 Rwy'n gweithio, mae'r cwbodaeth o'r meysgogledig iawn o'r gweithiau, ac mae'r gweithio yn ysgolwg yn ysgolwg arweithio i ddweud yn cael ei ddechrau gyda'r ysgolwr. Rwy'n gweithio i ddiwethaf yn y dyfodol yn yfodol 3081, oedd yn y nameu Cate Forbes o'r Bill o Budgett Scotland ac mae'n fwyaf. A'i gweithio'n gweithio, mae'n ddigwyddu'n hyn yn dweud yng Nghymru o'r ddechrau to decide whether or not, in my view, any provision of the Bill relates to a protected subject matter, that is, whether it modifies the electoral system and franchise for Scottish parliamentary elections. In the case of this Bill, in my view, no provision of budget Scotland Bill relates to a protected subject matter, therefore the Bill does not require a supermajority to be passed at stage 3. I call on Kate Forbes to speak to and move the motion up to 12 minutes, cabinet secretary. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Throughout this budget process I've been open and transparent about the challenges that we face, and as we approach the end of this financial year we're still awaiting the finalised position from the UK Government in terms of this year's budget. Prior to Christmas we were told we might have to pay back consequentials. In mid January the message changed positively. The £440 million was confirmed and there would be further consequential funding, and so in recognition of my commitment to Parliament to provide as much transparency as possible the fast approaching deadline of the year end and the requirement to finalise our budget position to give certainty, particularly to the health service and local government, I announced a further £120 million for local government and we published the spring budget revision just last week with the latest figures. Last week's announcement of funding for the cost of living crisis has changed the position again, not by increasing the expected consequentials but by decreasing the funding, and it means that the spring budget revision will need to be updated at the first available opportunity. Frustratingly, as I stand here at stage 3 of the budget, with about six weeks to go until the end of the financial year, the position is yet to be formally and finally confirmed. Presiding Officer, why does it matter? Well, it matters because Parliament often presses me for greater transparency, which is what I am giving in this statement. It matters because this is real money, it affects all of our lives and ultimately it matters because it demonstrates the extreme constraints of the devolution settlement within which we operate. Due to the arbitrary and strict limits on carry-forward IE, being able to use funding on either side of the 31st of March cut-off, if consequentials are to be used meaningfully this year, I need to give certainty now, today. The changes to date in a very short space of time are significant. They will impact our assumptions on next year's Scottish budget and I will update Parliament once we receive the final position at the UK supplementary estimate outcome later this month. Presiding Officer, despite all of this, I want to move on to the most important issue affecting households across Scotland right now, the rapidly increasing cost of living. Large rises in energy bills, increased costs on everyday essentials, rising interest rates and the UK Government's new national insurance hike are causing huge concern and worry and people are struggling. Those additional costs will hit the most vulnerable in our society. The additional energy costs alone will place significant burdens on many. Estimates suggest that that could move a further 211,000 households into fuel poverty and around 235,000 households who are already fuel poor into extreme fuel poverty. That would result in a total of 874,000 fuel poor households, an increase of 43 per cent on most recent 2019 published statistics and 593,000 households in extreme fuel poverty. The extent and the depth of the need is stark. That is why we will honour our commitment, whatever other budget challenges that we face, to pass on the full £290 million to help families now. The additional support will be the latest in our efforts to target funding to help those who are most in need. We are already using the powers available to us to support hard-pressed households, including targeted assistance for those on lowest incomes, delivering the unique Scottish child payment, awarding £76.7 million this year and last to low-income families through the bridging payments, paying 530,000 low-income pandemic payments last year, funding discretionary housing payments and additional carers allowance supplement in 2020 and again in 2021, delivering the winter support fund to help people to heat their homes and meet rising food costs and the continued £41 million investment in the Scottish welfare fund. I thank the cabinet secretary for taking this intervention. Do you accept that measures in this budget will not meet the child poverty targets? What I am going on to say is that in terms of the challenges that we face right now, I think that the measures that we have outlined will only go so far and I will outline what the next steps are in providing as much support as possible. With the £290 million, we can go further. However, I want to be clear at the outset that we have explored a range of options and routes. I have heard calls from Age Scotland, the Poverty and Inequality Commission and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to ensure that it is targeted. It is frustrating that we do not have all the levers that I would wish to have, such as a full social security system or tax system, to be able to best target and deliver that support. If I can make some progress just on the substance, that is okay. I am therefore announcing that there will be three elements to the package of support today. Firstly, we will provide £150 to every household in receipt of council tax reduction in all council tax bans. The council tax reduction scheme already identifies households in greatest need and will allow us to target that intervention. Secondly, I will provide local authorities with funding to pass on £150 to other occupied households in bans A to D in Scotland. In total, combining those elements, 1.85 million people or 73 per cent of all households will receive £150 of support. I have discussed this matter directly with COSLA, as recently as last night, indicating my preference for this to be distributed as a payment rather than as a council tax credit. However, due to the urgency of mobilising the funding quickly, councils will have a choice. They can either deliver a direct payment or a credit council tax accounts as long as it can be done in April. That is clearly an imperfect scheme. It will reach some households who may not need it, but it is the only route that we have to make sure that we reach those for whom it will make a difference quickly and simply. I know that the cost of living crisis is affecting households who are not in receipt of benefits as well, who are not claiming a council tax reduction, and they are facing hardship too. We need to do what we can to prevent those households and families on the edge of the poverty line from falling over it. The third element of the package is that I am also announcing £10 million to continue our fuel insecurity fund to help households at risk of self-disconnection or self-rathining their energy use due to unaffordable fuel costs. The package today is in addition to the further £120 million that I announced previously for local government next year to ease their pressures and help to prevent inflation-busting council tax rises. We will go further in ensuring that councils have as much discretion to tailor their response quickly. I am very grateful to the cabinet secretary for giving me just two points of clarification. Can I clarify that those measures will be taking place in the coming budgetary year rather than the current one? Secondly, in terms of how this is going to be paid for, I am assuming that this will be paid from the 284 reserve that was contained within the spring budget revision or is it coming from other sources? Yes, it will kick in from the beginning of April, next financial year. Secondly, in terms of effecting this, it is too late for a stage 3 amendment in terms of when we receive the detail, so I will be in touch with the finance committee but it is to confirm that to effect this change we will need to take it through the autumn budget revision so that I will clarify that to the finance committee. In terms of going further to help councils to have as much discretion, I am also announcing today that I will allow any existing underspent discretionary housing payment funding to be redistributed between councils and carried forward next year to allow them to provide targeted discretionary support, and I will also allow any existing underspend of the Scottish welfare fund to be carried over by local authorities for the same purpose. Finally, I want to say honestly and openly that this is not enough. Households across Scotland and across the UK are struggling with the wide range of rising costs and many of the macro levers, for example, around energy regulation, reside with the UK Government. In that spirit, I will be writing to the chief secretary to the Treasury again highlighting that we need to work together urgently to use our joint powers to do more to tackle the cost of living. I hope that this chamber can unite in that bid. There is one further update that I wish to share with the Parliament, because one of our key objectives in the budget was economic recovery. If households are struggling, businesses are identifying some of the challenges that they face as well. As the chamber will be aware, the Government committed to maximising our Covid recovery support for businesses. As part of that, I previously announced the allocation of £276 million of Omicron business support funding for the current financial year. Following consultation with businesses who asked for support to now focus on economic recovery and I am pleased to announce today the allocation of further funding to support business sector recovery, including some of the sectors that have been hardest hit, such as the event sector and the travel sector, as well as city and town centres. That includes an additional £16 million for culture and major events that have faced cancellations. For tourism, there is additional funding to support inbound tour operators of £7.5 million. We know that international tourists spend more when they visit, so supporting this sector helps to drive recovery in retail and tourism right across Scotland. You might know that there is a specific issue with night clubs not being able to access money from the night club support fund because they are classed as hybrid because they operate a bar alongside night club premises. I understand that the night time industry association is meeting the Scottish Government on Monday to discuss that. Will she look at how that fund might be readjusted to be able to support those in that category? I am keen that that money gets out the door to support businesses that need it. As he has just referenced, we have met a number of times with the night club industry. We will continue to do so. I am happy to look at the criteria, but we set out funding that was as targeted as possible, knowing that we cannot reach all businesses, but I will certainly keep his comments in mind. I have one more minute and I have two pages left, so if you do not mind, I am going to persevere. We will also provide £3.5 million for outbound travel agents that have been impacted by near-continuous restrictions on international travel throughout the pandemic. Coming on to the important issue that has been raised a number of times about supporting city centres to recover, we will make an additional £3 million specifically available for city centre recovery to improve fruitful and help those businesses that have been affected by, for example, office closures. We will also provide additional support for the childcare sector, because a fully functioning childcare sector is a pivotal part of our national economic infrastructure, and we are providing £6.5 million for that sector. Last but not least, we understand that many SMEs have already adapted, but more are keen to invest in digital adaptations, so we are providing additional funding of £3 million to help SMEs to continue their digital journey. As I close, all of those grants will provide a bridge from resilience to recovery. As I move to the motion today and as we open stage 3 today, we can all agree that we are still in unprecedented times. It requires a quick and flexible response from government, which we have demonstrated today, but it also requires unity across Parliament, and I hope that members can vote to support the budget at stage 3 tonight. I move the motion. Members may wish to be aware that we have time on hand this afternoon for intervention, so there may be opportunities there as the afternoon proceeds. Can I invite members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request to speak buttons now, and can I call on Liz Smith up to eight minutes, please? Thank you, Presiding Officer. I begin by congratulating warmly the cabinet secretary on her exciting news that she announced earlier in the week. We wish you well in the months ahead. Can I also start on a note of considerable agreement? The cabinet secretary cited the fact that the budget process is not satisfactory in terms of exactly what the finance committee said in its report that there are real concerns over the timing of budgets, there are real concerns about the definitions of old money and new money, and there is also a lot of concern about the challenges of working to estimates. This is not just an issue between Westminster and the Holyrood. It is not an issue between the Holyrood and the local government who have been saying exactly the same thing. At base level, when it comes to budgets, just as the finance committee suggested, there is a need to try to ensure that we have a better planning process for the budget. It is very appropriate to think again about the economic context in which we find ourselves. Although the main economic forecast on which the Scottish Government relies, both for the formal interrogation of the budget statistics and for Scottish Government policy making, it has indicated some short-term relief in recent terms and GDP growth has been better, but the longer-term predictions for the Scottish economy still remain exceptionally gloomy. The main trends show that Scotland is behind the rest of the UK, but they also point to serious structural problems within the Scottish economy, including imbalances in labour markets, and we have debated that several times already. The fact remains that income tax revenues are showing £190 million shortfall for 2022-23. That means that the revenue from Scottish income tax is growing more slowly than the block grant adjustment. In other words, despite having more tax powers devolved to Holyrood, we are facing a growing shortfall in income tax revenue, possibly rising to £417 million in four years' time. Since the budget statement was delivered on 9 December, we know exactly what the reaction of local government has been and what the reaction of business has been. The cabinet secretary has made reference to the significant increase in the cost of living. The cabinet secretary has admitted to the finance committee that there are serious issues in relation to that, but she still fails to accept that the UK Government provided the Scottish Government with record funding for this year's core block grant—not counting the funds from the UK Covid spend—and a record funding settlement for the next three years. She reiterated at stage 2 that she does not expect to be required to pay back the £440 million Covid funding, as was previously thought. Although I fully appreciate that there are severe issues with regard to the planning ahead of budgets and the fact that those estimates have turned out not to be wholly accurate, not just in the UK but in Scotland too, we know exactly what local government has felt about the uncertainty and the difficulties that it faces. Some of my colleagues will refer to that later. At stage 1, there remained a real-terms cut of £251 million, which was £80 million short of what COSLA believed was necessary. I will leave my colleagues to pick up some of that. Liz Smith will have seen that the HMRC has issued a winding up order against the division of liberty steel, which could have implications for the workers at Clyde bridge and also at DL. Does she think that the finance secretary should perhaps address that in her closing remarks, including giving clarity as to what the disputed guarantee for the potential cleanup of the site is? Does she think that the finance secretary should provide that? Leave it up to the cabinet secretary as to whether she picks up that offer, Mr Rennie. When it comes to businesses, while acknowledging the helpful support in the form of small business bonus, there has undoubtedly been very strong criticism of the SNP that they have ignored requests to extend the duration and the level of relief. Mark Rothall of the Scottish Tourism Alliance said that support was not nearly enough to avoid the impending cliff-edge facing many businesses in June. Liz Cameron of the Scottish Chamber of Commerce said that the Scottish Government should have gone further in supporting business. David Lonsdale of the Scottish Retail Consortium said that the SNP support for business was a pale imitation of UK Government support, and it goes on. Secondly, the SNP should remember that budgets are about spending money wisely. How much better would it have been if the SNP hadn't been so proflicate with taxpayers' money? Here is a reminder of what we are talking about. £47.4 million on Ferguson Marine in the last financial year, when the original estimate was £28 million, £4.5 million of the £45 million of loans to BiFab, which had to be written off, £98 million on the ferry's overspend, £40 million on the malicious prosecution of rangers administrators, and Audit Scotland confirming that the £43.4 million of loans to Preswet Airport had to be reduced to £11.6 million to reflect all the losses. The list goes on. Bizarrely, we have the money being publicly committed to the plans for a second independence referendum, no doubt being expanded every minute as the SNP tries to invite or perhaps rewrite a coherent strategy for paying our pensions, saying what currency we would use or explaining how the huge black hole in Scotland's public finances could ever be met. No, I won't. As well as that, we have very serious concerns about the SNP's desire to spend millions of pounds on a national care service, which, if we listen to local government and many stakeholders in the care sector, is by no means what they feel is... Ms Smith, could you just give me a moment, please? I thank you for that, Presiding Officer, because what I'm citing here is not what I'm thinking, it's what local government and some stakeholders in the care sector are saying. Well, the people are the very ones who are represented by local government and by the care sector, and what they're saying is that it is by no means the right way to tackle... I won't, Mr Swinney, if you don't mind, because I'm just about to finish. I think I'm about to finish. Councillors from the SNP, Labour Conservatives, have said that the upheaval that is required to restructure the social care system into a national care service could be, and I quote, hugely damaging. Councils like Falkirk, East Lothian, Fife, Highlands, Argyll and Bute are clearly very worried about the proposed changes and how they would affect local accountability. Do I have time? You do have time, Ms Smith. Mr Stewart, Kevin Stewart. I thank you, Presiding Officer, and I thank Ms Smith for giving way. Does Ms Smith recognise that, in the consultation, the publication, the analysis of the publication that has just taken place, 70 odd per cent of people want to see a national care service? This is about delivery for people, ending the postcode lottery and doing what's right for them. Does she not agree that that's the right thing to do? Mr Stewart, I am listening to the people who would have to deliver the services, local government and social care, and they are desperately unhappy, including many in Mr Stewart's party. Presiding Officer, because of the arithmetic in this Parliament and the unholy alliance between the SNP and the Greens, this budget has been a ffeta comply from day one, with very little engagement with the other political parties. Do I have time again? I am very grateful to Liz Smith for giving way. I wonder if she would enlighten Parliament of what changes she would make to the budget bill that the finance secretary has put to Parliament that would support her additional resources to local government. Where would the money come from and how much would it be? I am not sure, Mr Swinney has been listening to what I have just been saying. I cited all the waste. Members, I cannot hear Ms Smith's contribution and I would be grateful if we could make sure that that is the case. I have also just cited the fact that when it comes to the national care service on which millions of pounds are proposed by the SNP, we have grave reservations about whether that money is worth spending. I won't this time. Presiding Officer, because of the arithmetic in this Parliament, I go back to this again and the unholy alliance between the SNP and the Greens, this budget has been a ffeta comply from day one, with very little engagement, I may say, with the other political parties. It is a budget that has failed to put economic recovery first and it has failed to put forward the delivery of local services. The SNP, in my opinion, has failed to listen to business, it has failed to listen to local government and it has failed to understand where the public priorities lie. As such, we cannot support it. I now call on Paul Sweedie. I would also like to add my congratulations to the cabinet secretary on her delightful news and I wish her and her family all the best for the coming months. I am sure that I will be an even more frightening experience in the budget, but I am sure that it will go well. I might as well also be unequivocal, so I hope that there is not so much of a baby-share or a gift, but Labour will not support the budget today. As a budget, we think that it is timid, regressive and ambitious and does not do nearly enough to alleviate the cost of living crisis, which is no longer looming in the distance but, as the cabinet secretary herself said, is steering us directly in the face. We all have to have a duty to do everything that we possibly can to address the hardship faced by families. I am afraid that that is why we do not think that it does enough to address the real substantive concerns being articulated by Scotland's under-resourced and under-appreciated local authorities. It does nothing to reboot our economy after the pandemic. The Government could have used this year's budget to invest in upskilling in the future of education and upgrading Scotland's antiquated public transport infrastructure. We could have been standing here today welcoming radical transformative domestic policies that would have lifted people out of poverty rather than compounding the hardship that they are already facing. We could have been leading the way on a post-COVID recovery plan that would have seriously addressed our economy's lagging productivity, stagnant wage growth and substantial labour shortages. What did we get instead? A budget that will force councillors of all parties across Scotland to cut £250 million from crucial local services, despite the inadequate sticking plaster announced by the cabinet secretary. A budget that delivers a paltry, £4.8 pay rise for care workers. A budget that settles for a rise of almost 4 per cent on rail fares and a further increase of over 4 per cent on water bills. With inflation projected to hit 7 per cent this year, interest rates are also likely to rise, so families are being hammered with an increase in food, fuel and energy prices, too. We know that today is essentially a foregone conclusion. Members from the S&P and the Greens will rise to their feet, proclaiming how excellent and transformative this budget will be, but the fact of the matter is that people will be worse off. The very people that we are sent here to represent will see their incomes hammered, their bills increased and, for those fortunate enough to have them in the first place, their savings diminished. It is really that straightforward. I am happy to take an intervention. I am hearing a lot of criticism of the Scottish Government, but does it seem to hear anything of the Westminster Government where a lot of those responsibilities lie? Paul Sweeney? I am more than happy to adumbrate on that particular issue, because I am no friend of the Conservative Government that much, for sure, and I think that we have to hold both Governments to account. They say that politics is about choices—choices that both Governments are failing to capitalise and make the most of. Every member on this Government's benches has a choice. Do they tow the line and make their constituents poorer, or do they stand up and say that enough is enough, whether at Westminster or in this chamber? Experience tells me that I would be foolish to hold my breath waiting for the latter. I want to return to what I think is the most pressing issue that we face—the cost of living crisis. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation said just last week that those in low-income households will now pay 16 per cent of their costs after housing on energy bills, yet for middle-income households in Scotland that figure is just 5 per cent. The pain is not being felt equally. Citizens Advice Scotland recently released analysis showing that over a third of all Scots now find their energy bills unaffordable. Just yesterday, Advice Direct Scotland revealed research that concluded that over 70 per cent, more than two in every three Scots, are now worried about not being able to pay their gas and electricity bills this year. John Swinney. I am grateful to Mr Swinney for giving weight. Having just listened to points that I think are absolutely valid, does he not accept the absurdity of the position of the Labour Party, who is going to vote against a budget tonight that includes the doubling of the child payment, which puts resources directly into the hands of some of the poorest families in our country? The Labour Party of Scotland is going to turn their back on those self-same families this afternoon. Paul Swinney. I am afraid that the Deputy First Minister offers a false choice here. What measures have been brought forward are welcome, but they are not enough to newly address the scale of the hardship that is being faced. I am pushing the Government further on this issue. At the same time, although we announced all of those issues going on, Shell and BP are recording combined profits of over £22 billion, and that is why Labour has called for that windfall tax on oil and gas companies. A proposal that its party's own members of Parliament did not even turn up to vote for in the House of Commons last week. That itself would have saved every household in Scotland over £200, and the lowest-income households would have been £600 better off. Why on earth did it not turn up? Again, they say that politics is about choices and priorities. That is why Labour has called for a £400 Scottish fuel payment targeted at Scotland's hardest-hit families, for a top-up to the Scottish welfare fund to ensure that local authorities have the power and capacity to help those in need, and for the cancellation of increases in water and rail prices. In fact, each and every one of those proposals are within the gift of this Government and within the available £238 million spending envelope that is additional. The budget does not go far enough to capitalise on that opportunity. As just announced, the cabinet secretary is offering a basic £150 credit or payment through the council tax system, a system that is already regressive and was supposed to be abolished over a decade ago. It is a system that does not work to target that support. It has been slow to get out the traps on delivering for people, and it is now only allocating half of the unallocated sum of £238 million. It could have done something more constructive, more creative, such as using the carers allowance supplement to target that support more readily or the child winter heating allowance to do as Labour has proposed. There are still £60 million to £70 million still to be allocated. Why are not we pushing the throttles to the absolute maximum to get that money into the pockets of the neediest families? The £10 million that is announced for full security works out at just £16 for every person on universal credit or pension credit. I am afraid that it simply is not enough to nearly address the harm that is being faced when bills are skyrocketing by £700. Yes, the Conservative Government and Westminster hold some of the answers, but we can not simply pretend that the Scottish Government is doing everything it possibly can to help people. If that were the case, it would not be ripping £250 million from Scotland's councils next year and Scotland's care workers will be receiving a more substantial pay rise than a 48-pence paltry amount that will barely even dent the scale of the cost increases that they are facing. That is a tacit acceptance of Tory economic doctrine that has led to the difficulties facing Scotland's economy today. More of the same will not fix it, and I think deep down the cabinet secretary knows that to be the case. My plea to each and every member here today is simple. Stand up and be counted, because the facts are clear. Scotland's poorest will struggle to survive this year, and this budget does not do nearly enough to alleviate that hardship. Thank you very much indeed, Presiding Officer. I start by offering my heartfelt good wishes to Kate Forbes on the news that she can become an impending member of the greatest club in the world. I am sorry that I am joining you remotely today, having tested positive for Covid-19 this morning. It is not how I would have wanted to contribute the budget process this afternoon, but it is the reflection of our times, because the shadow of Covid has cast long over this budget. The job of recovery is only just for giving. In our hospitals where hundreds of thousands of operations have been lost, in our schools where children have missed out on so much, and across our economy where footfall remains down and the company accounts make for difficult reading, the last thing, the last thing businesses, public services and households needed on top of this was a cost of living crisis. The doubling of the child payment in this budget, which we all support, was supposed to drive down poverty, but I fear for what impact it will actually have while household incomes fail to compete with 7 per cent inflation, while food prices rise, while Scotland's rail and water prices rise and, of course, the national insurance goes up. The critical child poverty targets set by this Parliament were already at risk, even before Covid or these dire economic circumstances. It is why both of Scotland's Governments must go further. Scottish Liberal Democrats want to see a cross-government combined cost of living rescue package to help thousands on the brink. That means the reversal of SNP and green rail price hikes, the scrapping of the Conservatives national insurance hike, unprecedented investment in retrofitting homes to insulate households against soaring energy prices, a doubling and expanding of the warm homes discount, boosting disability benefits, because the Scottish Government can do better than copy a UK Government policy that leaves them three or even four per cent below inflation, new broadband social tariffs to vulnerable customers, extra financial support for this Government's new smoke alarm requirements, because many just can't afford the hundreds of pounds it will cost them right now, and a windfall tax, where oil and gas companies have made record profits on the back of the energy crisis. Households are worried about hikes in council tax, too. The finance secretary has set the same elephant trap as her predecessors. Year after year, the SNP laid down a punishing cut to councils, only then, at the last hour, to offer a little extra cash. This time, the £120 million was described as a, I quote, a funding boost that was labelled by the finance secretary as additional funding. Make no mistake, let's be clear. When you delete £370 million from a budget, only to restore £120 million of that, that still makes for a £250 million cut. There are no heroes today on the Government benches. What I do not understand is why, year after year, the Green Party goes along with this charade. The SNP have always been centralising, believing that ministers know best. They don't hide it. Just look at the police of what is now planned for social care, but it is a depressing reality that this Green Party has become ingrained in the pattern of council cuts and central government ring fencing. Only last May, they were promising a new era for Scottish local government. While the new era looks very much like the old era, brutal council cuts and no prospective local tax reform in this Parliament are the same old tricks and the same old sleight of hands. Broadly speaking, if you can boil it down, education is half of what our councils do from what we ask them to do. The impact of these cuts will be felt in Scotland's classrooms almost most of all. Despite all the disruption, despite all the promises of extra resources, teachers and parents are still struggling to see any difference in what is on offer in our schools. It is no wonder, then, that the poverty-related attainment gap is wider now than it has ever been. The Government is still to take air quality in our schools seriously, and today's cuts to councils just won't help that. We have seen the SNP Green Government visibly embarrassed by their now notorious recommendation to chop the bottom off our school doors. The bigger embarrassment is this. The height of this Government's ambition is to fund changes in just 2,000 of Scotland's 50,000 classrooms. That is all that £5 million will get you. It needs proper investment to clean the air. That means a HEPA filter in each and every one of Scotland's classrooms. The finance secretary is always keen to impress on opposition members the need to account for extra spending. Here is an idea. Take the £17 million that the SNP Green Government is about to spend on putting children as young as four or five through senseless national testing and, instead, invest it in keeping them safe in our schools. Investing in infection control will do more for attainment than national tests ever will. The reality is that the SNP Green Government has a central mission, but it isn't the climate emergency and it's not education and it's not health. You would struggle to point to the Greens moving the dial on any of these topics. Instead, their votes are there principally for independence. The energies of this Government are shifting towards it now. We've seen it through the last week on pensions, whereby, by the way, the claim that taxpayers in the rest of the UK will pay for Scottish pensions post independence holds about as much water as Donald Trump expecting Mexico to pay for his border wall. Regrettably, it consumes political oxygen, the attention of ministers and the attention of this Parliament. I and most of the people of Scotland, too, would, far rather, we instead in this place, in this chamber, devoted our time on things like the existential threat to humanity that there is in the climate emergency, on helping children recover from two years of disruption to their education, on driving down the painful waiting lists that now exist in every corner of the NHS, on overhauling Scotland's meager response to long Covid or the social care crisis that is causing harm to people up and down this country. Scottish Liberal Democrats will vote against the budget tonight because the Government has got its priorities all wrong. Thank you. We now move to the open debate, and I call Kenneth Gibson to be followed by Miles Briggs. I would like to warmly welcome the cabinet secretary's happy personal news, and I am delighted to support the Scottish budget and pay tribute to Finance Secretary Kate Forbes, her ministerial team and officials who have all worked so hard to use a detailed and positive budget for Scotland at a time of great financial challenge and uncertainty, all within the parameters of the limits set by the independent Scottish Fiscal Commission and amidst the on-going machinations of the Treasury. Investing £197 million in new Scottish child payment, doubling it to £20 a week, three years ahead of schedule amidst much muttering from the Opposition, will make a huge difference to recipients. As indeed will a £150 council tax grant to 173 per cent of our households. As will continuing investment in the NHS, affordable, energy efficient housing and a much more generous local government settlement than we see south of the border under the Tories, despite their ludicrous attempts to be seen as the champions of our councils, I doubt even they believe it. Of course, we will see £840 over the next three years in new money being allocated to the national care service. Of course, no other party made any attempt whatsoever to provide an alternative budget. The Tories praised one of consequences that won't, we hope, be clawed back by the Treasury, whilst asking for extended rates relief and increased local authority funding. Meanwhile, an England Tory cuts to local government over the last decade amount to 37 per cent in real towns and continue. Birmingham City Council has to make further cuts of £41 million in 2022-23, rising to £107 million by 2025-26. A headline in last Monday's times read, budget cuts mean 11 million rural potholes will go unfilled in England. I mented a broken Tory manifesto promise to increase spending on council road maintenance by £500 million a year. Instead, from April, it will be cut in England by £480 million, a 40 per cent cut in two years. No attempt has been made to explain how much additional local authority funding the finance sector should deliver and from where in the budget it should be found. Indeed, when asked directly by ministers for public finances stage one debate, what exactly should be allocated to local authorities, all Douglas London could say in reply was and I quote, I will easily set the budget whenever the government wants to move out of office, woeful stuff. The SNP will be in government for at least another four years. If the Tories want to be seen as even a competent opposition, let alone an alternative government, they really need to raise their game. I'd rather actually take interventions from one of the two major parties if you don't mind, Mr Rennie. We have local government elections coming in the last time we had them out of the 96 council seats contest in Ayrshire. The Lib Dems had not won a candidate. In fact, the last time they contested a council seat, in my constituency they came 10th only because the Greens didn't have a candidate in that ward. Mr Briggs. Grateful for the member for taking this intervention. Can he tell me what cuts his council will be facing due to this budget? Council funding has been clearly expressed through the budget. Indeed, it's 3.5 per cent in North Ayrshire before the addition of the £120 million. When Jerry Hassan wrote to the strange death of Labour Scotland a few years ago, I doubt even he imagined the precipitous decline of that one's dominant political force following years of indolence, incompetence and taking waters for granted. Yet, at stage 1, we were given a stark demonstration of exactly why Labour has plummeted into its present rut as Scotland's third party here at Holyrood, and fourth in terms of Scottish seats at Westminster. Following the cabinet secretary's confirmation of independent Scottish Fiscal Commission figures that arose, its budget will be reduced by 5.2 per cent in real terms, while its capital allocation is slashed by 9.7 per cent. Courtesy of Westminster, what was Labour's reaction to denouncing the wicked tories for cutting Scotland's funding at the time of rocket and inflation as we recover from Brexit in the pandemic? Not a bit of it. Daniel Johnson, Jackie Baillie, Pam Duncan-Glancy and Paul Sweeney treated us to a tirade of invective against the SNP Government with only a two-setting whimper of a critique regarding the tories being disingenuous from Daniel Johnson and not a word from the others. Becoming increasingly marginalised over the last two decades, Labour has declined from holding 53 to two Scottish Parliament constituencies, both only because of desperate appeals to Tory voters for tactical votes. So it's little wonder the fear to criticise UK Tory cuts when its voters, Daniel Johnson and Jackie Baillie, rely on so heavily. The others have no such excuses. As with Aberdeen Nine, it appears that Labour is smoothing the path for lots of local deals involving the better-together parties across our councils come May. As to its budget comments, calling on proposals would be a stretch. In evidence to the Finance and Public Administration Committee last week, the finance secretary diplomatically and politely advised the committee that she did not recall seeing costings. And there is certainly not capacity for anything in the region of £1.8 billion, the cost of the pay increase for care workers' labour demands. And only yesterday Jackie Baillie submitted a motion calling for what she called a proper pay rise for nurses, without mentioning that Scottish nurses are the best paid in the UK or they mean this hint of what a proper pay rise might be. And if it could be funded, their wish list for a budget that the cabinet secretary has repeatedly made clear is fairly allocated can only be met by cutting deep into other budget lines. And at committee nine days ago, Daniel Johnson offered to share his party's mythical costings, but I'll ask save yet to appear. And what of this new-found budget-busting interest in care workers? We know when Labour left office in 2007, Scottish care workers were paid a measly £5.35 an hour. Despite the financial crisis or stir it in rising demand, the SNP Government has increased our late to £10.50, a 96 per cent increase over 15 years. Inflation over that period has been 45 per cent, so more than twice the rate of rising prices hourly rates are higher under the SNP in Scotland, higher than Labour in Wales, higher than the Tories in England. And when we call it in Glasgow, Labour spent millions on legal fees trying to deny female care workers and others equal pay. Labour has never recovered from its humiliation in 2009 when it saw reasonable budget demands, although its then finance secretary, John Swinney, met only to have Labour then vote the budget down before crawling back a week later to vote for it, identically worded for favour election. It now seems that each year, it's cynically makes the most unaffordable demands in the excuse not to back an SNP budget. Can I gently suggest that, if Labour wishes to return to those Halcyon days when they held more constituencies in Scotland than the Lib Dems, a more responsible and grown-up budget approach might help? Support the budget. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can I add my best wishes as well to those who have been already expressed to the cabinet secretary? I would like to open my contribution, if I may, today by thanking all those working across our public services for all of the hard work that they have put in, especially during the pandemic, to help support our families and our communities. In the limited time that I have today, I want to concentrate my comments on the social care crisis that councils are facing across Scotland and the delivery of the policy to extend free personal care to people under the age of 65. Across Scotland, local authorities are warning us of the social care crisis that they face. Here in my area in Edinburgh City, that crisis has now become acute. Just this week, it was reported that council staff have been asked to volunteer to go on to Convent to help to plug the gap in the social care workforce here in the capital. I am disappointed that the minister has left the chamber on that issue, because I would like an intervention on that if he was here. The report is quite clear from the Edinburgh Integrated Joint Board, which oversees health and social care services here in the capital. There is a crisis. In fact, arrangements between September and December saw 83 people across the capital not receiving services and for that to be addressed. For a total number of 14 hours of care needed to be now provided by outside agencies. It was noted the extreme distress that has had on many people and their families. The social care crisis that the cabinet secretary has not mentioned in her speech today is one that we should all be looking at. The first is that that is precisely why we have increased the amount of funding overall for the local government settlement. Whenever the Conservatives and other parties talk about cuts to local government, they are excluding all the additional funding that we have provided for social care, because they exclude it for some strange reason from the overall settlement, although it is not part of local government's commitments. Secondly, in ensuring that that money reaches its allocated intention, that is why we say that health and social care funding is for social care. I hope that the member will accept and agree with that position. I thank the cabinet secretary for that, but that does not go away from the fact that I am talking about. Under the SNP Green Government budget, Edinburgh will receive the lowest funding per head both in terms of our council but also our health board. That is doing nothing to help to address the social care crisis here in the capital. There has been a long time growing concern over ministers' plans to destabilise services further and the potential impact that could undermine fragile local services and accountability and make this difficult situation even worse. As my colleague Liz Smith stated, there are serious concerns being raised about the top-down restructuring and redevelopment of a national care service. The total restructuring of social care in Scotland will be hugely destabilising. We need to accept that and present many significant challenges and considerable additional costs to our local authorities, as well. Scotland does not need a national care service that needs SNP and green ministers to properly fund local care services. That brings me to the policy of extending free personal care to people under the age of 65, something that I have campaigned on in the last Parliament and something that I am passionate about that we see fully delivered. I have to say that I am more than disappointed and concerned at the lack of progress that we have seen to deliver this policy to extend free personal care and the increasing secrecy that we have seen around this policy. The Scottish Government committed to delivering the extension of free personal care, known as Frank's Law, in 2019. However, no data has been provided on how that actually has been delivered. I spoke with Amanda Capel, who is Frank's wife, this week, and she told me that she is concerned that, after two years and eight months, almost three years, Frank's Law was initially implemented. The campaign that she has fought on this is still no figures around the uptake of the policy. Covid cannot be used as an excuse for these discrepancies that should be made around the proper implementation across all our councils of the policy. As she said, I and many thousands of Frank's Law supporters do not want to think that our six-year battle for justice, fairness and equality was all in vain. I agree. The Scottish Government promised £30 million to councils in 2019 in that budget to deliver this policy. Written questions, freedom of information requests have not been able to obtain how much of that has actually been provided to councils and, indeed, how many people have actually been given access to the care and support that they need and now have a legal right to receive. Given the problems that we have seen during the pandemic for people accessing care packages and, in fact, many people being removed or those packages being cut for individuals, it is concerning that more and more are reporting that people with complex needs and life-limiting conditions are not getting that vital care. I hope that, in future budgets, that becomes one of our main focuses in protecting and delivering free personal care, as all parties have supported. It is vital that we see the full restoration of care packages and assessments for personal care across Scotland. It is clear that the pre-pandemic pressures on social care services are only going to increase as we see a post-pandemic environment as well. I hope that this debate will see us all focus, as I have said in the future, on social care services and the crisis across Scotland, but especially here in the capital for people that I represent in the Parliament. That is why I am disappointed that ministers have not agreed to my proposal to conven a national recovery group. We desperately need that and we desperately need to see national leadership on this issue, something that this budget today is lacking. I support the amendment in my colleague Liz Smith's name. I call Carol Mocken to be followed by John Mason. This is a budget lacking in ambition and full of the usual unnecessary compromises that lead people wondering why public funds are not being utilised effectively to help us recover from the pandemic and tackle the looming cost of living crisis. It simply does not help individuals enough. It is little to offer a hard-working NHS and social care workforce. On top of that, councils are being left to suffer once again as the Government passes difficult decisions down the line and forces local authorities to take on yet another round of real-term cuts. COSLA suggests that real-term core funding cuts amount to £371 million of lost funds. A story that my council colleagues have been forced to hear year after year. I will be interested to speak to the councillors on the ground from all parties about the announcements that are made and about the way in which the budget process is conducted. We know that local Government funding means that many of the targets and priorities around care, exercise, social isolation that this Government brings to this chamber in various reports week after week will never get off the starting block in those local communities. Local authorities simply do not have the capacity to meet the needs of their populations and cannot commit to funding beyond the very basic of provision. They cannot commit to funding around additional care, exercise in green space areas, housing improvements, roads and bin collections. They cannot afford them. I hear from council colleagues all of the time and residents about the lack of local services. Yet again, though, this Government simply does not listen. Conveniently, the Government will blame councils, claiming that they have the choice to prioritise what they deem suitable. Indeed, to raise their own review in some cases, but in reality it is the decisions made here in this chamber that will be fatal for large chunks of locally run services. By April, many people will see their energy cost rising by as much as 50 per cent. For even relatively comfortable families, that is a serious load to bear, and for those who are already living from month to month, it is potentially life-destroing. I understand that the £290 million that is announced by the chancellor will go towards that. That is, of course, welcome and the correct thing to do, but the £290 million should not lead to a squeeze and other expenditure in Scotland's budget, and it should not be assumed that it is even close to enough for those families. I join with my colleagues in calling for an additional £400 payment to given to those families who will be hit the hardest by this crisis. Those ballooning energy costs caused by poor energy infrastructure planning, Governments putting profit before people, and greedy oil and gas companies who clearly have done everything in their powers to lobby those at the top against Labour's windfall tax on their profits, will disproportionately impact the most vulnerable. I think that for most people around the country, such profitable and gigantic companies should be made to pay more towards the country they benefit from. A windfall tax is justified and the right action to take. I am glad that the First Minister appears to have now back something similar to that, although it is, as is often the case, unclear exactly what she is backing, but it would also be most helpful if she could make her MPs do the same and walk into the lobbies to support people over profit. That budget is simply not enough to even meet the Government's own child poverty targets to fund our councils, and I do not need to reiterate the very cogent points made by my colleagues at stage 1 about education, health and social care. I come back to a point that I raised earlier about our undervalued social care staff, a severely low-paid workforce. I will say that the very least the Scottish Government should be committing to a £15 minimum wage for social care staff who have worked especially hard during the pandemic and have not been valued by this Government. Scottish Labour has costed an immediate £12 an hour rise to £15 an hour. The Labour Party has costed this out and we have had this discussion before. It is about choices. If this Government had the political will to do it, it would do it. Excuse me, Ms Malkin. Can we just let Ms Malkin in her closing minute? On the NHS, where is the ambitious funding to help her NHS recover and stop so many staff leaving? We know that a recent report indicated that six in 10 nursing professionals are thinking of leaving the NHS at a time when we can ill afford to lose them. Urgent action is needed from this Government to value and maintain NHS staff numbers. In closing, I have to say without a commitment to funding our councils, to paying our social care staff properly and, given our NHS the resources it needs and deserves, it is impossible for anyone committing to help Scotland recover from the pandemic to back this budget. The budget represents a Government bereft of ideas, a lack of desire to support those who are most in need, and it simply is just not enough. I must say that I was hoping for an intervention from the member across. I hope that he will be joining me on Saturday to campaign and fight to stop the cost of living crisis in Glasgow or Edinburgh on Saturday. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the budget again today. As I was preparing, I thought that I hate to think that murder phrase would be bored with my repeating myself again today by saying that we can only spend the money that we have and demands for further spending by the Conservatives or anyone else are pretty pointless if we do not know where the money is coming from. However, perhaps I can change tack a bit today by focusing more on some of the good things that are coming out of this budget. Firstly, for me, one of those is housing, and I particularly welcome £831 million for affordable housing. I get the point that we need to invest in many other things, such as skills and a whole range of other less tangible assets, which are important for the future. However, I still think that there is something incredibly important about investing in bricks and mortar, and I always get a boost when I see a new housing development in my constituency. A new affordable home can mean that an overcrowded family, who could not afford to heat some old drafty damp building, is able to move into a modern home that is easier and cheaper to heat, perhaps to passive house standards and where the young people have an opportunity and a space to study. Again, we see investment in public transport and active travel, and I very much welcome the investment of £1,396 million in rail, £413 million on buses, including concessionary fares and £150 million on active travel. I would like us to think about the amount that we support the rail industry. That is £258 per person by my calculations. Members know that I am very much in favour of rail, but I think that it is worth emphasising just how much is being invested. Every person in this country, whether with a train line or not, pays £258 for the railways each year. Maintaining rail, as well as other public transport, continues to be a challenge because of Covid, with passenger numbers still around only 50% of pre-pandemic and fares income is down in line with that. It is all very well for some opposition parties saying that they want increased services despite the lack of passenger demand. They want lower fares, more routes and better terms and conditions for the staff, but all of these come at a cost. Of course, we do want people to switch from car to rail, but at the same time we cannot afford to run trains with hardly any passengers on them. Buses are also clearly important, carrying many more passengers than trains do, but passenger numbers have been declining over a number of years in Glasgow and the west of Scotland. Ownership of buses may be a factor, but I do not believe that it is the major one. Lothian buses told us that they would run in very much the same way whoever owned them. Rather, in the west of Scotland we have an excellent local train service, and clearly the buses struggle to compete on speed and comfort, even though the buses are cheaper and in fact free for some people. Having said that, I very much welcome £110 million to give free bus travel for under 22s. Hopefully, that will get more young people into the habit of using the bus, and so in due course they will become paying passengers. Again, we can mention health, another area in which we can welcome the spending of £12.9 billion for health boards as part of the total £18 billion budget. Doubling the Scottish child payment from April, costing £197 million, is hugely good news and hopefully will make a big impact on where child poverty would have been like otherwise. For local government, the extra £120 million announcement is very welcome and hopefully gives our councils a bit more room for manoeuvre. I know that they would certainly like more certainty further ahead, as would a number of other sectors, including colleges and universities. However, that in turn brings up the question of how much certainty the Scottish Government and we in the Scottish Parliament have about our funding, and the answer to that is not very much. Even today, we have heard from the Cabinet Secretary about the lack of certainty that she has on UK funding announcements. Is the £290 million to tackle increased energy costs, new money, or is it a reallocation from existing budgets? That makes a huge difference as to our spending ability. Here we are at stage 3 of the budget for next year, and we are still very uncertain about the budget for this year. That is not even to mention the problem that we have had in several recent years of having to start our budget process before Westminster has formally started theirs. I do not want to get into the fiscal framework in this debate today, but it would help all of us hugely if Westminster would set its budget during the autumn so that we would have a better idea of where we stood. The budget seeks both to maintain current public services but also to do new things such as the child payment and more childcare. That is not an easy balance to strike. It is always attention. Should we pay existing workers more, or should we expand services and take on new workers? Should we make existing train lines better, or should we create new lines? There are no easy answers to those questions, and somehow we have to try to do both. I think that the budget makes a good attempt to do what it can on both fronts. We see continuing finance for valuable existing services in health, local government and elsewhere, but we also see expansion into significant new areas. Overall, I am happy to support the budget. We would all like to do more in a whole range of sectors. Just like every individual and every organisation in Scotland, we have a limited amount of money available, and I consider that the budget does well at using our resources wisely and effectively. I hope that all parties will see the huge benefits that are coming from the budget and will support it at decision time, as I will certainly be doing. I now call Ross Greer to be followed by Michelle Thomson. Like colleagues, I would like to pass on my and my party's congratulations to the cabinet secretary and her husband. I would also like to observe to Liz Smith that I have certainly been called many things in my political career—I am sure that the cabinet secretary has as well—but I am intrigued by the notion that a process based in large part on dialogue between myself and Kate Forbes could be described as unholy. The minister for zero-carbon buildings did observe to me a moment ago that perhaps if he had been looting for the Greens in those discussions, unholy might have been a more apt description. The budget process in this Parliament is far more compressed than members and committees would like, as John Mason has just noticed. Even in the relatively brief period between publication of the first draft and this final debate, the world around us has not, for the first time, changed significantly. A global energy crisis and a complete failure on the UK Government's part to regulate our domestic energy market means that almost every household in Scotland faces a huge rise in our energy bills. For many, that will be completely unpayable. It will force families into crisis and, without radical action, as the cabinet secretary said at the weekend, some people will die. However, at the very same time, the very same energy companies whose gas runs through our network are laughing all the way to the bank, reporting billions of pounds in net profits. BP and Shell made a combined £44,000 of net profits a minute in 2021. With a single step, a windfall tax on the profits of all gas companies, the UK Government could raise the money needed to help families through this difficult period. I hope that all parties in this Parliament and in Westminster recognise the growing public demand for this very just tax on obscene profits. I welcome the finance secretary's announcement today that the Scottish Government is doing what it can to support families, particularly given the revelation that the £290 million of additional funding that the UK Government claimed was coming to Scotland largely does not exist. That is on top of the measures already in this budget, which support family incomes, the doubling of the transformational Scottish child payment, free bus travel for young people, increasing funding for family income maximisation projects, increasing pay for care workers, delivering free school meals for all primary one to five pupils and funding the capital investment that is needed to roll that out to primary six and seven as soon as possible. On home energy and fuel bills in particular, I am proud of the role that the Greens are playing in government to drive forward energy efficiency and decarbonisation programmes that will both reduce emissions and reduce household fuel bills. The £160 million already earmarked to support those who would otherwise be unable to pay for energy improvements for their homes will clearly be essential. I hope that the plans for deploying it are being revisited to ensure that money is going out the door and resulting in home energy improvements as soon as possible. Supporting people to pay their surging bills in the short term is obviously critical now but this budget reflects the priority that we are putting on reducing the amount of energy that people need to heat their home in the first place and decarbonising the sources of that energy. The new low-income winter heating assistance programme will also be hugely important this year but again I would ask the Government to consider if plans for how it is deployed might be adapted to reflect the energy crisis that we now face. The warmer homes scheme is another whose importance is now far greater than previously envisaged but given the circumstances I think there is probably merit in revisiting and widening the eligibility for that scheme. Expanding the advice capacity of home energy Scotland would also seem sensible at this point. I say all of this knowing the huge pressure on the Scottish Government. The context of a 5% real terms cut from Westminster is still true and the developments around this £290 million of money that never was again demonstrated that the fiscal framework simply is not working. Opposition parties have now proposed something in the region of £3 billion of additional spending. I think that it has gone up in the course of this debate but there is absolutely no credible accompanying proposals for where that money would come from. I return to the point that I made during the rates resolution debate. We need to change how the budget is developed, scrutinised and debated in this Parliament. All parties should be given the opportunity to, all parties should be expected to confirm at least some of their taxation proposals each year. Spending proposals without revenue-raising or reallocation proposals should not be taken seriously. I very much thank the member for giving me a minute. I agree with the need for a better budget proposal but you also accept that if you look at last year's budget as past compared to the resource funding available this year and if we assume correctly or take on good faith that the Government did not use Barnett consequentials for Covid on recurring items, that left £3 billion difference unallocated going into the budget, not more money than last year, but certainly £3 billion unallocated from last year's budget going into the current year's budget going into next year's budget. I thank the member for the intervention but I do not recognise his characterisation both of the way that underspend is calculated but also of the way that Covid consequentials are deployed. There is a difference between one-off and recurring spending as a result of Covid. The example that I gave during the stage one debate was the amount of money that is having to be spent this year on keeping public transport operators continuing. Now that goes into our core funding. We hope that that will not be needed on a recurring basis but it is certainly needed this year and it comes out of the core budget as a result of the Covid consequentials for it being withdrawn. I think that all parties putting forward at least some spending proposals, some taxation-raising proposals rather, would be better for Government and for Opposition in the course of this debate. That budget, I think that I am about to close. Is there a wee bit of time in hand should you wish to take the intervention? In that case, yes please. Liz Smith, I thank Mr Greer for taking the intervention. Is he in favour of going back to a system where we have three-year projections on budgets and would he also agree to the possibility of a finance bill that is better for in terms of scrutinising where expenditure lies? Ross Greer. Thank you and I am grateful to the member for that intervention. Someone can intervene to correct me if I am wrong. I think that all parties in this Parliament would prefer if we were able to do multi-annual budgeting. I think that three-year budgeting is something that we would all support if we were in the position to do that. We are in the position this year as a result of the UK spending review that we can look a little bit further forward. If we had more certainty from the UK Government, I would certainly strongly support three-year budgeting but that is not possible under the current arrangements that this Parliament faces on an annual basis. The budget, though, is based on three strategic choices made by the Scottish Government. That is why the Greens are supporting it. Those are choices made in the programme for government and in the co-operation agreement between our parties that underpin it. We have chosen to tackle child poverty, climate action and Covid recovery as those shared strategic objectives. That is reflected, for example, in the £150 million for active travel, the £300 million for bus services, the £6 million for the climate justice fund, and the £200 million for tackling the poverty-related attainment gap. The Greens are proud to vote for a budget that reflects the strategic priorities that we would urge all parties in this Parliament to seriously consider what they might be voting against at decision time. I now call Michelle Thomson to be followed by Jamie Huckle Johnson. I think that we can all agree that the backdrop to this budget has been extremely challenging. We have considerable uncertainties. We have talked about rapidly rising inflation, a cost of living crisis, energy price heights and so on. Against this backdrop, we have to acknowledge that the UK Government has added its own challenges for the Scottish Government with a constant changing of reliable consequential figures and, fundamentally, a lack of respect for this Parliament. The response of the UK Treasury to the wider economic conditions remains unclear. The Bank of England started a process of regular interest rate rises, and although it has received little comment in this Parliament, it is setting out a path of unwinding quantitative easing. The consequences of that can not be certain of, I suspect, not least of all the Bank of England. This backdrop, which is very important for us to understand, of course leads to pressure to increase Government expenditure on every front, and no area has been immune from those pressures. We have heard today the multiple calls from across this chamber to raise department allocations and expenditure on virtually everything. However, it cannot be overstressed that the Cabinet Secretary and her ministerial team face all those pressures with a largely fixed budget. Someone coming into this chamber for the first time cannot understand why it is so hard for the Opposition parties. To understand that, the calls for increased expenditure are simply not matched by suggestions of where budget cuts should be made, and the Opposition seems to imagine that there actually is a magic money tree after all. One further issue about which I have spoken before is the uncertainty and fast-changing forecasts with which the Scottish Government has to contend. The OBR forecasts determine the size of the block grant adjustments for both of all taxis and welfare benefits, and the SFC forecasts affect the tax revenues and welfare spending. That is a headache, and more so if outcomes are significantly different from the forecasts, as the cabinet secretary has already pointed out, with the limited ability to carry forward. The question for me is how should we judge the budget? Perhaps there is a test. Amidst its background and the challenges, has the Government come up with a balanced, fair and proportionate set of proposals? Furthermore, is there flexibility to allow for adjustments as circumstances evolve? As a member of both the finance and economy committees, I think that the cabinet secretary and her ministerial team have done a quite frankly remarkable job to satisfy those tests. The scrutiny of the budget by the Finance and Public Administration Committee was detailed in thorough, given the time and resources available. Our report identifies the importance and challenges of the fiscal framework and of the negotiations taking place. Amongst the evidence that we examined, I was impressed by the paper options for reforming the devolved fiscal framework's post-pandemic, authored by the three Davids, Professor David Bell, David Phillips and David Iser. They argued persuasively for increased flexibilities in borrowing and reserved drawdowns in normal times. They also sought the reintroduction of funding guarantees and extended borrowing powers during times of rapid change and adverse shocks, such as we have been experiencing with the Covid-19 pandemic. Scrutiny of a budget can become dauntingly technical, but we cannot forget the need for transparency and clarity for the citizens of Scotland. Rather than asking about the intricacy of the fiscal framework, they might ask—probably encouraged by the media—why, for 2020 to 2021, there was a £580 million underspend and asked about this during an evidence session, the cabinet secretary responded with her typical clarity in candor. I quote, "...it is illegal for me to overspend, therefore as we get closer to the end of the financial year, coming in under budget is a bit like landing on a 747 on a postage stamp." In other words, that is a function of a quite ridiculous process of how we need to manage our budget. I have tweeted earlier today that you would not run a business like this, so why are we expected to run our country like this? I have already had my say on tax during the tax resolution debate, however, from some of the earlier comments earlier from the Tories, I notice that the Tories still failed to pick up on the fact, as quoted last week by the spotlight on corruption report, that £290 billion every year is lost to UK GDP as a result of corruption. Last week, I called on Murdo Fraser to condemn that. He did not. Perhaps he might like to do that today. Murdo Fraser. I would be delighted to do that. Would the member like to take an intervention or not? I would be delighted. Murdo Fraser. Would the member like to condemn all the wastage that we have seen in the Scottish Government, which my colleague Liz Smith outlined in detail earlier in the debate? Michelle Thomson. Presiding Officer, he is beginning to sound a bit like Boris Johnson, and he will not condemn it. Allow me to close by reflecting on the important aspect of expenditure. The budget for 2022-23 gives emphasis to the importance of preventative spend across a range of areas from health to the environment. Of course, that is also related to the need for reform. I strongly agree with Professor Graham Roy, when he told our committee that the resource spending review provides an opportunity to undertake a significant review of how public services are delivered. He went on to say that that would involve difficult choices, but that is ultimately what the Government has to do. In tackling such difficult choices amidst the current economic conditions, I commend the budget and congratulate the Cabinet Secretary and her team on their efforts on behalf of the people of Scotland. I now call on Jamie Halcro Johnston to be followed by Paul MacLennan. Over the past two years, we have lived through a global crisis that would be almost unimaginable had we not experienced it. At times, it has brought nations to a standstill, it has emptied our streets of people and it has led to restrictions on our citizens that we have never seen before, and I hope that we will never see again. Scotland's economy has been hit hard, but many people and many families have been kept afloat through a combination of Government support and their own resilience. How we live our lives has changed too. Many trends, increasing online shopping, more remote working and cash-free transactions have been accelerated by the pandemic. That combined with changing rules, closures and disruptions to supply chains has stretched people, businesses and the state. Our collective resilience has been battered but has not been broken. It goes without saying that Government must be responsive to this change. It calls for an ambitious programme of recovery, an aspiration if I can use that perhaps overused phrase to build back better. Sadly, this budget falls short in almost every way. Councils who are still the guiding hand for many of the services that matter to most of people—schools, social care, housing and transport—are once again the ones facing the sharp edge of decisions made in St Andrew's house. Over the last couple of months, we have witnessed the now familiar sight of swinging cuts, accumulating year on year announced to local Government, followed by some undiscovered spare cash to sweeten the bitter pill. It is why we see these vital services ever stretched or downgraded or abandoned altogether. It is difficult not to assume that the reason these cuts fall to councils is the hope that they, rather than the Scottish Government, will get the blame. We have heard something about the creation of a national care service, but beyond a title and the odd high-cost externally commissioned report, there are a few solid proposals on how we will fix the crisis in our care sector. Instead of offering support, the Scottish Government is offering an approach that worries many councils, who see this move as potentially damaging. One which risks centralising an approach to care and ignoring the distinct needs of communities, particularly those in my highlands and islands region. This is also a budget that fails to help business recover. Across the highlands and islands, we have seen an extremely mixed recovery for tourism and hospitality. Yet phase two of the tourism recovery pan has been shelved, never to see the light of day. The Scottish Tourism Alliance has said that the budget has gone not nearly far enough in supporting recovery. I suspect that that may be polite compared to what constituents in the sector would be telling the finance secretary in private. In our countryside, we are seeing 4.4 million removed for agricultural support, and all the while the budget for highlands and islands enterprise, the body responsible for supporting business growth and new business creation, gets cut. Instead of targeted help, the Government's approach to recent support scheme seems to be little more than arbitrary, ignoring the impact that the winter public health measures on a whole range of businesses. Those benches are called for 75% targeted business rates for a full year. What this budget offers is poultry in comparison. We now know that one part of the Scottish Government, the Scottish Greens, does not even believe in growing the economy, but it seems increasingly that this has now infected the SNP too. It is no surprise that the fiscal outlook shows that Scotland is lagging a good quarter behind the rest of the UK in the timing of economic recovery. Where is the change? Where are the big ideas? Where is the aspiration to rebuild? We were promised much through the pandemic that a skills-led recovery was one of those notions addressing not only the issues of the pandemic, but one of the long-term drags on economic and productivity growth across Scotland. Instead, we see a skills and training budget cut. We see funding for colleges, already a victim of years of SNP ground down raiding, cut by £53 million. On any honest assessment, this is a budget that fails to live up to the requirements of today's circumstances or even to those future aspirations that we all should share for our country. It is a budget that not only dodges the big questions but actively serves to undermine progress against the long-term challenges that Scotland faces. Above all, it is a budget that shows a deep complacency in the Scottish Government. A Government that, if the recent upsurge in discussion about breaking up the United Kingdom is anything to go by, has got tired of the day-to-day business of governing. It is a budget that will leave the Highlands and Islands worse off. It is a budget that will leave Scotland worse off. However, it is not too late for SNP and Green MSPs to put their constituents first and reject it. I would urge them to do that today. Can I also pass my best wishes on to the cabinet secretary on her fantastic news? I am delighted to speak in this stage 3 debate this afternoon to pass the Scottish Government budget. I want to speak on the economic situation in Scotland that we have at this time. I do so at the time of crisis and at the time of economic upheaval, referred before about the cost-of-living crisis. A poorest families have already had to deal with the universal credit cut. That has affected 8,000 families in my constituency, alone with 5,000 single-parent families affected. In the UK, fuel costs increases will see the energy cap rise from 1,277 to 1,971, a rise of £693. That is nearly £60 a month, which will impact the most vulnerable in our society. However, in France, price hikes were limited to 4 per cent. In Spain, the Government introduced a windfall tax on electricity generators and gas producers, and in Germany, the Government slashed the surcharge on bills to support renewables. The German Government will support them by increasing state subsidies drawn from higher carbon taxes. Those were all policy choices that were available to the UK Government. On national insurance, the average rise will be around £350 a year—£30 a month. Inflation is expected to hit more than 7 per cent later this year, and food bills are soaring. Interest rates also look set to rise sharply. For many who are working through the combined rise and costs could range from anything from £100 to £350 per month. Those are people who are already struggling. In my constituency, food bank usage was up 40 per cent in December and 28 per cent in January. No surprise that the biggest rise for years was following the universal credit cut. Most food bank users in Eastland are people with low income. The cost of living crisis is caused by the UK Government policy choices on universal credit, policy choices on energy and policy choices on national insurance. Those are all coming home to roost. Make no mistake, those impact the poorest in society. Those are Westminster decisions. Now, weird that Tories talk about we need to grow our economy, but let's look at another Tory policy choice, Brexit, which has given the economy its biggest hit, even bigger than Covid. Yet we hear not a word mentioned about this in the Benches Opposite today. Only yesterday, one of Scotland's biggest trading partners in Germany reported import of goods from the UK dropped 8.5 per cent in year-to-year trading figures, while the rest of Europe surged by 17.1 per cent. The UK now, for the first time, is out of Germany's top five trading partners for the first time ever. Yesterday, the UK Public Accounts Committee said, and I quote, "...the only detectable sign of Brexit so far is to be increased burden on business through higher costs, more red tape and border delays." Let's come back and let's remind everybody of what the Scottish Fiscal Commission said in its forecast. Overall, the Scottish budget in 2022-23 is 2.6 per cent lower than 2021-22, and after accounting for inflation, the reduction is 5.2 per cent now. We will hear from the Scottish Tories that this is all about grievance politics. The UK Government has been very generous. Yet, on Tuesday, Mark Drakeford, Labour First Minister said, "...last week the UK Treasury said Wales will receive £175 million from its English Council tax debate plan." Just as we are finalising our plans to tackle the cost of living crisis, we have learned that there is no extra money for Wales. Surprise, surprise. We will continue to work to support those who need it most. It is high ironic that the Welsh First Minister stands up more for the devolved budgets than he does for Scottish Labour party colleagues. That sounds familiar, but the Tories naturally do not like devolution, normally ever. We have talked about the Tory-created backdrop. What is the Scottish Government going to do to help? I welcome the cost of living measures taken by the cabinet secretary today. The Scottish Government has provided funding to business more than the UK Government consequentials provided. The Scottish Government's latest business support package of £375 million would equate to £4.6 billion UK equivalent package, far exceeding the Chancellor's £1 billion of funding announced in December. On the finance and economy portfolio budget, that will provide £1.75 billion, and will support the Scottish Government's economic response with a firm commitment to bullonet zero, wellbeing, economy and protect, and create good quality green jobs across every region of Scotland. That budget will support economic recovery, protecting the resource budgets of Scotland's three enterprise industries and Visit Scotland. It will also capitalise on opportunities created by the green economy while strengthening Scotland's pandemic recovery and is the major focus of that budget. To accelerate the potential of digital technology, £192 million has been allocated to improve connectivity and boost the digital economy. I am interested in the advances in digital technology, because, as we all know, the R100 scheme, which is managed completely by the Scottish Government, is years behind schedule. What does he think of that? The R100 scheme was picked up by the Scottish Government because, in adequacy, the UK Government did other than what it was doing. I will not take lectures on that. I am sorry. The spending plans also maintain the Scottish Government's non-domestic rates relief package. I will also save rate pairs more than £800 million and include the small business bonus rate scheme, which takes over 111,000 properties out of rates altogether and is the most generous relief package in the whole of the UK. I see this every single day in the high streets in the middle there. In 2021-22, retail hospitality and leisure businesses received 100 per cent rates relief, meaning that they pay nothing until April 22, while equivalent businesses in England started paying rates last July. Other budget funding for 2020-23 included £215 million for the Scottish National Investment Bank to enable it to invest in existing and emerging sustainable businesses. I have seen that through Sun and Up in my constituency in East London. £370 million for Scotland's enterprise agencies up from £340 million last year and £225 million for Skills Development Scotland to support a range of national training interventions. A further £45 million will also support the young person's guarantee targeting and employment support for young people who face longer-term scanning effects from the pandemic through new and enhanced employment and training opportunities. In conclusion, this is a budget for business recovery, business growth, business renewal and jobs. I am proud to support this budget this afternoon. Thank you. We will now move to closing statements. I take this opportunity to advise members that there is some time in hand for extended contributions and interventions should the closing speakers so wish. I call on Daniel Johnson to wind up for Scottish Labour. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I will try not to note the disappointment of members' faces when I am rising to stand at having you having just said that. I begin by saying that we have become used to, if not weary, with finance secretaries making unexpected last-minute announcements as we conclude the budget process. The unexpected announcement that she made the other day was very welcome indeed. I offer my congratulations, both her and her husband. Parenthood is genuinely a blessing and a joy most of the time. Let me turn to the budget. The budget comes at an important time. We all recognise and hope that we are entering a new phase of the virus. We can genuinely start to look towards recovery rather than just dealing with the emergency. We can all agree that the Covid costs have not gone away, but recovery means going further than simply accounting for those costs. Saying what action we will take in order to build that recovery. What the budget needed to do was to set out clear plans to help our shattered public services to get back to normal, to help businesses to get back to trading, to help our school children to recover the learning that they have lost. While there are many things in this budget that we can support such as the doubling of the child payment, I would argue that there is sufficient focus, sufficient clarity on those detailed steps to build recovery, not just deal with Covid. That is where the budget falls short. There has been a lot of hot air, a lot of heat and argument about what the opposition parties may or may not have been saying. Let me set that out very clearly in numbers. Last year's budget, at the point that it was passed, was £37.8 billion in terms of resource funding. That included £1.8 billion of non-recurring Covid spending. Covid money rose to £4.6 billion, but compared to the £339.2 billion of resource spending in the coming year's budget, that left £3 billion unallocated. Yes, that is less money overall if you include non-recurring Covid money, but that non-recurring point is important because that money was unallocated in this coming budget. We set out proposals in that envelope of £3 billion that would deliver recovery. The Government's contention is that the cost of just running services because of Covid more than exceeds that £3 billion. That may be, but I do not think that it has demonstrated that in clarity. I make no apologies for setting out proposals in detail. I say politely to Kenny Gibson. If he wants to accept invitations, he needs to actually do that. If he had got back in touch with me, I would literally have sat down with my dossier and gone line by line. Likewise, just in a moment, Mr Swinney, if I could just finish the point. Each one of those proposals was published with the detail costs. They may be wrong, but I would be happy for him to sit down with me and point out where they are wrong. Mr Swinney, I would be delighted to do that. I am very grateful to Mr Johnson for giving away, but he completely misses the point that we have reached in the budget process. The finance secretary has allocated the budget in its entirety, including the supposed £3 billion about which Mr Johnson is talking just now. If he wishes to allocate money to some other purpose, he has to serve Parliament well by telling us where, in the proposals that the cabinet secretary has put forward, he is going to move the money from. It is just incredible to come here and say that he wants to spend £1.5 billion over on this side without saying where in the allocated budget the money is going to come from. That is the credibility problem that the Labour Party has failed today, and it is why there is no justification for turning their backs on the young people of Scotland and the children of Scotland by not supporting the doubling of the child payment. Mr Swinney has got his secret signal, but the point that we made the claims was before the budget. It recalls the birth of the budget. If he would just wait at a moment, the key point is that, since the budget has been published, there are two fatal flaws, which are that we cannot build recovery in social care, recovery that is needed if we are going to deal with the problem of backlog on low pay. Simply raising the pay of social care workers by £48, I would contend as a problem because we will not be able to recruit and retain the social care workers that we need to deal with that backlog. We cannot vote for a budget that does that, nor can we vote for a budget that treats council services as a budget line to be raided to be redistributed elsewhere, as opposed to council services, which are the foundation of recovery, not something to be expended in the cause of recovery, the foundation of recovery is that we need roads, schools, libraries and play parks. We cannot afford to cut them if we want a recovery worthy of the name. Of course, since the budget was first introduced in December, the cost of living crisis has come to dominate headlines, and it simply underlines the challenge that recovery poses. In recent weeks, in recent days, we have heard the profits of multinational oil and gas companies have spiralling. BP is announcing £9.5 billion worth of profits. Shell is announcing £14 billion worth of profits. At a time when Labour comes forward with a proposal to tax those profits, to use those profits to alleviate the cost of living, what do SNP MPs do? They vote with the Tories to vote those proposals down. Quite frankly, I think that that is shameful. If you can explain why SNP MPs voted with the Tories against those proposals, I would be happy to say that it is intervention. Kenneth Gibson? All Labour voting for £30 billion in cuts before you lost 41 MPs back in 2015, but we are talking about the Scottish budget today. That is a reserved matter. Are you seeing your belief that Scotland should have the powers in order to be able to decide whether or not to have a windfall tax? As for the invite, Daniel, seems to have got lost in the post because I have never received it. Daniel Johnson? I tell you what has been lost in the post. It is whether the SNP agree that we can talk about reserved matters or not, and we can agree that we can talk about what MPs do in Westminster or not because there is a huge amount of inconsistency going on from over there. Is that plan that they voted against would have given most households £200 off their annual bills and delivered targeted support to the hardest hit by increasing the warm homes discount, meaning that 815,000 households are receiving £600 off their bills if you include the plans both across the UK and in Scotland? I note with interest and I will look in detail at what the cabinet secretary has brought forward. I would certainly be interested in looking at the detailed impact and at who will be benefiting from the £150 council tax reduction. Critically, I have a key question regarding whether or not disabled households will benefit. I may have missed the answer during my intervention, but I am. If this money is not coming through Barnett consequentials, I would be interested to know where that money is coming from. I did note in the published spring budget revision that there was £284 million in the reserve. I am just wondering whether that is where the funding is coming from. Although I would note that some will indicate that there is more money available as the budget process is going through. I would have to take that intervention. Cabinet secretary, briefly for clarity, I would say that spring budget revision is very much out of date. For example, the overall quantum has been revised down as well as it now being net of the 290. There are two different changes that require a more substantial change, which I will take to the finance committee. Daniel Johnson Can I thank the cabinet secretary for that intervention? Clearly, there is a lot more work to be done and we will examine the detail. I was also pleased to hear her discuss the various allocations of the remaining £104 million. However, again, I only totaled £36 million of additional sums within what she stated. I would be grateful if she could state when the extra £60 million to £70 million will come. Do I need to wind up there, Presiding Officer? A minute or so, I would be. A minute or so. I am persuasion free. My final point that I would like to make is that I welcome the calls from the cabinet secretary and, indeed, from Mr Greer for a more constructive approach to the budget process. Indeed, I believe that that is necessary, but can I suggest that we need three things? First of all, we need earlier and more open, on-going dialogue. Simply meeting a day or two before the budget is published simply does not provide for that. Secondly, we need more transparency about the numbers. Calls are not being made just by Opposition parties, by Audit Scotland. We need to be able to track where money goes from budget to announcement to outturn to consolidated accounts. Inability to actually see how money is being spent is impossible. Finally, there must be consistency. I know very different figures being used to discuss both £12 and £15 an hour in different places, so consistency would be helpful. There are some things that we can support in this budget, but, quite simply, we cannot pass a budget on the back of low-pay for social care workers and cuts to front-line and foundational services delivered by councils. For those reasons, we will not be voting for the budget this evening. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I now call on Bardo Fraser to wind up for the Scottish Conservatives. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I start, as others have done, by congratulating the finance secretary on our happy news? Like Daniel Johnson, I can testify that parenthood is a great joy, as the parent of two teenagers. You have no idea what a joy is, and just wait until your children get to the age where their friends control you on Instagram, and that will be something that you can look forward to. When we had the stage 1 debate on the budget three weeks ago, I reminded the chamber that what we were dealing with was the largest budget ever in the history of devolution. If we take out the extraordinary coronavirus funding in the course of last year, the Scottish Government has, in the year to come, more money to spend than ever before. I am grateful to Daniel Johnson for confirming that in the course of this debate. It is the task of the Opposition parties to scrutinise the money that is spent and ask whether it has been properly allocated, highlight areas of wastage where we feel that money could be put to better use, as my colleague Liz Smith did earlier. Ross Greer, in his contribution, raised an interesting point of process around the budget on whether or not Opposition parties should present more detailed proposals. That was an issue that I remember being debated in the finance committee in the last session of Parliament at that point. One of the barriers that prevents that being taken forward is that it is only the Government that is full site of all the information. We had the phenomenon that members of that vintage will recall in the last Parliament, where, in exchanges with the current finance secretary and her predecessor, many happy exchanges we had about the remarkable ability of the Government to find money between the presentation of the draft budget and the time that the budget got to stages 1 and 3, down at the back of the sofa, as we used to call it. By all means, the Opposition could be brought in to present more information, as Mr Greer asked for, but we would also have sight of that ability to access the additional resource, which, up till now, the Government has been reluctant to share with the Opposition parties. I mentioned in the stage 1 debate and was discussed earlier the question of support for business. That is an issue that is more important than ever. Over the past few weeks, I have spoken to a large number of hospitality businesses across Perthshire. That has brought home to me the severe impact of the Covid restrictions that were introduced in December. Those in hospitality, having experienced two very difficult years, were looking forward to the Christmas and New Year period as an opportunity to make up for lost revenue. There were bookings for office lunches, for Christmas parties and family get-togethers. When the advice came in early December from the Scottish Government that Christmas parties should not proceed, it was catastrophic for many businesses. Seeing virtually every single booking that they had be cancelled. This was at a time when many had already bought-in supplies for Christmas. Food, alcohol, decorations, napkins and crackers were all required for the festive season, much of it unable to be re-used. In such circumstances, it is a reasonable ask for those businesses to say that they should be supported financially, and yet what has been offered by the Scottish Government falls far short of compensating them for their losses. As we speak, many businesses are still to receive a penny of support, now two months on from what we told those restrictions were in place. We called for the Scottish Government in this budget to provide 75 per cent business rates relief for a full year for those in the retail, hospitality and leisure sector, a call widely supported by the business community. The Scottish Government have instead only offered rates relief of 50 per cent for the first three months and have capped that at £27,500. Yes, I will. Jim Fairlie. I thank the member for taking in the intervention. Would he also call on the UK Government to halt the 20 per cent VAT that they are about to put on hospital industries as well? Murdo Fraser. I have heard that call from many people in business, but they have called on the Scottish Government to take action on business rates. That is within the gift of the Scottish Government, and in the context of the debate here in Parliament. The support that has been offered by the Scottish Government is less generous than the support that is being offered by the UK to businesses south of the border. I raised earlier with the cabinet secretary the issue of support for nightclubs, because it is a sector hard hit by the closures. Nightclubs have been squeezed, but Mr Fairlie is shouting at me from a sedentary position. He wants to give way again. I think that a bit of calm on the part of everybody would be helpful if Mr Fraser continued. There is a particular problem with the operation of nightclubs. Nightclubs had a particularly difficult time over the past few years. They were looking forward to a busy Christmas and New Year period, and they faced closure. The Scottish Government has provided a nightclub closure fund to help to compensate them. I am grateful to Murdo Fraser for giving way. Is he concerned, as I am, that nightclub owners are still saying that they are yet to receive money? Indeed, some people are claiming that they have been refused it because their music is not loud enough. I said that 85 decibels was the threshold above which they had to play new music to beat a nightclub. Murdo Fraser? That is a significant point for Mr Johnson. I have not heard that issue with the level of noise, but I have heard from other nightclub operators who have raised the issue about the fact that they are classed as hybrid premises because they have a bar alongside a nightclub. Because of that, they do not meet the criteria for support from the Scottish Government. Earlier, I urged the finance secretary to address this. I know that the Nighttime Industries Association will have, I believe, a meeting with the Scottish Government next week, and I hope that the Scottish Government will listen to what they have to say. It is a sector that has been hardest hit by the restrictions brought in and one that has been left high and dry without proper support. The Scottish Government will say—we have heard this from the finance secretary— that there is more support for businesses in Scotland than applies south of the border. We have to remember that businesses south of the border did not face the same level of restrictions that we have seen here in Scotland. Despite, of course, all the additional restrictions introduced in Scotland, there is no evidence whatsoever that we face a lesser impact of Omicron than was the case elsewhere in the United Kingdom. We have had some discussion about the issue of local government. Despite the finance secretary finding an extra £120 million for stage 1, we are still looking at real terms cuts for local government, amounting to £250 million in its core grant. Despite what was announced— Is there an invention on that point? Of course, I will. I thank the member for taking that invention. How can the Tories seriously talk about local government and no one frankly takes them seriously on that issue? When you are seeing 40 per cent cuts in a manifesto promise south of the border on top of 37 per cent real-terms cuts, your own record in government is so utterly woeful that to pose as the defence of the local government is frankly embarrassing. Pick another topic next year. You think that Mr Gibson would be embarrassed to raise a point that illustrates so perfectly the value of the fiscal transfer of £2,000 for every man, woman and child in Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom—a fiscal transfer that he would throw away overnight because of his demand for Scottish separation. That is why we are seeing support for the Scottish public sector thanks to fiscal transfers from elsewhere in the UK. Despite the extra support— Oh, you are still shouting at me from a sedentary position. Do you want to give way again? Oh, there you go. Kenneth Gibson. I am saying, Mr Fraser, that the people of Scotland are less able to run their own country than the next-door neighbours are. Is that what you are actually saying? Where is the union dividend if what you say is true? Myrtle Fraser. Of course, people in Scotland could choose to run their own country. Back in 2014, we asked that question. People chose to stay with the benefits of being in the United Kingdom and they chose to be part of a union where the stronger economic part supports those with greater need, like in Scotland, which he would throw away. We have had some discussion about the issue of the cost of living crisis. The crisis is a really serious issue. The cost of living crisis and a number of members referred to it. Members on the SNP benches are very anxious to talk about what the Westminster Government should be doing about the cost of living crisis. Let's look at what the Scottish Government is doing about the cost of living crisis. We are seeing increases in council tax now for many households. We are seeing inflation busting increases in Scottish water charges. We are seeing the hated car park tax, meaning that commuters will be paying up to £1,000 a year just to park their cars. We are seeing increases in rail tickets. We are even seeing the introduction of compulsory smoke alarms, costing hundreds of pounds that households will have to find at a time when budgets are being squeezed. Each and every single one of the measures that I have talked about is under the direct control of this Government. Rather than talking about what Westminster should do, we should be using the powers that it has to try to address those measures. I am very grateful for the question and all sincerity. I wonder if he could explain what he thinks if he thinks that there is a relationship between the pandemic and all the disruption that has caused and the current cost of living crisis that we face. There are many different reasons behind the increase in the cost of living. The pandemic has been a factor. The rise in energy prices is a factor. The fact that there is a shortage of supply of energy has been a factor. One wonders why the Scottish Government and its green partners are talking about closing down oil production in the North Sea at the very point when fuel prices are going through the roof and hitting households right across Scotland. We are challenged once again in this debate to see where money would come from. John Mason made his usual contribution in this area. Let us look again at the projections from the Fiscal Commission on the income tax coming into Scotland. Liz Smith referred to this earlier in the debate. If only we could grow the Scottish economy not faster than the UK average, but even at the same rate as the UK average, the Finance Secretary would not be looking at a big cut in the budget available to her because of the drop in income tax receipts. If we want to find just a little bit of extra money, let us start with £700,000 in civil service wages being spent preparing for another independence referendum that nobody knows is not going to happen. The Scottish Conservatives have been clear that this is not a budget that we can support. With more money than ever before, it delivers cuts to local government and does not properly support businesses that have been struggling over the past two years. It is a budget that should be rejected by this chamber. I now call on Kate Forbes, cabinet secretary, to wind up for the Scottish Government. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can I start by saying how grateful I am for the very kind words? I do not mean to coincide major life events with budgets. It is just the way it is unfolded. I can assure members that it was not designed to get out of next year's budget. Whether that is a pro or con, I will leave it to others to determine. Presiding Officer, I want to start today with a reminder of the announcement that we have made to help families. We are committing the full £290 million to support households, meaning that 73 per cent of all households in Scotland will receive £150 at a time when budgets are squeezed. Even more importantly, we will use the council tax reduction scheme to target support better, so that all households in receipt of council tax reduction in any band will receive that support. That is a reflection of need. Specifically, recognising the energy impacts, we will continue the fuel insecurity fund to help households at the greatest risk of self-rationaling their energy use. It is important, I will say. I thank the cabinet secretary for taking the intervention and I would like to add my congratulations for your news this week. This afternoon, while we have been in the chamber, there have been comments by leading poverty organisations saying that your suggestions and your proposals on the cost of living are deeply disappointing and a missed opportunity to right a wrong from the Westminster Government. Can you tell us what your response to that is? My response is very similar to what I said in my opening remarks, where I was upfront and honest about two things. One, this is an imperfect scheme, and we have intentionally chosen to distribute funding in a way that is simple and effective, knowing that some will receive it that do not need it, but others who desperately need it will receive it. Secondly, that has to be seen in a much wider context. I read with interest some of the proposals that were sent from Age Scotland and from the analysis of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. If we had the full levers of a social security system or a tax system, I think that we could do a far more targeted approach, but the approach that we have taken ensures that families get help quicker rather than later. Obviously, deliverability is key, which is why COSLA is key delivery partners in all of that, and that has been developed in collaboration with them. I thank the cabinet secretary for being generous with her interventions. The point about targeting is important, of course, but there are levers and powers available to the Scottish Government to have targeted the support to low-income families better, including to target it to those on the carers alliance supplement, and to target it to people on pension credit, and also to target it to families who access child winter heating payments. Does the cabinet secretary agree with us that that would be an appropriate way to target it to low-income households? I certainly think that that needs to be part of the package. Obviously, I announced in my opening comments that it needs to be seen in that context. The fact that there has been additional carers allowance is one example in the supplement in 2020 and again in 2021. The winter support fund over this winter, £41 million—the low-income pandemic payments last year to everyone in receipt of council tax reduction—is examples of where we have sought to target our funding. In terms of the deliverability point, we have looked at a lot of options. Ultimately, the way to get funding out as quickly as possible in April, rather than waiting months, is to do it in the way that we have outlined. However, I am in no way shying away from the fact that that is imperfect. Thankfully, we have a council tax reduction scheme in place that allows us to identify those households that are in greater need to provide support to them. Again, I reiterate that we have time, so I am sure. Just at the first stage of the budget, the cabinet secretary announced that she was giving councils the option to raise council tax as an option to offset budget cuts. Given that her announcement of additional funding was only a count for a third of the proposed cuts, surely that means that, if any councils do choose to increase the council tax, it will wipe out at a stroke any additional support coming down from this measure? Can I dispute the premise of that point? We did not give councils the discretion of our council tax for any reason beyond the fact that they have been asking for that discretion for years. I do not think that there has been a single budget call with COSLA that I have been in where they have not raised specifically the request to get discretion. In terms of the position for our local authorities, I was going to come on to that because it is a point that has been raised a number of times in this debate already in terms of the final position for councils, so I will come on to that. The budget that all parties will have the opportunity to vote on at 5 p.m. today is a budget that is about tackling inequalities. There is £3.9 billion for benefits next year to provide support to over a million people. There is £197 million to deliver the Scottish child payment doubling it to £20 a week. The budget will continue to tackle homelessness with £831.5 million towards the delivery of more affordable housing. It has £200 million for the Scottish attainment challenge as part of a commitment to providing £1 billion over the Parliament to tackle the poverty-related attainment gap. We all know what the major challenges are. I thank Paul Sweeney for raising the point that the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has made clear that the impact of the current cost of living will disproportionately impact some families, lower-income families. That is why the holistic approach to providing more targeted help is so critically important. I will pick up on some other points that were raised by colleagues, because all parties talked about local government. Miles Briggs illustrated in my mind a central point that it is the heart of the debate on local government. Social care is a key part of local government's responsibilities. The funding for it is a key part of the overall settlement, but a lot of parties exclude that when talking about the settlement. For local government, the budget will deliver a real-terms growth to the settlement. It will protect the core budget, which increases by £120 million in cash terms, but, over and above that, we will see £354 million for health and social care integration, £200 million to support investment in health and social care and £145 million for additional teachers and support staff, as well as significant funding for the child bridging payments, as well as rolling out free school meals. Graham Simpson I thank the cabinet secretary for taking the intervention. If the budget is so good for local government, can she name any councils that are not having to put up council tax? We have provided additional £120 million so that no council has to deliver inflationary busting council tax increases, but the point that I am making here is that when members debate the local government settlement, they are excluding the very point that Miles Briggs was putting to me quite legitimately about the fact that social care is under pressure. We have increased funding for social care as part of our renewed commitment to pass on health consequentials not just to the health service but to social care as well, and that is excluded in much of the debate and discussion. Labour has rightly highlighted the need for us to support carers. The budget that Labour will vote against tonight increases carers' pay by 10.5 per cent over the last year, which is a 10.5 per cent increase in carers' pay, precisely for the reasons that Daniel Johnson rightly outlined. To build resilience into the social care system, we need to make sure that carers are rewarded and remunerated rightly. Obviously, a clear commitment is part of the national care service to building collective bargaining. All parties have indicated and identified the need to invest in economic recovery, and that is why we are doing precisely that. Murdo Fraser talked about business support, as others did. He also talked about the Omicron impact on hospitality businesses. Hospitality businesses in Scotland were not paying a penny of rates under the SNP. Hospitality businesses in England under the Conservatives were paying rates, so it is all right to talk about the need to extend non-domestic rates relief. However, when businesses needed it, the SNP Government ensured that they had support, and the same cannot be said for the UK Government. Ultimately, when it comes to supporting the economy, there has been much debate about the need for some game-changing policies that accelerate growth. My plea would be to deliver on that rhetoric in terms of ideas, concrete ideas, tangible ideas, because there is much in the way of denigrating and criticising very little in the way of tangible policies that the other parties have put forward, which will accelerate the growth that they call for. I was going to go through the contributions that were made by other parties, but I will not suffice, apart from making two quick comments. Michelle Thomson talked very helpfully about the challenges that we face, but also some of the hypocrisy. She talked, for example, about waste. All of us have seen the reports of the £4.9 billion of fraudulent business loans under the UK Government, and the £8.7 billion of PPE that was written off. In terms of waste, perhaps the Conservatives would start with their own colleagues. Jamie Halcro Johnston made a point about Highlands and Islands Enterprise that I want to ensure that the answer is on the record. The enterprise agencies have all seen record level of funding, the highest level of funding since 2010-2011, because of the critical role that they play in economic recovery. HIE plays an absolutely essential role in the Highlands and Islands economic recovery. That is why we have maintained their spending power. What Jamie Halcro Johnston referred to as a reduction is a non-cash reduction, and that is about accounting charges like depreciation. I want to make sure that it is clear that that is about protecting our enterprise agencies. Lastly, and perhaps not least, Paul MacLennan talked about the wider economic impacts that we are all contending with. He talked about the impact of Brexit and the impact of the cumulative costs on businesses. It reminds me of the Labour shortages debate that we had a few weeks ago, when, on one hand, Conservatives were at pains to say, Brexit is not the problem, Labour shortages are there in France as well, but in the same breath blame all their economic woes on the SNP. You cannot have it both ways. Speaking directly to businesses, it is quite clear where much of the challenges are coming from. Having endeavoured to take us right up to five o'clock at the request of filling time, I am delighted to commend the budget to the chamber this afternoon. It is ambitious, bold and ambitious budget that delivers for the people of Scotland, highlighting their priorities and ensuring that, as a Government, we are quick to respond to the needs that have emerged since 9 December. I conclude the debate on budget Scotland bill. It is now time to move on to the next item of business, which is consideration of a legislative consent motion. I ask Humza Yousaf to speak to and move motion number 3054 on health and care bill UK legislation. Thank you very much. The question on this motion will be put at decision time. There are three questions as a result of today's business. The first is the motion 3124 in the name of Ivan McKee on professional qualifications bill UK legislation be agreed. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed, therefore we will move to vote and there will be a short pause to allow members to access the digital voting system.