 Gwelwch amlallyn, mae cymdeithasol y nifer, sy'n gallu bwysig, yn Jan Swinney, ar beth y mynd i ddechrau i 2nd 2015-16. Daeth niech chi'n d italiano i'r ddydd 계속io i ddifinhu greaddau a chweithio ddechrau i ddifithio i ddechrau i dderbyn yourodaeth. Mae'n gweithio gweithio ar beth y mynd i ddechrau i ddifithio i ddifinhu greddau, is rooted in our purpose of delivering opportunities for all of Scotland to flourish through increasing sustainable economic growth. The discipline of that approach, achieving growth while delivering on our obligations of sustainability, cohesion and solidarity, has guided this Government since 2007. A record of delivery is rigorously assessed through the national outcomes set out in Scotland performs. This has been cited by the Carnegie Trust and others as an international leader in wellbeing measurement, and we will place the outcomes approach into law through the community empowerment bill. Alongside the draft budget today, I have published a number of supporting documents, including an update on Scotland performs, an equality's budget statement and a carbon assessment of our spending plans. This budget comes at a time when Scotland enters a new phase in our economic and political debate. The economy has grown continuously for almost two years and output is now above pre-recession levels. As a result, 2014 is forecast to be the strongest year of growth since the financial crisis began. The number of people in employment has increased by 87,000 over the past year to reach a record high of over 2.6 million, with female employment at its highest level since records began. Scotland now has the highest employment rate, the lowest unemployment rate and the lowest inactivity rate of all four United Kingdom nations. As we move from recession to recovery, it is essential that the benefits of economic growth are not only maintained but are shared by everyone across Scotland. This budget also follows the most vibrant political campaign Scotland has ever experienced. In the course of the referendum, whether we argued for yes or for no, all of us must have been struck by the unprecedented engagement of the electorate and the hope expressed with breath-taking clarity by Scotland's people that they want to live in a more prosperous and a much fairer country than we do today. I would hope to deliver a budget that would lay the foundations for an alternative to austerity through full financial powers. We are not yet in that position. Since 2010-11, our fiscal del budget has been cut by around 10 per cent in real terms and our capital budget has been cut by more than a quarter. Regrettably, once again, Scotland's budget must strive to meet Scotland's needs in the face of UK austerity. However, I give this commitment today, unreservedly on behalf of the Scottish Government, that we will do all that we can within the powers that are available to this Parliament to ensure that people of Scotland are able to live in a more prosperous and a much fairer country. The First Minister is my eighth budget to Parliament, but the first one in which I have been able to set tax rates. Indeed, it is the first time that any finance minister has set national tax rates in Scotland since 1706, when the Scottish Parliament last set the rate of assessed land tax on property. Now, after a hiatus of 308 years and in a moment of splendid coincidence, we return to the issue of the taxation of property transactions. From April 2015, land and buildings transaction tax and Scottish landfill tax will replace stamp duty and UK-wide landfill tax in Scotland. In establishing those two taxes and determining the rates that will apply, we have put in place a Scottish approach to taxation based on the four maxims set out by Adam Smith in 1776, that the tax system should offer certainty and convenience, that collection should be efficient and that taxes should be proportionate to the ability to pay. It is that final maxim that taxes should be proportionate to the ability to pay that drives the decisions that I will announce in Parliament. As part of my commitment to a robust fiscal framework, I established the Scottish Fiscal Commission to provide independent scrutiny of the Scottish Government's forecast of tax receipts and of the economic determinants underpinning forecasts of non-domestic rates income. The Fiscal Commission has published its report today and I am pleased to note that the Commission has been able, and I quote, to endorse as reasonable the forecast made by the Scottish Government. I have decided that the taxes raised should be revenue-neutral, raising no more or less than the taxes that they replace. In setting rates for landfill tax, I am acting to avoid any potential for waste tourism through material differences between the tax rates north and south of the border, and to support our ambitious zero-waste goal. As a result, I propose that the standard rate of Scottish landfill tax should be set at £82.60 per tonne and the lower rate should be at £2.60 per tonne. I am also setting the credit rate for the Scottish landfill communities fund at 5.6 per cent, 10 per cent higher than the UK equivalent. We will increase the funding available to address environmental harm without increasing the burden of taxation. In accordance with Adam Smith's maxim, we have designed the land and buildings transaction tax to remove the distortions in the residential property market created by the existing UK system, which saw prices set to avoid increased tax bills and placed a barrier in front of first-time buyers. Our progressive approach ensures that the tax-paid and property transactions is more closely aligned to the ability to pay and that those on lower incomes, particularly first-time buyers, are helped to become homeowners in a balanced and sustainable way. The following rates and bans will apply to residential transactions taxable under LBTT with effect from 1 April 2015. The threshold for paying the tax will be increased from £125,000 to £135,000. A marginal tax rate of 2 per cent will apply to the proportion of the transaction between £135,000 and £250,000, and a marginal tax rate of 10 per cent will apply between £250,000 and £1 million. Last week, many people energised by the referendum debate will have watched in horror as the Conservative Party cheered the prospect of reducing the incomes of many low-paid workers in order, not as they claim to reduce the deficit but to fund a tax break for the better off. This Government will take a very different approach. As a result of the rates that I have announced today, nobody will pay tax on the first £135,000 of their house purchase. 5,000 more transactions will be taken out of tax, supporting first-time buyers and those buying properties in the affordable market. Tax will be reduced for a further 44,000 house sales up to the value not of £250,000, as had been speculated, but to £325,000. We will do this, whilst ensuring that 90 per cent of taxpayers will be better or no worse off than under SDLT. As a final rate, we will set a top rate of 12 per cent for properties above £1 million, ensuring that the most well-off in our society makes a contribution to the public purse. In exercising its first judgments on national taxes, this Government has put fairness, equity and the ability to pay at the heart of what it has done. That is the benefit of putting decisions about Scotland's future in Scotland's hands. As a consequence of our proposals, a first-time buyer purchasing a house at £130,000 will pay no tax. A young couple buying a flat at £140,000 will save £1,300, paying only £100 in tax. A family buying a home at £260,000 will save £4,500 on their tax bill. The proposed rates and bans of LBTT for non-residential transactions will ensure that Scotland remains a competitive place to do business. I propose to set the following non-residential rates of LBTT with effect from 1 April 2015. The nil rate threshold will be set at £150,000, a marginal tax rate of 3 per cent will apply to the proportion of a transaction between 150,000 and 350,000, a marginal tax rate of 4.5 per cent will apply above 350,000. Those rate proposals reduce the tax charge for the majority of transactions below £2 million, ensuring that 95 per cent of non-residential taxpayers are better or no worse off than under SDLT. The following rates will apply to leases with effect from 1 April 2015. The nil rate threshold will be set at £150,000, a marginal rate of tax of 1 per cent will apply to the proportion of a transaction above 150,000. We are also today publishing a fact sheet and a tax calculator to demonstrate the benefits that those rates will have for home buyers in Scotland. The Scottish Government takes a prudent approach to managing the non-domestic rates forecasts, but forecasts by their nature will never be 100 per cent accurate. Between 2008 and 2014, the difference between the total amount of non-domestic rates income received and the Scottish Government's estimated budget was 3 tenths of 1 per cent, £40 million out of a total of £13.1 billion over the period, a small but welcome surplus. The Fiscal Commission has considered our NDRI forecasts and has expressed the view that the buoyancy assumptions seem optimistic. As a result, I have revised down the NDRI forecasts in the draft budget for 2015-16. Despite that revision, we will continue to apply the small business bonus scheme, maintain parity with the poundage in England and I confirm that the public health supplement will conclude, as announced at the end of this financial year, delivering the most competitive tax framework for business in the United Kingdom. There is one outstanding factor in the devolution of taxation to this Parliament that I wish to raise with Parliament. Despite repeated engagement with the UK Treasury, a final adjustment to the block grant has not yet been agreed. Having set the budget, any such adjustment must now allow the Scottish Parliament to meet the spending plans that I have set out and to enable an initial payment into the cash reserve. In addressing the issues raised in the referendum, my draft budget today is focused on three main themes—to make Scotland a more prosperous country, to tackle inequality and to protect and reform public services. The economic policies in this draft budget are focused on job creation, delivering investment and rebalancing the economy, strengthening Scotland's labour market performance by improving participation, workforce skills and the quality of employment is essential to achieving sustainable economic growth and ensuring the benefits of that growth are shared. Youth unemployment remains a key challenge. We have already allocated £12 million in this financial year to take forward the recommendations of the commission for developing Scotland's young workforce. In partnership with local government, colleges, skills development Scotland and others, we will allocate a further £16.6 million in 2015-16 to expand apprenticeship opportunities, establish new regional employment partnerships and support employers to engage with and employ young people to ensure that they have the access to job-relevant learning. We will maintain our commitment to education based on the ability to learn and not the ability to pay by keeping free tuition at the core of higher education with over £1 billion worth of investment. We will maintain our plans to increase funding for further education to £526 million. Opportunities for all will support 16 to 19-year-olds with training and employment. We will build upon our successful delivery of 25,000 modern apprenticeship opportunities with a target of 30,000 starts each year by 2020. To ensure that the benefits of economic growth are available to all, we are investing more than £300 million over two years to allow for expanded childcare provision of 600 hours for three and four-year-olds and 27 per cent of two-year-olds. That investment will reduce the cost barriers facing parents with young children when they look to participate in the labour market. A consistent focus of the Scottish budget has been to expand investment in infrastructure to secure economic recovery. That is an argument that I will continue to make. In 2015-16, we will secure around £4.5 billion of infrastructure investment, including through use of the capital borrowing powers that are available to us under the Scotland act, and on top of the capital investment that is being facilitated through the tax-incremental financing pilot schemes and the national housing trust initiative. Almost £650 million worth of projects in the current £2.5 billion non-profit distributing pipeline began construction in 2013-14 alone. The budget provides an update from the Scottish Futures Trust on the latest timetable for NPD projects and the cost savings achieved, principally through the M8, M73 and M74 improvement works. I can also confirm today the detail of the £1 billion extension to the programme that I announced in April. We will make £140 million available to create new learning campuses at both Fife and Forth Valley colleges. £330 million for the schools of the future programme, £400 million for health projects, including the Royal Edinburgh hospital, £60 million for up to three new justice centres and £70 million for low-carbon and digital projects. Our overall investments in schools, digital infrastructure, energy efficiency, health and transport, including an additional £10 million next year for cycling and walking infrastructure, target projects that will make the economy more productive, with assets delivering greater energy efficiency and better outcomes. The investment includes once-in-a-generation projects such as the Queensferry crossing where, on Monday, the Deputy First Minister announced a £50 million reduction in the budget requirement of the project, demonstrating this Government's continuing determination to secure maximum value for public money. We will also focus on developing the international outlook of our businesses, with support for exporting through our enterprise agencies and initiatives such as the Scottish Investment Bank. We will support commercialisation of world-class research in Scotland through our innovation centres programme, backed up by £124 million of funding over six years. We will help businesses to create employment by delivering the most competitive package of business rates relief in the UK, with more than half of all properties benefiting from zero or reduced rates through a leaf package worth around £615 million next year. That is a budget that will support business and sustain growth. We are taking sustained approach to tackling poverty and inequality, but our efforts are being undermined by the UK Government's welfare reforms. Child poverty organisations have warned that, by 2020, an additional 100,000 children could be living in relative poverty because of those cuts. Building on our expansion of childcare provision, the budget also delivers our commitment to free school meals for all P1 to P3 children, worth £330 per year for around 170,000 children. Our social wage commitments, including concessionary travel, free prescriptions, free ITES, free personal care and freezing the council tax for the eighth year, support household incomes, particularly for those on the lowest income. Last year, we took significant steps to mitigate the impact of UK welfare reforms on households in Scotland. It is to my regret that the direction of Westminster policy means that we need to take the same action again. The draft budget maintains our increased support for welfare reform mitigation at £81 million in 2015-16, including funding to fully mitigate against the bedroom tax and support the Scottish welfare fund. The fund has helped more than 80,000 households, with around 50 per cent of awards made to applicants living in the 20 per cent most deprived areas in Scotland. 500,000 households have benefited from our council tax reduction scheme delivered in partnership with local government. We are also committing additional funding to tackling child poverty and will work with COSLA to extend financial support to kinship carers. We will increase funding to the early years collaborative, working with community planning partners to help to increase the take-up of healthy start vouchers. We will focus resources on the life chances of some of our most vulnerable young people with a package of support for care leavers, a mentoring scheme for looked after children and advocacy support for children in the hearing system. Tacking inequality is not simply about mitigating welfare cuts. Supporting economic growth, improving labour market outcomes and lifting people out of poverty are mutually supportive objectives. Investment in housing provides economic stimulus, improves the energy efficiency of housing stock, reduces fuel poverty and supports thriving, cohesive communities. Scottish Government programmes are on track to meet our five-year target of delivering 30,000 new affordable homes, including 20,000 for social rent by 2016. An investment of over £390 million will be used in 2015-16 to deliver 6,000 affordable homes of which 4,000 will be for social rent. To meet the needs and aspirations of the people of Scotland, this budget recognises that we need to go beyond that commitment. I am delighted to be able to announce that a package of measures spanning social, affordable and market housing will be boosted this coming year by an extra £125 million of financial support for the housing sector in Scotland. The Government is committed to protecting public services and to driving forward an ambitious programme of public service reform. We are focused on improving outcomes and on ensuring that our services are sustainable in the long term. That is all the more essential in the face of the budget challenges that we face now and in the future. Efficiency and control of costs are vital. We therefore remain committed to the two-year public sector pay policy that was published last year, which supports those on the lowest incomes, including through the Scottish living wage, guarantees no compulsory redundancies and allows for affordable increases in pay within the tight budget settlement imposed upon us. That approach enables us to protect key public service commitments such as maintaining police numbers and providing a fair settlement for local government, including for shared priorities in school education. The national health service is a precious asset to us all. Our NHS faces financial challenges arising from the austerity of the UK Government, the latest round of pension changes, in addition to rising levels of demand for care. That is why it is essential to continue our programme of reform. NHS boards and local authorities are working to deliver integration of the adult health and social care system to achieve better outcomes for individuals and to ensure the long-term sustainability of our services. In this budget, the process will be further supported by additional investment in primary care. Taken together, the integration fund and the additional primary care spend will rise to a total of £173.5 million. The Government gave a commitment in 2011 to pass on resource Barnett consequentials arising from health spending in England to the NHS in Scotland. We have done so in full in each and every year since 2011. That means that in each and every year, this Government has delivered a real-terms increase in health resource funding just as we promised we would do. Our budget plan for next year would have involved increasing the NHS budget by £202 million in 2015-16. I can confirm to Parliament that we will not now follow that plan. Some in the Opposition have suggested that the NHS budget would be cut next year by £450 million—not for the first time, Presiding Officer, they are wrong. In addition to allocating more than £400 million in NPD funding for capital projects, I have decided to increase the health budget from this year to next, not by £202 million but in total by £288 million and additional £86 million, bringing the health budget to over £12 billion for the first time ever under this Government, Scotland's NHS is properly funded and will be kept in public hands. This budget embraces new tax responsibilities for the Scottish Parliament and within our current powers deals with the challenges created by austerity from the United Kingdom. It harnesses the positive engagement that we saw in the referendum and provides a response anchored in the approach that this Government has pursued since 2007, with a clear and decisive focus on tackling inequality and making Scotland a more prosperous country. That is a budget for fairness and opportunity, and I commend it to Parliament. The cabinet secretary will now take questions on issues that are raised in his statement, members who wish to ask a question. If the cabinet secretary should press the request speak button now, I intend to allow around 40 minutes for questions. Firstly, Iain Gray. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Let me begin, as I always like to, by agreeing with the cabinet secretary. He has indeed made a little history today by setting the first Scottish national tax rates for 300 years. He knows that we welcome that. He knows that we welcome the fact that land transaction tax is more closely related to property value than its stamp duty predecessor was. Will he agree with me, then, that his historic tax-raising budget and his new borrowing powers exercised today as well? Simply demonstrate once and for all that we can have a powerful, fiscally responsible, devolved Parliament here in Scotland, but within the framework of the United Kingdom, exactly as the people of Scotland democratically, decisively and emphatically chose just three short weeks ago today. During that referendum campaign, it emerged that the cabinet secretary's successive budgets, those eight budgets, have failed to protect the NHS. Health spending here has not kept up with increases, even compared to the Tory-run English NHS. Our NHS has some £700 million less than it should have had had he kept his promises. Use of the private sector in our health service has spiralled. Plans are being made for around £450 million worth of cuts to accommodate the resulting financial pressure. Whatever the cabinet secretary claimed, no matter how he tried to dress the figures up or spin them. Page 25 of his budget document shows a real-terms increase in NHS budgets of around 1 per cent. That is one-quarter of the increase planned in England. Can he tell us why he is letting his NHS down yet again? First of all, we all draw the conclusion from the exercise of fiscal powers here in this Parliament. Ian Gray has just applauded the decisions that I have made. He supported the legislation to enable us to take a different approach on stamp duty land tax by the establishment of land and buildings transaction tax in Scotland. What I deduce from that is that it is much better if we have the ability here in Scotland, in this Parliament, to take the decisions that are right for Scottish circumstances. If I then use the term, if I flip into another issue—the Labour Party knows all about flipping—like welfare, lots of things are happening in the UK system on welfare, but this Parliament disapproves of and we are powerless to deal with all those consequences. I simply say to Ian Gray that he can make his own conclusions from the exercise of tax responsibilities that we have undertaken, but the conclusion that I draw is that it is much better to determine those decisions here in Scotland. Before we go much further on this particular issue of the constitution, I remind Ian Gray of the vow, the promise of substantial financial responsibilities, and we will be holding the Labour Party to the promises that were made in the referendum. On the question of NHS funding, Ian Gray said that the use of the private sector by the Scottish Government had been spiralling up. It has gone up from 0.8 per cent to 0.9 per cent. That is called spiralling up. In many of the years in which we have been responsible for the health service, we have spent a smaller proportion of the health budget on private facilities than was undertaken by the Labour Party when it was in office. On the question of the health budget, the Scottish Government committed itself in 2011 to pass on every penny of resource Barnett consequentials to the health service in Scotland. That is precisely what we have done. What was singularly absent from Ian Gray's comment today was a welcome for the departure from the plan that I have put out of putting even more money into the health service. Why can't the Labour Party welcome good news when it's staring them in their face? I thank the cabinet secretary for an advanced copy of his statement. Let's begin with health then, because he announced an additional £288 million, and he gave his statement slightly different to the one that the First Minister gave, I have to say, at FMQs today. Does that money, the £288 million, meet the actual manifesto commitment made by this Government? Not the commitment that they have subsequently said that they made, but what they actually said on page 3 of their manifesto was, we are pledged to protect the NHS budget in Scotland, full stop. Nothing about resource, nothing about revenue, we are pledged to protect the NHS budget in Scotland. Does the additional money— Scotland's national health service will receive in full the Barnett consequentials from increases in health spending down south. That is the end of the section, or pledge, on the NHS in relation to the budget. Page 3 of their manifesto does not meet that particular commitment. Secondly, in relation to the tax announcement that he has just made, how can the cabinet secretary— Mr Salmond, stop heckling. Seems to have gone down well, that one. How can the cabinet secretary justify an eye-watering 10 per cent tax on houses over the value of £250,000? There are pockets of this country, such as Edinburgh, where family homes for people for hard-working families are considerably in excess of that. We all understand that it increases as houses go up, but a 10 per cent I think is difficult to justify. Will he also confirm that the non-residential rates that he read out make investing in Scotland less competitive than other parts of the UK, by making it 3 per cent on anything over £150,000 and £4.5 per cent on anything over £350,000? Finally, I have still got the First Minister in stereo in my ear, which makes it difficult to say. It is so nice to see him in the chamber. It is so nice to see him actually here. Mr Brown, just get on with it, please. But lastly, he said that this is a budget for business in the economy. He is doing suffered internationalisation via the enterprise agencies, but if you look at what he said they were going to get, he said that they were going to get £400 million a year ago, but he is now planning to give them £341 million. Will he confirm that he has given them almost £60 million less than he said he was going to give them a year ago? First of all, let me just read the quote to Mr Brown from the manifesto of the Scottish National Party in 2011. We recognise that if we want to have a first-class health service in Scotland, the resources need to be there. That is why we have guaranteed the revenue budget of the Scottish NHS will be protected in real terms. That is the commitment and that is what has been followed by the Scottish Government in what we have taken forward. The second point was on the tax rates. I hear what Mr Brown is saying about the issues in relation to the judgments that I have made. The average property prices in Scotland are significantly below the threshold at which individuals would have to pay more under the proposals that I have set out than the current proposals. The judgments that have been made are fair judgments. I would also point out to Mr Brown, as I said in my statement, that 90 per cent of taxpayers will be better or no worse off under SDLT. Mr Brown voted for the land and buildings transaction legislation, as did all his colleagues. He essentially signed up to the tax being a progressive tax about it relating to the ability to pay. I think that the announcements that I have made today are a consequence of taking a balanced approach to the ability to pay that individuals will take forward, given the fact—the point that I make about average house prices across Scotland. Mr Brown also asked about the investment on the non-residential sector. On the non-residential sector, 95 per cent of non-residential taxpayers are better or no worse off under SDLT. Of course, there is every evidence, given the strength of the Scottish economy about the attractiveness of Scotland as an investment destination. Finally, Mr Brown asked me to confirm that I had reduced the amount of money that is being available to the enterprise networks. Mr Brown is absolutely correct on that point. He thought that I was going to dispute it, and I am absolutely correct. I have taken the money away from there to invest it in housing, and I make no apology for doing so. I thank the finance secretary for an advanced copy of the statement, and I welcome the progressive nature of the taxes that he has set today, based on the ability to pay, as something that we can agree with. It was also good to hear and proclaim the economic progress that we have made across the United Kingdom since the coalition Government came to power. In that spirit, I commit our party to work with him constructively again this year to seek agreement on the budget. We have made a mark on previous budgets in terms of free school meals, childcare and colleges, and we will be seeking to do so again this year on childcare to get Scotland to catch up with the level of provision in England on colleges, to catch up with the funding back in the 2011 levels that still lags behind that year on mental health to make sure that it gets the priority it deserves and transport for the north-east and Highlands and Islands. Will he agree to work with me and our party constructively on those priorities to make a big mark on this budget? Welcome Mr Rennie's remarks, as he is absolutely correct that on different occasions his party and the Government have been able to come to agreement on budget provisions, so I commit myself to working constructively with him on the budget. I also commit myself to working constructively with him on the implementation of the vow to make sure that there is no backsliding by anybody who is signed up to the vow in any way, shape or form, and we will be making sure that Mr McNeill knows a bit about backsliding. I commit myself to working with Mr Rennie on that question. He raises a number of substantive issues, particularly his point about mental health. We will be very happy to explore the issues, because the First Minister explained in First Minister's question time just a few moments ago the importance that we attached to ensuring that mental health services are given the priority that they deserve. If Mr Rennie wishes to raise those issues with me, I will consider them with the health secretary and other ministers. I warmly welcome the very positive statement from the cabinet secretary today. However, as a convener of the finance committee, I wish to record my concern that, as the cabinet secretary sets the rates and bands for the new devolved taxes, we still have no clear indication from the Treasury as to what impact that will have on the Scottish block grant due to UK Government failure to adequately address the issue of the block grant adjustment. Does the cabinet secretary agree that UK Treasury politicking not only stands in stark contrast to the constructive approach taken by the Scottish Government towards these taxes, but raises concerns over the delivery of further devolved taxes promised by the Unionist parties? As Mr Gibson knows from his convener of the finance committee, the issue of the block grant adjustment has been under discussion for some considerable time. One of the reasons why we have not managed to reach agreement is that the United Kingdom Government has advanced a mechanism that would alter the Barnett formula. I do not think that Parliament should be surprised that I cannot agree to that. Of course, it has now been contradicted by the contents of the vow, because the vow assured us of the maintenance and continuity of the Barnett formula. In the light of the emergence of the vow during the referendum campaign, I want to make it absolutely clear that a mechanism that alters the Barnett formula is unacceptable to the Government. I have put forward alternative mechanisms that would allow us to resolve the issue, and I look forward to resolving those questions with the chief secretary to the Treasury and other UK ministers in due course. Jenny Marra, for Bail and McLeod. Last week, the IPPR said that the UK needs 87,000 more engineers by 2020. However, as college terms started in Scotland, 818 young people who applied to study engineering at Dundee and Angus College could not get a place due to the lack of money from this Government. What will that budget do for the engineering skills gap in Scotland and the hundreds of youngsters in this country who just want a place at college? The first thing that I will do is check the figures that Jenny Marra put forward. From the experience of a number of my colleagues, those figures are normally pretty dodgy when they come from Jenny Marra. That is the first thing that I am going to do before I give a definitive answer. The second thing that I will do is point out the various measures that the Government is taking forward to support the development of skills among young people in Scotland. I set out the £526 million financial commitment that has been made to the college sector in Scotland at a higher level of funding than in any year when the Labour Party ran the administration of Scotland—a higher level of performance than then. Secondly, we will be implementing the provisions of the commission on developing Scotland's young workforce with another £16.6 million of additional expenditure to add on to the expenditure that we have put into the financial provision in 2014-15. Ms Marra, this is in your state. What we will do is work with Skills Development Scotland, with colleges and with other organisations to ensure that the needs of Scotland's young people will be fulfilled and they will be fulfilled by the funding commitments that the Government has made as part of the budget settlement. I welcome the cabinet secretary's commitment to increase NHS spending above the Barnett resource consequentials. In doing so, can the cabinet secretary confirm that, while other parties in his chamber talk about the need to review whether our NHS is sustainable, this Government will continue to ensure that it is and that it remains in public hands and free at the point of need? The Government has fulfilled its commitments to invest in the national health service, as we promised we would do, and we have exceeded those commitments today by the additional resources that we have set out. The health secretary will make clear how those resources will be allocated in due course, but I can reassure Aileen McLeod of the determination of the Scottish Government to keep the health service in public hands and, most importantly, to make sure that it is well-funded and well-supported to carry out the vital work that it does on behalf of us all in the communities of Scotland. Talking to housing associations across the country about how to tackle the housing crisis, one of the issues that keeps coming up is the level of hike funding, which is at £58,000, currently. That is seen as a barrier to future house building. Can I ask the cabinet secretary on the £125 million that has been identified to support housing? What on that will be specifically used to support housing associations, and will any of it be used to increase the hike levels? On the point about housing association grant, I am sure that Mr Kelly is aware of the fact that the Government has recently increased housing association grant, which, from the feedback that I have heard from housing associations, has helped to assist them in their development programmes. Indeed, I was visiting an excellent housing association development, which was taken forward by Castle Rock housing in the city of Edinburgh in Craigmiller in the constituency of the justice secretary just yesterday. It is an excellent programme that is regenerating the wider Craigmiller area in a fantastic way. The £125 million will be available for a variety of different housing investments. We expect that a significant proportion of that will be available in the affordable housing market, and ministers will set out in due course the way in which those resources will be deployed. Can the cabinet secretary confirm what support is available in this budget to help to meet the Scottish Government's climate change targets? The Government takes forward a range of different measures under the support that we have put in place for energy efficiency measures, the new resources that have been put in place for the sustainable and active travel programme, which will assist in the development of walking and cycling infrastructure. There will be investment under the enterprise brief and renewable energy projects that will support the wider economic ambitions of the Government. Of course, within the Government's own estate, we will be taking forward a variety of investments to make the Government's estate more energy efficient, and we would encourage other public bodies to do so into the bargain. The cabinet secretary for his statement accused Mr McNeill of backsliding, but is he not himself backsliding on his vow that the scheme to mitigate the bedroom tax promised by him for April of this year is not yet in place? He will be aware that people are being pursued for arrears of bedroom tax from 2013-14 and threatened with eviction. Given the agreement between the Scottish Government and Labour to fully mitigate the bedroom tax, will he take action to ensure that people in arrears from 2013-14 have their debts removed? What I would say to Jackie Baillie, I know that the Labour Party keeps peddling this point, but there is a legislative process that has to be gone through about which the Scottish Government has no complaint, am I add, in terms of how it has been handled by David Mundell in the Scotland Office and the UK Government. The process is taking its course. We expect the orders to clear the House of Commons on 14 October to then go into the House of Lords. Emerging from the House of Lords, we believe on 27 October, and we are hopeful that the order may be made by Her Majesty and Council on 6 November. I am not sure if I have revealed a state secret by that fact, but that is the timetable that we are working to. In the meantime, while we wait for that to happen, a letter of comfort has been issued by the Department of Work and Pensions, by the Scotland Office Ministers and also by the Deputy First Minister on behalf of the Scottish Government that assures local authorities that they can spend in excess of their current cap to address any issues about payments in relation to the bedroom tax during this financial year, while we wait for the legislation to take its course. That is what I would say is a belt and braces approach to ensuring that we mitigate and fool the effects of the bedroom tax in Scotland. I think that it is exciting that we have tax as part of the budget for the first time since 1706. Can the cabinet secretary confirm that the progressive approach that he has taken today with land and buildings transaction tax will be a benchmark for future taxation policy when we get more substantial tax powers in this Parliament? You can always tell that it is the accountants that get excited about tax matters, but I welcome John Mason's contribution. I think that it is important at the outset of exercising tax responsibilities of this nature, but we make it clear the values that underpin the Government's decisions in this respect. We set that out very clearly and very openly in the legislation that was put to Parliament that we believe that taxation should be progressive. We embedded that in the land and buildings transaction tax legislation and, of course, I believe that that is an important value. It bequeathed us by Adam Smith in 1776 and a value as relevant today in 2014 as it was in 1776. I was intrigued by the cabinet secretary's line that he intends to maintain our plans to increase funding for further education. Last year, the Auditor General identified a real-terms cut in college funding from 2012 to 2015. Can he confirm that today's flat cash settlement for colleges maintains that real-terms cut to colleges over the three years? If not, can he tell me exactly how many of the 140,000 Scots denied a place at college will be given that vital opportunity? The budget in 2014-15 for colleges was £521.7 million. The budget on the proposal in the document today is £525.7 million. The words that I used were absolutely correct. There is an increase in college funding as a consequence of the budget. On the point on places, the Scottish Government committed ourselves that we would maintain the number of full-time equivalents at 116,000 full-time equivalents in college places. We delivered 116,399 in 2012-13, the last year for which records are available, and the Government's funding settlement is designed to achieve exactly that. Kevin Stewart, followed by Patrick Harvie. Can I welcome the cabinet secretary's confirmation that local government will continue to benefit from a fair funding settlement? Can I ask the cabinet secretary to set out how this year's settlement compares with that of previous years? The best way to perhaps compare the issue is to look at the increase in revenue resources under the Scottish Government's control between 2013-14 and 2015-16, which was an increase of 1 per cent in resources under our control. Over the same period, local government revenue funding has increased by 2.6 per cent. The Government has in a very tight financial settlement, and I do not, for a moment, underestimate the financial challenges that face public bodies, local authorities and everybody in the public sector and the delivery of public services. We have demonstrated our commitment to ensure that local authorities are well funded by the Scottish Government. Patrick Harvie, followed by Bob Doris. I thank the cabinet secretary for the advance copy of the statement in which he made the claim that this is the first time that a finance minister has been able to set national tax rates in Scotland for a very long time. Of course, non-domestic rates are set centrally, and, as has been confirmed in the budget statement, this is the eighth year in which council tax is subject to centralised control by the Scottish Government as well. If we want to ensure that local government budgets in the future are not subject to strain through the setting of national budgets, surely it is about time that this extremely regressive, unfair tax, which has been unreformed since the beginning of devolution, council tax and the financing of local government, is the subject of creative debate and that we start to get some solutions to this problem. We cannot afford to fudge this any longer. Mr Harvie makes his point firmly. Of course, he will be aware that the local government committee, for example, has encouraged some discussion about the whole issues of local authority funding, and that issue has also been raised in the report of the commission on local issues that was taken forward by the president of COSLA. Obviously, there is the space for that debate to take place. The Scottish Government committed itself in 2011 to work with others during this parliamentary term to consider what alternatives might be able to be taken forward to replace the council tax. I have many of the same views and feelings about the council tax as Mr Harvie has, and the Government will fulfil that manifesto commitment during the lifetime of this Parliament. Presiding Officer, my constituents in Glasgow region will welcome the £81 million pledge to tackle some of the worst aspects of UK welfare reform, including fully mitigating the bedroom tax and supporting the Scottish welfare fund. Will the cabinet secretary seek to do all that he can in the constraints of this Parliament to also defend our working poor currently under attack from the current right-wing UK Tory Governments? I think that one of the measures that the Government has taken forward to some significant criticism, it would have to be said, has been the freeze in the council tax. The freeze in the council tax protects the working poor in Scotland, because it is a bill for which many of the working poor in Scotland will not get support. The Scottish Government has interrupted the sky-high increases that were taking place in the council tax. We gave real protection to householders in Scotland and gave them the assistance that they required. I quite understand the issue that Mr Doris raises. There is a certain range of interventions that we can make. Our provisions on childcare, for example, are also measures that assist the working poor in Scotland. The frustration that I have is that, while we are trying to take those good and substantive measures to support the working poor in Scotland, the Conservative Government and the Liberal Government in the United Kingdom are making those proposals and those issues much worse as a consequence. Apart from full bedroom tax mitigation, which Labour ensured in last year's budget, is it not the case that the tackling inequalities section is full of warm words, signifying very little for those who are the most poor and the most disadvantaged in society? Isn't it time that we had a comprehensive assessment of the effect of all policies and all budget lines on poverty rather than a bland equality statement that says very little about poverty and ignores specific budget lines and policies? I do not think that Malcolm Chisholm's remarks are particularly fair, given the fact that the Equal Opportunities Committee of Parliament on a number of occasions has supported the Government and encouraged the Government about the quality and scrutiny of the equalities impact assessment that the Government now publishes on an annual basis as part of the budget. I do not think that Malcolm Chisholm does his case very much good by denigrating the judgments that the committees make about the work that the Government takes forward. I encourage Mr Chisholm to go and look and read the budget document on the material on inequality. There is plenty of material in there that goes through specific tangible mechanisms where the Government is trying to support individuals who face some real difficulty. However, I have to say to Malcolm Chisholm that he has a bit of a brass neck coming here, complaining to me about difficulties for people who are facing challenges and difficulties when his party, if they are successful in the election in May 2015, will freeze child benefit. How on earth is that going to help people who are facing difficulties as part of their struggle to overcome the difficulties that are created by the Conservative Government? Maureen Watt, followed by Neil Bibby, I welcome the £4.5 billion investment in infrastructure that is set out in this budget and the additional funding of £125 million for housing. Can the cabinet secretary set out how this money will help to address inequality and poverty in our communities? The way in which I set out the additional resources that were made available to the housing sector was to set it very much within the context of the discussion around inequality, because what the housing investment enables us to do—and I saw a very good example of it yesterday on my visit to the Castle Rock development in Craig Miller, because that is not just a construction project of new houses—beautiful though the houses were—to first cast craftsmanship, it was also a successful project in regenerating the whole community, bringing new economic opportunities into the locality. As somebody who was born and brought up in Edinburgh, I was thrilled yesterday to see the transformative effect of projects of that type within the Craig Miller area, which has been an area of persistent multiple deprivation over many years, certainly over most of my lifetime. Projects of that nature can have an effect on creating employment, on creating the benefits of regeneration, of attracting new economic opportunities into the locality, and that is exactly how we will take forward the investment of that resource. Neil Bibby, follower by Jackson Carlaw. At the education committee on Tuesday, Mike Russell said, as for teacher numbers, I am very keen to maintain and, if possible, expand them. That was a bit surprising, given that Mr Russell and the Scottish Government have cut nearly 4,000 teachers since they came to power. The EIS has described those comments as a highly significant development. In the same week, the Scottish Parent Teacher Council had raised concerns about a shortage of teachers. I therefore ask Mr Swinney to give us a clear answer how many more teachers will this budget provide and will they be in classrooms next August? Cabinet Secretary? Generally, teachers are in classrooms in August. Last time I looked, they are generally in classrooms in August. Maybe Mr Bibby thinks that teachers are now, I do not know, but I do not understand the point that Mr Bibby is making, to be honest. In relation to the question about teacher numbers, local authorities are the employers of teachers. The Government engages in discussion with local authorities about the strength and the size of the teaching profession. That is part of the discussions that we have had with local government. We are going to embark on discussions with local government about how we assess the achievement of educational outcomes in the course of the next few months. That will be the subject of discussion with local government. Of course, there will be full discussion and consideration of those issues within Parliament in due course. There are currently eight council tax bans, six UK property tax bans, and I think that the cabinet secretary has announced four bans today. Contrary to how he might characterise it, there are people living in communities like East Renfrewshire and elsewhere who are not rolling in it but who find property values are affected by the reputation of local schools. Would it not have been possible for the cabinet secretary to introduce a more progressive series of bans between £250,000 and £1 million to ensure that families who find that they live in communities where schooling affects the price of homes, not necessarily their ability to pay, would not be being swingently taxed on their children's education? This is a draft budget. Mr Carlaw's free to advance his propositions in relation to the budget. I would like to share with him some of the dilemmas that I face about looking at the issue. One of them is that, if I want the proposals to be revenue neutral, Mr Carlaw might take a different view to me. He may think that we could do without a certain amount of this revenue, but I come from a view that the taxes when they are transferred to the Scottish Parliament, on this occasion they should be revenue neutral so that we can sustain the investment in public services so that the money has to come from somewhere. If I want to try to respond positively to what I am hearing from the construction and development market of the necessity of encouraging and motivating first-time buyers to get into the market, I have to find some way of balancing the revenue over the whole of the tax-paying population. I have made my judgments and I can be scrutinised on them and I can be held to account for them, but that is the rationale behind them. I understand that there will be areas of the country where some of the implications because house prices will be differently set than others, but I have tried to exercise a judgment where the crossover point between people having to pay more rather than less under the land and buildings transaction tax is set not at £250,000 that Mr Johnson was alleging in the newspapers on Monday but at £325,000, which is significantly higher than the level that Mr Johnson was pursuing on Monday. That is a draft budget that will have to be orders on all this, so Mr Carlaw is quite entitled to pursue his point of view, but I simply ask him to consider some of the other dilemmas and issues that I have to wrestle with to ensure that this is both tax revenue neutral but it also encourages and incentivises the wider property market within Scotland. I would like to acknowledge the increase in money for housing and the fact that you were honest enough to say that that money had come from the enterprise budgets, Scottish Enterprise and presumably Highlands and Islands Enterprise, is welcome because often economic development has seen a starting with not 150 or 400 houses but in the region that I represent, often four or five houses, which is enough to make the difference. Can I ask that that actually has given some consideration in the spread of spending the money that in Highlands and Islands it can often make the difference of keeping a small builder and a number of people in work and regenerating the economy in small communities by building just two houses? I think that that is a very fair point. As I look at the spread of the allocations of the affordable housing supply programme, for example, that programme is for 2015-16 spread in every locality, every local authority area within Scotland. For example, in the mainland area that represents Highland Council, there is a £16.642 million allocation for affordable housing in the Highlands and Islands. I quite appreciate that, if even a small proportion of that is spent in communities such as Alla Poole, Kilmer Berwy or other areas in the far north west, it will have a disproportionate effect on those communities. The point is well made and the Government takes every measure that we can to ensure that we encourage the uptake of participation in programmes of this type around the country, because the same regenerative opportunities that I talked about in Craig Miller in the heart of our capital city are just as relevant in some of the more fragile communities in the north and the north west of Scotland. Thank you. That ends the statement by the Cabinet Secretary on the budget 2015-16. We now move to the next item of business and I will give a few moments for people to resume their seat.