our second priority is on childcare, which the Deputy First Minister has heard me discuss in previous debates. We made some progress last year, where we've now got 15 per cent of two-year-olds getting 15 hours of nursery education every week. It's going to rise to 27 per cent in August, whereas in England we're at 40 per cent. I would like to see Scotland catching up to get to the level for the very reasons that Linda Fabiani talked about, which was trying to make that early intervention to make a real change in children's lives, especially those from impoverished backgrounds. That's the best educational investment that we can make, and that's why we would advocate it. With a certain degree of trepidation, I discussed the next item, which is on student loans. It's a brave area for any Liberal Democrat to venture into these days, but if it's a right policy to advocate, it's something that I'm certainly going to do. We advocated that there should be no tuition fees in Scotland. We know that there's a difference south of the border with the Government policy, but we argued for that. What we also want to see now is a raising of the threshold for repayment of student loans. In Scotland it's £16,910, in England it's £21,000. We would like to see that gap closed, and we understand that the RAB charge was underspent in the last year. We would like to see the flexibility that that would create to be able to raise that threshold up to £21,000. We think that that would benefit Scottish students, and that's something that we are in support of. In addition, I'm coming to my conclusion. I'm afraid, I'll have to drop the last speaker out of the debate. We would advocate childcare, NHS, making sure that the student loans get that extra support. Those are the things that we'll work on, and we'll work with the Deputy First Minister on those issues. I welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate. I think that we'll all be very pleased to be members of the First Scottish Parliament since 1706, that will set national rates of taxation. I want to commend John Swinney's announcement today. He has ever been a fleet of foot. He's listened, he's adapted, and he's adapted in the light of changes made elsewhere for whatever motivation we don't know, and in the light of constant insecurity regarding what may or may not come from the UK treasury in block grant. And then he's delivered. Good for him. I have to say shame on others, particularly on Jackie Baillie, for all the posturing that we've heard today. But the difficulties that have arisen as a result of what has happened elsewhere should give us pause for thought in this chamber. The Deputy First Minister's had to contend with a problem created by the fact that he has at his disposal the we as Scotland's Parliament have at our disposal only a small fraction of the full wealth and potential of this nation. Even after the Smith commission, if it is ever implemented in full, we will still have at our disposal in this chamber the minority of all the resources of the nation, which we should be applying to the betterment of our fellow citizens. And until that changes, any administration is going to face big challenges, any administration at all, in setting tax rates, because they're only able to apply and utilise a small number of the essential tools. When John Swinney announced last October his intentions, then he talked about the principles that he was guided by, not just neutrality, but also Adam Smith's four maxims. And it's useful to look at those. At the centre of them, there is a principle of fairness in taxation. Enunciated through the ages, which Smith expressed in this way, by saying that the subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the Government as nearly as possible in proportion to their respective abilities. But Smith had another important view of taxation, again given in the wealth of nations, which says that the tax which each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain and not arbitrary. The time of payment, the manner of payment, the quantity to be paid ought all to be clear and plain to the contributor and to every other person. And therein lies this Parliament's difficulty, because whilst we have control of the rates of a limited number of taxes now, we don't have control of all of them. Without that control, we can't command the circumstances in which certain manner, quantity are all made clear and plain. The Irish nationalist and mystic, George William Russell, no relation, observed that there was what he called a fundamental proposition, which stated that whoever controls the taxation and trade policy of a country controls its destiny and the entire character of its civilisation. Now he said that in the context of the struggle for Irish independence. We might put it in less dramatic terms today, but in reality Scotland cannot be a normal country with a normal system of taxation if the control of so much of it and the spending power lies outwith the country. And that's demonstrated more than adequately by two events in the last week. Austerity is devastating our communities. It's devastating individuals within Scotland. And it's made in Westminster by Tory, Liberal and shamefully by Labour hands, and we can do nothing about it. And the renewal of Trident being done by the same people is another model and economic tragedy foisted upon us in the same way. In Russell's terms, that entire character of the country is being skewed and distorted by financial and other decisions not made here. Now I'm a strong supporter, Presiding Officer, of the position of Gwynfer Evans, so the position he took on devolution of powers that when people are starving, you don't refuse them even half a loaf. But the problem of consuming endless half loaves is that you don't get a balanced diet. In taxation terms, if you've only got control of a small part of the taxation mix, then the decisions you make on how to utilise that small part is always compromised by what you can't do. Moreover, it will always be second-guest, disrupted and sometimes deliberately undermined by those who control the greater part of taxation. That's what we've seen already. John Swinney's principles were and are right. His decisions were and are right. There is no doubt about that. He's fulfilled his original objectives. But nothing presently in the system will allow that anything to be easier for him or his successes as things go forward. The Smith commission proposals are piecemeal. They'll allow the same problems to recur. Indeed, there's an argument that they will encourage more meddling from Westminster, as we've seen from the Treasury admissions this week. A graphic example of when he ewing's maxim that is another case of Britannia not ruling the waves, but waving the rules. And the only sensible solution is full fiscal autonomy. Independence is, of course, my own and others' preference. But you could have full fiscal autonomy and be able to solve this problem. Having full fiscal powers would allow full decision making on all the range of taxation that a Government chose to utilise. It would be fair. It would arise from need and from clear plans and ambitions. It will fulfil the first and second maxims of Adam Smith. It would be certain, not arbitrary. Everything would be known because everything would be decided here in Scotland's Parliament, not elsewhere. Presiding Officer, that's what happens everywhere else. It's the normal thing to do. How odd it is to be in this chamber where the Opposition party is constantly espoused the abnormal, the arbitrary, the unclear, the least effective solution. Though perhaps that's why they are and that, according to all the opinion polls, will remain Opposition parties. Thank you very much. I now call Malcolm Chisholm to be followed by John Mason. Presiding Officer, this budget debate has been marked by the first ever tax setting by a Scottish Government, also by very useful commentary from the Finance Committee, and thirdly by serious, clear and strictly prioritised choices from the Labour Party. I shall deal with all those three in reverse order. I think that one of the most important suggestions from Jackie Baillie was for the setting up of an office of budget of responsibility. I note that that was certainly rubbish a few days ago, not so much in the debate today, perhaps because people realised that the Finance Committee itself recommended, and I quote, the Scottish Government should consider the option of inviting the Scottish Fiscal Commission to produce the official macroeconomic and fiscal forecast for Scotland. Of course, those are the key distinguishing features of the Office of Budget Responsibility. That was supported by Angus Armstrong a few days ago, a very distinguished economist, and by David Bell at our committee, who said that Scotland's forecasting body would help to ensure a critical mass of independent economic analysis in Scotland. That proposal has very high-level backing, and I think that the Scottish Government should certainly take it more seriously than it did a few days ago. Now, when it comes to the strictly prioritised, clear choices of labour, they are in two parts. It has never been as clear and prioritised as today. The 10 million resilience fund is not an oil fund, contrary to the Twitter storm, which said that Jackie Baillie was contradicting something that she said about the oil fund. They are completely different funds. This is an emergency fund to help areas affected by job loss. Again, I hope that that will command the support of the whole Parliament. Just on a point of principle, because Mr Chisholm always argues from principle, why is it that, since the UK has been the recipient for four decades of all of the £300,000 million of tax revenue that Scotland, which is a fixed budget for fixed functions which do not include oil or energy, should have all the liability to set up a fund? Malcolm Chisholm? I think that you will find that Ed Miliband and Ed Balls, and indeed Jim Murphy, were calling for a great deal of contribution from the UK Government as well, indeed far beyond the 10 million resilience fund. Of course, the biggest announcement today in terms of our prioritisation was that the rest of the health consequential should go to health and social care. Yesterday we had the botched delayed discharge announcement in terms of the procedures, but of course it was also a delayed announcement, as Jenny Marra has been very eloquently reminding us last night and today, and that is regrettable, given the problems that we have had in the health service over the last two months. But we certainly welcome the money, we need the money, we know that the number of bed days occupied by delayed discharge patients has been going up dramatically, I think, over 30 per cent in the last two years. So the trend is all in the wrong direction and that money is certainly welcome, but I think that the other significant announcement from Labour today was also about hospital capacity, because we can't ignore hospitals, although we do recognise that we have to build up capacity in the community. So in fact, what Labour was announcing today was money that could implement what is Scottish Government policy, because they've been talking about diagnostics in the evening and surgery at the weekends, but of course they have no hope of implementing those policies without extra resources. Now, turning to the tax setting, clearly a historic occasion and John Swinney, of course boasting that the Conservatives had copied his announcements two months ago. And I think that we can at least partially say that he has returned the favour today, at least to the extent that he is now raising the same amount of money from land building transaction tax as they are going to raise from the equivalent tax in England. I accept that it's more progressive and I welcome that. Now, obviously, that the whole affordability issue was dealt with extensively in the budget report and Kenny Gibson has covered that well. I want to move on really to, I think, what was perhaps the central and most interesting part of the Finance Committee report which dealt with the whole issue of preventative spend, which Linda Fabiani rightly praised in terms of its intention and which she'd recognised the contribution of the Finance Committee over two years in driving, or two parliaments in driving forward that agenda. Now, John Swinney said the preventative approach there's been sustained progress, he said, and then he talked about £170 million on the integration fund and the change funds, but in a kind of way that illustrates the problem that we have because, again, the Finance Committee said we have to try to emphasise the impact of spending on outcomes. And there, of course, we have a problem because the Finance Committee said, and I quote, as is outlined borough in relation to each of the change funds and the role of the community planning partners that there is little evidence of the essential shift in resources taking place to support a preventative approach. And then John Swinney, at the last minute, I've got no time. Launthe John Swinney said later on in his speech, there's been an increase in support for those with the highest level of need at home. At Audit Scotland said, there is little evidence of progress in moving money to community-based services and actually quoted a decline in money going into home care for older people. So, clearly, there is a massive challenge in terms of delivering the preventative care agenda. And I think that the Finance Committee has done us a favour in emphasising that. It also highlighted the issue of prioritisation. And I thought that there was a very interesting quote in relation to health from Andrew Walker on pages 22 and 23. Clearly, politicians are always reluctant to prioritise. They want to spend money on everything. But from Labour today, you will not find we are going to spend money on 10 different things over than above the Government. I know John Swinney likes to end his budget speeches by saying, well, this Labour member said this and this Labour member said that. Today we are all saying the resilience fund, but most of all, health and social care. Thank you very much. John Mason, we followed by Marta Fraser. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I think that at the start it is worth restating some of the positive successes of this Government, which we have now become used to, but which it has to be said that not all parties have always supported. Council tax freeze for the eighth year is certainly helping some of my struggling constituents, no prescription charges and no demeaning means testing, free bus travel for over 60s, which improves mental and physical health, free personal nursing care, removing the worry for many about older age. Of course, we would all like to spend more money on something. For example, shelter, Charter Institute of Housing and SFHA would like to spend more on housing and a lot of us would like that as well. Scottish care would like higher fees for care homes so that staff could get their living wage, and lots of us would like that too. However, we need to emphasise that money can only be spent once. If the Opposition members want to say that we should spend more on health and less on education, they are perfectly entitled to do that. Despite what Malcolm Chisholm just said, we have heard quite a few mentions of different spending desires already. The Opposition will not be taken seriously if they say that we should spend more on health, education and local government, as has been mentioned, and refuse to tell us where the money should come from. No, not just now, I will take an intervention later. The Equal Opportunities Committee, which I am also on, focused on age transitions, especially young people crossing the adult age frontier and older people moving into retirement and potentially more care needs. Can I commend the Equal Opportunities Committee, although as a member I may be biased, for not simplistically just asking for more money, but for example in relation to employment services saying asking the Government to review the balance between rural and urban funding, and I think that that is very balanced. Preventative spending remains a real focus for the finance committee, and I hope for the whole Parliament, and paragraph 201, which Malcolm Chisholm has already quoted, talks about that. We also need to focus on long-term outcomes and not be too bogged down on the number of nurses at A&E. Ideally, over time, we should be requiring less A&E, and presumably with less nurses there, and more nurses in the community doing preventative work. The Royal College of Nursing is keen that we emphasise sustainability, and I am more than happy to endorse that. Of course, the NHS will change as we go forward, and I think that that is to be debated tomorrow, but probably there will be more emphasis on prevention, but part of that will be politicians of all parties taking a long-term view and not just measuring what is easy to measure in the short term. I have said that before, but I will say it again, taxes are a good thing. Most obviously, we cannot have public services if we do not have taxes. Taxes pay for much of our education, health, housing, transport, defence systems, and of course no-one wants higher taxes for the sake of it, but no-one should say lower taxes are a good thing per se. And taxes also help us to narrow the gap between the richest and the poorest, both in terms of income and wealth. There is no sign of this being done voluntarily, so taxation is the obvious way to do it. In this budget, it is the first time for two of our new taxes, and I do welcome the arrival of LBTT and landfill tax, especially the more progressive nature of the former one. However, there have been some problems along the way, including firstly our budget being set out in considerable detail and allowing lengthy consultation and input, whereas Westminster changes were subsequently announced at a few hours notice with no consultation and no input. That puts the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government in an impossible situation of having to announce figures while not knowing what the UK figures would be and then having to react at short notice. This is a fundamental flaw in the devolution settlement and it is more likely to occur the more taxes we control. Of course, the answer is for Westminster to give up its theatrical style of setting its budget and to set out its overall plans before the devolved parliaments set theirs, so we can then tweak the UK system for our own situations. However, I am not holding my breath to see if that happens. All of that has put John Swinney in an impossible situation. Having committed to revenue neutrality, which I agree with, something has had to give. As neutrality with the previous Westminster position would be portrayed as a tax increase in Scotland, while neutrality with Westminster's new position could be seen by some as a tax cut at a time when public expenditure is seriously squeezed. We have heard today that the Deputy First Minister has chosen the latter and passed on the full tax reduction. I will take an intervention now if Jackie Baillie still wants to, but I am not sure if she is on this subject. Jackie Baillie? It was on an earlier subject. We have in fact outlined during the course of my speech and others have covered it that the NHS Frontline Fund and the Resilience Fund would both be funded through autumn consequentials. John Mason, you are in your last minute now. Yes, I am not sure if we heard quite how local government was to get extra money, but anyway there we go. Another problem with the whole system has been the problem of the block grant adjustment. That was meant to be agreed long ago and was meant to be a solid system that would last for years, and such a system is in fact in place for SRIT from 2016. However, it is still not in place for those relatively small taxes, and the finance committee has become increasingly frustrated at the slow rate of progress, so we are having to make do with a one-off adjustment for 1516. The whole point of devolving a tax is that we in Scotland make our own decisions and live by the consequences for better or for worse, yet it has seemed that Westminster wants to design a system whereby Scotland could never win, however well we manage things ourselves. That is a real concern for the finance committee looking ahead to future years if this level of Westminster thronness continues. So in conclusion many of us would like to see higher expenditure in a whole range of subjects, but we have to live within our means something Westminster has regularly failed to do and John Swinney is to be commended for his success in managing our finances. Thank you very much. Murdo Fraser, to be followed by Sandra White. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. The Deputy First Minister started his speech this afternoon with his usual summary of the economic situation, and he was right to say that there is good news. There is an old saying that success has many fathers and we have got used to in this chamber the tussle between Mr Swinney trying to claim credit for the economic successes and representatives of the coalition parties on this occasion represented by Mr Rennie trying to state it was all down to decisions taken in Westminster where most of the macroeconomic levers are held. But I think Mr Swinney was a little bit partial in this quoting of today's statistics so we had two new economic indicators today. One was an unemployment, and Scottish unemployment he is right to say is still less than in the UK as a whole, but unemployment in Scotland is up 7,000 in the period of September to November. We also saw the economic growth figures, and while economic growth in Scotland is still going up at 0.6 per cent, it is now below the two previous quarters and below that in the rest of the UK for the first time in 2014. In the third quarter of 2014, two economic indicators suggest that we are not doing as well as we were or indeed in the rest of the UK and we perhaps have to wonder what event was that happened uniquely in Scotland in the third quarter of 2014 that may have had this economic impact a similar economic impact instantly that we have seen on retail figures, on house prices and on economic confidence amongst small businesses. I think that when trying to claim credit for successes perhaps the Deputy First Minister needs to reflect that perhaps his own initiative and his own party's initiative on the referendum may not have been entirely beneficial to the Scottish economy. Yes, happily. Matt McDonald. I'm interested in the point that the member raises having seen, for example, Aberdeen Grampian Chamber of Commerce surveying its members who said that the referendum did not have a significant impact on their businesses. Is the member just engaging in the usual idle speculation on scaremongering which has become associated with the Scottish Conservatives? Matt, dweud. Well, I know that Mr McDonald makes a living as a stand-up comic occasionally but that was just about par for the course. What I was simply doing to the member was quoting some interesting statistics that show that, as against historic trends where we've been matching the UK or, indeed, exceeding the UK, in the third quarter uniquely of 2014, those trends have gone in the opposite direction. I would have thought the member where he concerned about those would be reflecting on what events took place in the third quarter of 2014 that might have had that impact only in Scotland and not elsewhere in the United Kingdom. But this budget was, indeed, as a number of members pointed out, one-half historic significance with the setting of new tax rates. I welcome that. That's what a grown-up Parliament should be like where we're debating not just how we spend the money but how that money is raised and debating how the tax rates are set. I look forward to the Smith commission proposals being implemented so that we can have a much more rounded discussion in the future around the setting of tax rates. I think that we need to put this budget in context because the SNP will continually complain about Westminster cuts. I was in the chamber yesterday and Mr Neil was talking about Westminster cutting the Scottish Government's budget. He said, in fact, that it was slashed to ribbons. The reality is that this is the second highest budget in real terms that the Scottish Government has ever had to deal with. According to Spice, only in the year 2009-2010 was in real terms the budget higher than the one that Mr Swinney is dealing with today. In each of the last 16 years, with that exception, the budget was lower. It does not exactly represent the savage cuts or the slashing to ribbons that we sometimes hear from those on the SNP benches. There never seems to be any shortage of money when it comes to preferred projects of the Scottish Government, whether that is extra money for health. They were announcing yesterday playing catch-up, incidentally, for the position taken by the UK Government down south, or for that matter, the £10 million produced, as if by magic, for the V&A project in Dundee. No great sign of any shortage of cash. When it comes to taxation, the LBTT changes announced by Mr Swinney previously would have hit hard on many aspirational families. Anyone buying a house costing more than £254,000 would have paid more. My colleague Gavin Brown previously proposed something as an amendment that would have helped every house buyer in Scotland. That would have been fully funded following the Chancellor's stamp duty by handing the Scottish Government an extra £64 million annually. We welcome the changes that Mr Swinney has brought forward today. I listen with interest to the detail and will take those away and look at them. I think that Gavin Brown was entirely right to say that they met her today. It cautious welcome. Mr Swinney is always talking about the competitive rates regime that we have in Scotland for business. Again, we welcome that. We strongly supported the small business bonus. Some of the more recently developments were not so keen on. Whether that is the empty property relief, whether that is the retail levy that was introduced now being phased out, we have not seen the Scottish Government mirror the changes down south to give an additional bonus to retail premises and we are seeing the proposed introduction of rates on sporting interests to take £7 million a year out of the rural economy. Yes, we do have a competitive advantage, but I regret that we are seeing that watered down. I have a few seconds left, Deputy Presiding Officer. Let me say in conclusion that this is not the budget that the Scottish Conservatives would have set out, but aspects of it are welcome and we will be happy to see it to proceed to the next stage to allow further discussions. Thank you very much for finishing time. Timelessly, we are very tight for time now. Speeches of up to five and a half minutes and we will be writing to some members as well. The next speaker is Sandra White to be followed by Alex Rowley. Thank you very much, sir. Presiding Officer, I will try to keep within the five and a half minutes timescale or maybe a wee bit lower than that. I thank the cabinet secretary who joins me in his contribution. I think that his expert handling of the Scottish budget, which I believe will take Scotland forward to a fairer and a much more just society, take it bearing in mind despite the austerity measures being pursued by the Westminster Government. I do have to say to the Labour party opposite here that their members joined the Tories in the chambers there in Westminster to vote for the austerity cuts for £30 billion worth of cuts. I said at the other debate that it is a rather sad state of affairs. Presiding Officer, I want to concentrate my remarks on a number of specific areas, health, if I can time, maybe justice and preventive spend, which I do believe is absolutely definitely the way forward. And I do note the comments of various members, not just Kenny Gibson from the Finance Committee but also from Malcolm Chisholm and others when they quoted from the finance report. And I think I'll quote from the finance report my self, page 33, paragraph 200 and 201. And the reason that I'm quoting this is, I think we all have to look at this and we should all agree at the end. In paragraph 200 it mentions the cabinet secretary accepts that preventive spending remains a work in progress but it's a work that the government and public authorities have to deliver. Public authorities is a very important part of that contribution because it's the key to sustainability of public services and whilst the cabinet secretary may be frustrated, basically things are not moving on quickly enough, the government is basically pushing forward with reform. And in paragraph 201, the finance committee comes back and says, the committee continues to be a supportive of the government in seeking a decisive shift to preventive and recognises that some progress has been made in particular in relation to integrated working. And I think that's important and the reason I raised this up and mentioned public authorities is that local authorities have a huge part to play in preventive spend and the joint spending. I think that's something that we have to remember and I'm sure we will take up perhaps with our local authorities. I do welcome the cabinet secretary's commitment to preventive spend, change funds such as early intervention, tackling re-offending, change fund and I do know the preventive spending initiatives will receive funding of around £500 million, £100 million made available to health and social care partnership to support health and social care integration. And I honestly think, not just from my point of view as an MSP but local authorities, councillors and the public at large can't wait, can't come soon enough to ensure that we deliver this joined up thinking. I know in my particular area we have areas where of bed blocking simply because we do not have this joint up integrated funding between social care and health. And it's something that certainly I've raised with Clareyda Glasgow health board and I'm sure others will have raised with their health boards and their local councils also. So I look forward to coming into fruition. Presiding Officer, total health expenditure has increased in real terms to £12 billion in 2015-16 under this Government regardless of what others said. And of course the Scottish Government has announced, as has been said, an extra £100 million to help with delayed discharge which is welcome. And I'm glad Malcolm Chisholm did say I think he's the only person in the Labour benches who said, we welcome that. And I was going to ask the Labour Party where the extra £100 million was coming from because I remember the debate we had last week where on top of the 1,000 extra nurses that we were putting forward from the Scottish Government here, they were putting forward another 100,000 nurses, 1,000 nurses, but we never found out where they're getting the money from, but if, I'm sure Jackie Baillie will correct me if I'm wrong, is he understanding yes or take an intervention? Jackie Baillie. Facts set out very clearly that the proceeds would come from the mansion tax. That would fund the additional 1,000 nurses. Is that right? Actually, Ms Baillie, that wasn't the question I was asking. You didn't really set out because it was, we had promised 1,000. It's become a kind of bidding war. We promised 1,000, and then the Labour Party came in with an extra 1,000 on top of ours. So if he promised 50, he would have put forward another 50. The question I was asking was, and I think he answered and that's why I said I stand to be corrected, with £100 million. Where was that coming from? I recollect you mentioned something about autumn consequentials, but I would like confirmation. I'll look forward to getting confirmation on that particular part because the 1,000 extra nurses from the debate last week came from Jim Murphy, all of a sudden just pulled out of an air. So I just want to clarify that point that it's not another creeping Westminster policy or Jim Murphy policy coming into the Scottish Parliament. So I would like that, if I could get it right. I would like that. So I did want to touch on the various other areas, but I know we're tight for time. But I do want to say, I think the budget will bring forward a fair society here in Scotland. And I thank very much the Cabinet Secretary for putting that forward. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Many thanks. Now Colin Alex Rowley to be followed by Patrick Harvie up to five and a half minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can I say to Sandra White just following on for a point is that the 1,000 nurses is a Scottish Labour Party policy. And it's one that we absolutely need to go into our national health service. It's not just the impact in terms of the shortage in nurseries, the cuts in in nurseries, the cuts in beds in our hospitals. It was interesting. I don't know if anybody saw an article on 18 January and the Sunday Times where they spoke about the number of negligence claims that is actually increasing in the NHS in Scotland. And the five free press in five drew my attention today to NHS five. And the fact that right now the number of negligence claims against NHS five have massively increased and you're talking about about litigation in terms of these claims is £17 million. If you put that into perspective in terms of the announcement the other day, which I welcome, I welcome any money given the current crisis in the NHS, the crisis in bedblocking, the major problems that we have there, but if you put that into perspective, five over those three years will get £6.73 million from that £100 million that was announced but faces litigation claims at the present time for some £17 million. So in terms of preventative action that needs to be taken we need more nurses and that's why the Labour Party in Scotland is absolutely committed to putting more nurses in. But if I can tackle the issues that were raised by the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary, John Swinney rightly highlights the economy in Scotland and the fact that that economy is doing well and I agree with him that that's something to be celebrated but the issue in the problem-wise budget is that what I can't see directly is where the strategy is for actually tackling to ensure that the benefits and the economy doing well are spread across the whole of the economy and it seems to me that there is no clear strategy there there's a lot of rhetoric about and we've heard that in here today about addressing inequality, tackling poverty tackling deprivation but I cannot see that that budget is actually focused and it's going to work across Scotland to tackle inequality, poverty and deprivation and if you take local government as an example of that this year yet again local authorities are facing a real-term cash cut in the monies that they actually get and at the same time we've seen major pressures and we need to be clear right across Scottish local government no matter who the political administration is in these councils we will be seeing cuts that are digging deep in heartland communities right across Scotland and I think we need to look at that and we need to address that and that needs to be part of a wider strategy that is completely lacking in terms of this budget as we move forward in terms of in terms of a unemployment whilst unemployment is fallen and should be celebrated the fact is that there are still far too many people out there that are not getting the opportunities we've got to be more ambitious and simply want increases in benefits and more people on benefits people need to be able to get jobs they need the skills they need the opportunities and that's what's lacking and this budget does not offer a strategy in terms of moving that forward the government downsized itself the number of social rented houses that it wanted to build and Mr Swinney talks about £390 million 4,000 social rented houses Shelta estimate that we need 10,000 houses for rent per year to even begin to start to tackle the housing crisis that is there and we need to again a strategy that works with local government not necessarily arguing that all that money will come through government but there's pension funds there's other opportunities that's there but there seems to be a failure to actually work with local government and get a strategy together that can start to see that coming forward the cabinet the deputy prime minister also talks about prevention and the work that goes into prevention but with those change funds I wonder what can the analysis has been done and how much of the moneys that has actually gone into the change funds has been used by local authorities to be able to offset the type of cuts that have been there I would also point out to the finance secretary that right across Scottish local government the fact is that the council tax freeze has not been resourced to the correct levels that it needs to be resourced for so there's a bad deal for local government that Jackie Baillie is absolutely right will not be addressed in one budget we need a clear coherent strategy for tackling inequality and ensuring that the wealth of this country is spread across the whole of Scotland this budget fails to do that many thanks I now call on Patrick Harvie to be followed by Mike McKenzie thank you deputy Presiding Officer I don't think anyone should disagree that Scottish budgets have been set in a tough context for the last few years and that any finance minister of any political party who was in power at present would have a difficult job to do there are there's an austerity agenda being imposed by the UK Government and no sign of a let-up from any of the UK political parties whatever the result of this year's election on that and there are limits to what any Scottish Government can do at the same time there have been concerns that we're not yet acting as much as we could within those limits I'd mentioned the constraints on local governments having the ability to make decisions of their own about the amount of revenue they need to raise I would cite as members will be aware of tomorrow if they choose to cross the PCS picket lines and commented Parliament the long standing opposition to the real terms pay cuts which are continuing and I understand why that began when the austerity agenda kicked in but since we've started seeing transfers from revenue to capital that is money that could have been funding an inflation level increase in the public pay packet and it hasn't been as well as that we've seen repeated failures on the unanimously agreed climate change targets and year after year after year we see budget reports just like this one parliamentary committee reports on the budget saying it's unclear how much funding is attached to the climate change agenda and we've seen continuation of that problem as well As for the changes to the land and building transaction tax I just want to say that I will examine I will look closely at the detail of what's been announced today but I did support the initial rates proposed in October and I remain a wee bit concerned if this decision effectively repeats or replicates a tax cut programme from the UK Government then I worry that that's a bad precedent to set in the context of the future devolved tax powers that we're going to have Mr Swinney said that I think that under the changes announced today compared with the October rates only people buying a property of £940,000 or more would be paying more than they would under the October rates if that's the case then a substantial part of the tax revenue reduction is being handed back to people at the extreme end of the property market John Swinney Can I make one point to Patrick Harvie which is about the the key consideration here for me has been the question of the commitment I gave to Parliament about revenue neutrality that is what has driven my decision I wouldn't want him to interpret that decision as being the fact that we commit ourselves in all circumstances to replicate whatever is done within the United Kingdom I guess the question is neutrality compared to what compared to the situation when the initial proposals was made or compared to the situation as it will be after UK changes let's just be clear before we get these wider taxation powers there is no path through UK austerity whether either handing on cuts to public services people depend on or raising taxation from those who can afford to pay it people like us in this chamber on very high incomes can afford to pay it and let's hear no nonsense about a tax on aspiration nobody is taxed for aspiring to own great wealth people should be taxed for actually owning great wealth or actually having very high incomes that's a feature of a decent society of the additional issues that we sought to raise with the deputy first minister there'll be no great surprise that we return to the theme of energy efficiency we've done that over very many years and although the deputy first minister mentioned a figure I think of 94 I think if I remember rightly million pounds in his speech it's clear from the WWF submission that at least 125 million pounds a year is what they've been calling for recently and they then go on to say given previous underfunding we now think substantially more than that would be needed so there is greater progress that's required if we're going to get anywhere close to our targets on fuel poverty or climate change on that one we've also raised the issue of unconventional gas and fracking now whatever position you take on on that issue in Scotland and whether that industry should have a role in Scotland it's clear that unless the UK Government halts the current licensing round and we'll be calling on them to do that local authorities may find themselves under pressure to deal with very many complex novel and challenging planning applications and if we want local authorities to be in a position to defend Scotland and defend Scotland's people against unwelcome developments of this nature we do need to resource them properly such an approach was taken in relation to wind farms with additional resources being made available we think the same should happen in relation to unconventional gas we've also raised very briefly Deputy Presiding Officer issues around sustainable transport in particular air pollution hot spots as well as our ongoing interest in the wave and tidal sector we look forward to seeing progress made on all of these issues Deputy Presiding Officer if it is then we'll be able to vote in favour at stage 3 we will not oppose tonight thank you very much and I now call on Mike Mackenzie to five minutes please thank you Presiding Officer he was once the hero of the Labour Party but even Churchill was a grudging admirer of that great English economist John Maynard Keynes he once said that whenever he asked three economists for an opinion he invariably got four answers two from Mr Keynes and this seemed to perplex Churchill but it points to an essential quality of the good economist the capacity to understand the sometimes counterintuitive nature of economics and this goes hand in hand with understanding that economics is not a zero sum game and this in turn is a vital part of understanding wealth creation the link between the public finances and the economics of wealth creation is a fascinating one and one that Mr Swinney understands perfectly and today there has been no greater wisdom on the subject than that provided by Mr Keynes but as things stand the finances of present day Scotland have been a zero sum game the all important feedback loop that rewards good economic stewardship by increasing the taxation take has been missing and this is the key fact missed from the unionist party perspectives and it took an economist of the stature of Mr Keynes to reveal this often counterintuitive nature of economics and to develop his counter cyclical wisdom for governments and it is the difficulty of understanding this counterintuitive economics and the lack of public understanding of this that the unionist parties often rely on and that's why they're so united in persevering with the failing austerity agenda all the more credit therefore is due to the finance secretary not only for delivering a balanced budget year on year but within this constraint following the wisdom of Keynes and proving it in practice and Keynes' advice was that the counter cyclical government spending should concentrate on infrastructure, on capital spending this was the medicine he prescribed for the ailing economy and it works and it's noticeable that the Scottish economy has outperformed the UK economy as Murdo Fraser acknowledged across the whole range of indices since Mr Swinney first put these principles into practice compared with the 30 preceding years when it underperformed compared with the UK economy it's well known that the multiplier effect enhances the effect of capital spending on infrastructure significantly it's well known that infrastructure spending creates new jobs and supports existing jobs it's well known that these effects spread throughout the supply chain and keep on spreading but what's sometimes not appreciated is how the improved infrastructure in itself helps to improve our long-term economic performance our productivity and our competitiveness and that's why I'm so pleased to see this budget setting out plans for a further £1 billion extension to the NPD pipeline of infrastructure projects that's why I'm so pleased to see projects like the fourth replacement crossing being delivered so successfully under budget projects like the new south Glasgow hospitals like the ambitious schools for the future building programme investing £1.8 billion in 91 new schools by March 2018 and with new schools like that recently opened in Kirkwall a new school plan for Lerwick a new school plan for Oban supporting jobs across the Highlands and Islands and across Scotland that's why I'm so pleased about this budget delivering an extra £125 million for housing bringing this year's expenditure for housing to £390 million and that's why I'm pleased that we're on target towards fulfilling our manifesto commitment of delivering 30,000 affordable new homes that's why I'm so impressed that Mr Swinney has been able to deliver this against the backdrop of a 26% cut to our capital budget a very unwise cut Presiding Officer the Scottish public have added in education as they have observed these enlightened policies in action they now have an enhanced understanding of the nature of economics and the part that the public finances play in this so no longer will the opposition parties be able to continually pull the will over the public eyes no longer will they swallow medicine that's killing and not curing the patient and no longer will they believe the zero sum myth of austerity economics Mr Swinney is due great credit not just in delivering a wise and balanced budget once again but because he's followed such wisdom and the knowledge that this that this is the best stewardship of the Scotland's economy many thanks many many thanks now call on Gavin Brown six minutes please Mr Brown Presiding Officer I think even John Swinney would blush a little at the praise being heaped upon him by Mike Mackenzie at the end of that speech I have to say Presiding Officer in my opening remarks I focused exclusively on the land and buildings transaction tax I made the key points that we wanted to make so in closing I think I focus on some of the issues that have come through the debate and a couple of points I hope the cabinet secretary can either answer in his closing or at least reflect upon in the coming days and weeks to provide information on the first one is the issue of the economy as a whole I mean I suppose as is standard in the budget speech the cabinet secretary begins with an assessment of the economy as a whole and the picture is good there was a lot of good news out there in terms of employment in terms of unemployment in terms of growth and in terms of youth employment and if you look at unemployment specifically he was right to point out that while the unemployment rate in the UK is almost identical to Scotland the rate is marginally lower in Scotland which I think ought to be welcomed I just think there should be a word of caution though in Murdoff Fraser I think picked up on it he gave his own reasons for why he thought the figures were as they were but it is unusual I think to see decreasing unemployment in the UK and increasing unemployment in Scotland for the same quarter it does happen occasionally and it's difficult to read too much into one quarter statistics but the fact that there was a 58,000 decrease across the UK as a whole while there was a 7,000 increase in Scotland between September and November should be noted and we ought to keep a careful eye on it it might just be one quarter's results that disappear when we get next month's figures but we must keep an eye on it and if that were to become a trend then it is a sign that government needs to take note and do something about it but that was one quarter Presiding Officer we heard a little bit about housing today Mike McKenzie touched on it laterally in his speech there My question on housing simply one for detail and information for the cabinet secretary when he gave his draft budget to Parliament he talked about a figure of £125 million of funding for housing this year over and above for the previous financial year as far as I'm aware £30 million of that was announced probably a couple of weeks later and his scheme was set up for how that money will be spent what I'm struggling to find and it's perfect possible I've missed some of it it's what are the government plans for the other £95 million certainly when I speak to stakeholders within the industry there is an appetite there is a keenness to find out more of the detail and if he's in a position to do so today I think certainly I and certainly those stakeholders would welcome any further particulars that he can provide Presiding Officer Murdoff Fraser touched on business rates and yet once again we still support the business bonus it's one of the best policies I think this government has ever come up with and it's one that I certainly want to see continued for as long as possible we had in our manifesto a commitment to legislate for it so that it would be there broadly in perpetuity but there don't seem to be any risks to it at this stage and the government seems I think fully committed to it which is to be welcomed but on business rates there have been a number of measures over the last three or four years that Murdoff Fraser alluded to where I think we have just slowly but surely lost some of our competitive advantage the empty property rates where I think we did have a big advantage I think narrowed I think the retail levy was regrettable and although it's coming to an end I think it did set certain parts of industry backwards and there is no passing on of the retail bonus for properties either in the current financial year but I think there was about 29 million pounds of consequentials for it and indeed no proposals or no commitment anyway to follow up for this financial year coming while properties at the lower end of the scale in Scotland do very well with the small business bonus this is one aimed for everybody below a rateable value of 50,000 pounds and I do think there are some businesses in Scotland who could benefit from that that currently don't and so perhaps it is time to do something in the nature of business rates but the last issue I want to touch on and a number of speakers I think I've cleverly touched on this within the finance committee report is the issue of preventative spend it's something which every political party in this chamber as far as I'm aware buys into everybody supports I think we can all see the benefits of it and when the cabinet secretary announced three years ago during the course of the spending review that there was to be a huge focus on this from government 500 million pounds over the course of three years and a decisive shift it welcomed support from everybody but now that those three years are almost at an end and the finance committee has spent two years looking at this I think it is time to take stock and to listen carefully to what the finance committee had to say because in paragraph 201 of the report we all of us on the committee reiterated our support for preventative spend and we recognised that some progress had been made but there is a paragraph where it says as is outlined below in relation to each of the change funds and the role of community planning partnerships there is little evidence of the essential shift in resources taking place to support a preventative approach The deputy president of the cabinet secretary is right to say that it was not just those funds that look at preventative spend but they are an important slice of it and I think it is also correct to say that preventative spend does not happen overnight and it does take sometimes five, ten years or even longer but I do think that after three years and 500 million pounds are thereabouts we ought to be in a position to talk about some of the outcome to see what some of that money has achieved and to look at some of the decisive shift that ought to have taken place and I ask the government to reflect on that in closing, deputy president officer so that we don't have a similar report from the finance committee in 12 months time Thank you very much Now Colin Lewis McDonald, eight minutes please Mr McDonald Thank you very much another year another budget but in 2015 we can truly say that this is a year like no other The first new national taxes set in Scotland since the active union coming into force this year the first phase in the devolution of income tax coming into play next year with a lot of work still to do and the first draft tomorrow of the next Scotland act to take forward the next phase of income tax devolution and much more besides the stage could hardly be better set for the current Scottish government to show how it would use increased powers if it had the opportunity to do so yet the story of this budget will not be about John Swinney boldly delivering a distinctive Scottish agenda instead it will be about how the deputy First Minister changed his tune on tax policy not apparently in response to the views of Scottish taxpayers but rather in response to the changes elsewhere brought in by a Tory chancellor it is one thing to claim that the Scottish government is constrained in what it can do by powers reserved to Westminster it is more surprising to hear that ministers will use their new tax powers to stay in step with the UK government rather than setting a bold new course of their own and of course Gavin Brown on murder Fraser offered a welcome from the Tory benches here for the changes Mr Swinney has made and that welcome certainly speaks for itself of course The member's colleague Malcolm Chisholm said that he thought that the changes the cabinet secretary had made meant that the tax was progressive does the Labour Party support the system that the cabinet secretary has outlined or oppose it? Well that's a very interesting point Mr Swinney said in October that his policy would be driven by the maxim the taxes should be proportionate to the ability to pay and he repeated that point today in exercising its first judgments on national taxes he said the government has put fairness, equity and the ability to pay at the heart of what it has done that is the benefit of putting decisions about Scotland's future in Scotland's hands yet the change today is to cut by half the proposed level of tax on properties worth quarter of a million pounds that will be welcomed to those taxpayers of course but it is hardly proportionate to the ability to pay and it hardly seems to be making Scottish decisions in the Scottish Parliament because there are many other choices Mr Swinney could have made without missing his target of remaining revenue neutral what is telling is the changes to his original proposals that he has chosen to make and of course the question of how to decide on devolved taxes is not just about this year's budget the challenge for the Scottish Government and the transfer of tax powers is surely not just to be revenue neutral but if ministers want to make full use of new powers as they say they want to do they have to make some tough decisions and as Patrick Harvie said that will only get harder from now on John Swinney signed the Smith agreement as indeed Mr Harvie does he knows better than most just how tough it will be in future for Scotland's devolved Government to avoid taking responsibility for tough decisions in those areas Is that it Mackay? Last question can you be explaining exactly what the Labour Party's position is online building transaction tax in terms of the rates that have been proposed? Well Mr Mackay will recall that our members as his members did voted in favour of Mr Swinney's or at least voted against the conservative amendments to Mr Swinney's original proposals that of course is where we start and we will in the process of taking this discussions around this budget forward we will be very interested to hear how the Government explains the social equity injustice that lies behind the proposals that they've brought forward today because we know that the more decisions that are on taxation are taken at Holyrood in future the more Scottish Governments are going to have to balance the competing interests of different voters and different taxpayers that will mean making decisions that some people will not like and if the Scottish National Party has to think again about the first tough decision on raising taxes the Scottish Labour Party will lay out an alternative direction for both the Scottish Government and the Government of the UK we want to see more front-line funding for health of course as has been said today perhaps there at this we can find some common ground in how best to use Barnett consequentials we also want to see a mansion tax on the most expensive properties across the United Kingdom to pay for a thousand extra nurses in Scotland and to boost the NHS and we want to see a resilience fund for the Scottish economy to help when particular sectors in particular places face a severe short-term challenge from workplace closures or job losses that is within the Scottish Government and its stewardship of the Scottish economy and a budget of 10 million as we have suggested would be enough to allow meaningful interventions yet apparently it is something that ministers do not want to do because they don't see saving jobs in the oil industry as something for which they should be responsible I'd of course be very interested if Mr Ewing wants to intervene I heard his point that the UK Government had the benefit of tax revenues therefore why on earth would the Scottish Government want to pay for economic intervention to protect oil industry jobs? Can we cast partisan politics aside and agree that what the industry needs above all is the tax measures the tax action on the basis of the measures that I set out in my statement to Parliament and will the Labour Party specifically support them? Lewis MacDonald The Labour Party as I'm sure Fergus Ewing will know from Ed Ball's visit to Aberdeen yesterday the Labour Party has made clear its support for major fiscal changes in support of the oil industry what we have yet to hear from the Scottish Government is what resource it will put into its responsibility of stewarding the Scottish economy in light of those falls in the price of oil and real action on energy prices too a cap is the kind of action that a Labour chancellor will take at the earliest opportunity and when it comes to using the Scottish Parliament's new powers over income tax that is when decisions will have to be made and there will be decisions that will not be popular for with every voter but I am hopeful that although we may not agree on all of those issues the Scottish Government will support our proposals for a Scottish office of budget responsibility John Swinney did sign up to the wise words of the Smith agreement that the Scottish Parliament should seek to expand and strengthen the independent scrutiny of Scotland's public finances in recognition of the additional variability and uncertainty that further tax and spending devolution will introduce into the budget process Scottish Labour's proposal of a Scottish OBR offers the chance to achieve just that a fiscal commission with a limited remit no matter the eminence of those Mr Swinney appoints will not meet the letter or the spirit of the Smith agreement that will take a truly independent body with scope to assess economic policies in advance and to make the link between raising revenues and spending them and that of course is what is also recommended in the report of the finance committee the Scottish government will be responsible not just for making decisions about raising taxes but also for the whole complex business of balancing the books while adjustments are made to the block grant in view of those new circumstances all of that will require new levels of expertise and new levels of scrutiny so here we are entering a new era for the Scottish Parliament for the raising and spending of revenues in Scotland what we need now is to see not just a government that responds to Tory tricks from Westminster but actually sets out a bold agenda of its own perhaps indeed the only way to deliver the letter and the spirit of the Smith agreement is to have a Scottish government that believes in it and then we can really make the evolution work many thanks and I now call on the Deputy First Minister John Swinney to wind up the debate you have 10 minutes or until 5 o'clock thank you per se one of the Mr McDonald made reference to the fact that this was a new era for the Parliament and it certainly was a new era because today I've sat in this place for nearly eight years now dealing with the finance bill the budget bill and it's the first time I've been through a budget bill in which Michael Russell has made a contribution to the debate and it was eight years worth the waiting Presiding Officer because in that familiar magisterial style that we've become accustomed to from Michael Russell we heard the thoughtfulness and the substance of the analysis that I've founded the tax approach that the Government has taken in the principles set out by Adam Smith eloquently set out by Mr Russell and put into a context of some of the wider challenges that we will face in the exercising of the wider responsibilities that we will be acquiring as part of the Smith commission proposals and the expansion of the financial powers of the Parliament but Mr Russell also made the point that despite what will come from the Smith commission there remain significant constraints on what the Scottish Government is able to achieve in terms of even the powers that are being deployed but also in relation to the wider powers that will remain reserved to the United Kingdom and that is something which must underpin our analysis of all of these questions In the course of the debate a number of members of other political parties have set out propositions that they will advance as part of the budget negotiations and I take this opportunity at the outset of the debate to reiterate the contents of my letter to the Opposition party spokespeople that I will of course in good faith along with the minister for parliamentary business take part in the budget dialogue I heard from Mr Harvie his points about the necessity of ensuring that public authorities local authorities that have to take decisions or may have to take decisions in relation to applications for fracking or other applications under the unconventional energy theme to be properly resourced to take these decisions and to assess and consider all of those points and I'm very sympathetic to the issue that he raises he's also raised points about energy efficiency and sustainable travel to which the Government will give serious consideration Willie Rennie made the point about points about health and childcare and of course the Government will engage in those points his point on student loans I can say to him that there is some consideration already underway within Government on the issues around the threshold some of the mechanisms for undertaking this required treasury consent so they're not issues that will be entirely within my consent because they will affect the annually managed expenditure budgets over which I do not have control so even though I may think they're a good idea there are some liberals in the treasury I would have to persuade as to whether or not they should be consented and he will know he will know who I mean when I make that remark I will of course engage in discussion with both the Conservatives and the Labour Party as I have done already in relation to the budget and I'll come on to talk a little bit more about some of the priorities that we've heard so far A number of points for the debate have been made about the importance of preventative interventions Sandra White and Linda Fabiani both made very strong contributions on the issues of prevention and Mr Brown likewise in his closing remarks and the convener of the France Committee has set out the long standing work that the France Committee has made on advancing this area of policy work which the Government welcomes I'd make two points about this stage in the debate the first is to say that I think we all accept well we all support the shift towards prevention but I think we all accept that these things take time they will not be delivered overnight and we need to set out clearly to committees of Parliament the progress that is being made on prevention but the second point is that we all have to also accept the centrality of preventative interventions to budget sustainability in the long term because certainly from the Government's perspective we view the shift to prevention as it being absolutely critical to dealing with the financial challenges that we'll face because of the interaction between reducing public expenditure and the demography of our country and we need to ensure the quality of public services are delivered effectively for members of the public but let me say a few words about land and buildings transaction tax and the changes that I've announced today the first thing I want to say is to try to encourage Parliament to get beyond the somewhat pathetic posturing on this debate I set out to Parliament in October the principle that revenue neutrality would be the maxim for taking forward the implementation of this tax now if I'd come back today and not observe revenue neutrality in this Parliament and some people over there and some people over there would have been accusing me of a breach of faith because that's what certainly people over there do at the slightest opportunity to do so so revenue neutrality was the driver of the position I'll give way to Mr MacDonald not a desire to follow the actions of the Conservative Government but to remain true to the commitment I gave to Scotland about revenue neutrality I'll give way to Mr MacDonald Does Mr Swinney accept that there were many other options available to him for how he might achieve revenue neutrality in amending his original proposals other than the option which has followed so closely the Conservative proposals? Get in, Mr Swinney but that's where Mr MacDonald falls into the same trap as Jackie Baillie Jackie Baillie who attacked the whole proposal and then said I must go and look at the detail so which I think to all of us to all of us that summed up the beautiful preparation that Jackie Baillie had made for today's debate and I'll give way to Jackie Baillie to the cabinet secretary I'm looking forward to debating with him in future I was very clear that anything that anything that helped homeowners in the house building industry is to be welcomed but actually my criticism was of your handling of this not the detail well there we are that that really clears that up that was about that was about as good as Jackie Baillie's defence of the Labour OBR proposal on the politics programme on Sunday afternoon which was I'm surprised actually that Jackie Baillie came to parliament with the office for budget responsibility proposal today given the filleting that she took on the television about that proposal Jackie Baillie sat on television and said there was no commitment to extra resources for the fiscal commission has she not read the official report of the finance committee where I made it absolutely clear if the fiscal commission wanted more resources they could come to me and ask for those resources she attacked the limited remit of the fiscal commission I told the finance committee in response to questions I think from Mr Michael McMahon who's up at the back there he can correct me if I'm wrong but I think it was Mr McMahon that we would have a remit commensurate with the responsibilities that we're currently with the parliament and as the parliament got more responsibilities we would expand the remit of that commission I simply cite these minor points of detail which are part and parcel of the parliamentary record to say to Jackie Baillie if she wants to come and debate with me in this chamber she better do her homework first and better than she did today In the land and buildings transaction tax I have remained absolutely true to my principles Anybody Lewis Macdonald asked me there about were there other options about revenue neutrality an approach that takes 50% of transactions out of tax is designed to help first-time buyers and to assist people on to the property ladder A crossover point of £330,000 when the crossover point in the previous proposals that I had was £325,000 is in pretty close proximity and also the changes I've made to enhance progressivity at the £750,000 level possibly attracted the endorsement of Malcolm Chisholm who perhaps thought about these issues before he spoke unlike Mr Macdonald or Jackie Baillie I want to make one very final point in relation to the interaction between health and local government expenditure because Jackie Baillie in her speech said there was to be more money for health and there had to be more money for local government although her handling of the First Minister's intervention about this being all too complicated and we all had to take it away and sort it out some of the time was really a very precious moment in parliamentary history If we assume as I assume it is fair to say that the Labour Party supports the increases in health expenditure that the Government has put in place and we take health expenditure out of total public spending when we came to office local government got 55.7 per cent of the Scottish Government's resources available to us in 1516 local government will not get 55.7 per cent they will get 57.2 per cent so when we take health out of the equation which Labour supports us on the increases in health and we look at local government in the remainder of public expenditure local government's share of public expenditure is going up I'm sorry Mr Swinney's just concluding I'll happily endlessly debate this with Mr MacDonald in the months and the years and the many years to come on this particular question because when we came to office local government's share of the Scottish budget was going down under the Labour Party it's gone up under the Scottish National Party Government and we're determined to do that to support public services so Presiding Officer in conclusion I will happily engage with other parties on the remaining issues around the budget and look forward to sharing further details with the France Committee and with Parliament Thank you that concludes debate on the budget Scotland number 4 Bill the next item of business is consideration of business motion 12104 in the name of Jofus Patrick on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau setting out a business programme any member who wishes to speak against the motion should press the request speak button now and I call on Jofus Patrick to move motion number 12104 moved no members ask to speak against the motion therefore I now put the question to the chamber the question is the motion number 12104 in the name of Jofus Patrick be agreed to are we all agreed the motion is therefore agreed to the next item of business is consideration of business motion 12105 in the name of Jofus Patrick on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau setting out a state on time table for the human trafficking and exploitation Scotland Bill any member who wishes to speak against the motion should press the request speak button now and I call on Jofus Patrick to move motion number 12105 moved no members ask to speak against the motion therefore I now put the question to the chamber the question is that motion number 12105 in the name of Jofus Patrick be agreed to are we all agreed the motion is therefore agreed to the next item of business is consideration of free parliamentary Bureau motions as I asked Jofus Patrick to move motion numbers 12106 to 12108 on approval of SSIs moved on block question these most will be put decision time to which we now come there are two questions to be put as a result of today's business the first question is it motion number 12101 in the name of John Swinney on the budget Scotland number four bill be agreed to are we all agreed the Parliament is not agreed we move to a vote members should cast their votes now result of the vote on motion number 12101 in the name of John Swinney is as follows yes 66 no 0 there are 55 abstentions the motion is therefore agreed to I propose to ask a single question on motion numbers 12106 to 12108 on approval of SSIs if any member objects to a single question being put please say so now the next question then is it motion numbers 12106 to 12108 in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick on approval of SSIs be agreed to are we all agreed thank you that concludes decision time we now move to members' business members who leave the chamber should do so quickly and quietly