 The next item of business is a debate on motion 777-7, in the name of John Swinney, on budget Scotland number 2 bill. I would invite those members who would wish to speak in the debate to please press the request to speak buttons and I call on John Swinney, Deputy First Minister, to speak to and to move the motion. Around nine minutes please. Presiding Officer, I move the motion that stands in my name. The Scottish Government, like Governments all over the world, has been faced with a difficult set of choices in setting its budget. As I indicated to Parliament when I addressed the budget settlement in December, the volatile financial environment, including record levels of inflation and a cost of living crisis, combined to create an exceptionally difficult fiscal landscape. The IMF's report on Tuesday reflects this and indicates that the UK is predicted to be the only major economy to shrink this year. Against that very challenging backdrop, we have taken decisive action to deliver a meaningful and progressive budget for the year ahead that delivers for the people of Scotland. With the powers available to us, we have chosen to commit substantial resources to prioritise support for families and the most vulnerable to invest in our public services and to support businesses through these difficult days. A central tenet of this budget is that we have asked the people of Scotland to contribute a fair share of their taxable income and, in the case of higher eras, to pay slightly more than they have in the past to help to create a fairer society, one of which we all want to live and enjoy a range of benefits that are not available throughout the United Kingdom. Whether that is free prescriptions, tuition fees, personal care or concessory travel, the people of Scotland have access to a social contract with government that delivers so much more to each and every person who chooses to live in Scotland. Together with our partners in the Scottish Green Party, we are working to create a progressive path for Scotland. The 2023-24 Scottish budget supports an ambitious path for Scotland, which focuses on eradicating child poverty, transforming the economy to deliver a just transition to net zero and providing sustainable public services for the people of our country. This government leads by example in the bold steps it is taking to address poverty in Scotland. This is demonstrated through our social security system, which has been developed with dignity, fairness and respect at its heart. We are committing £442 million in the year ahead to our unique Scottish child payment. This is the most ambitious child poverty reduction measure in the United Kingdom. I am proud that this government has not only delivered the child payment, but has expedited its increase early and above inflation to £25 per week per eligible child from November 2022. That is an increase of 150 per cent in eight months, providing practical support to families most affected by the cost crisis. Indeed, the Scottish Fiscal Commission forecasts that around 387,000 children could benefit from the Scottish child payment in 23-24. The Scottish Government recognises that the burden of high inflation is felt most by households on the lowest incomes, which is why we are upgrading all remaining Scottish benefits by 10.1 per cent from April 2023. We have also gone beyond the energy support provided by the UK Government to provide £20 million for the fuel and security fund to help households at risk of disconnection continuing this funding into 2023-24 as the energy prices continue to bite. He mentioned the Scottish Fiscal Commission. He must be concerned that their projections that, over the next 50 years, the Scottish economy will lag behind the United Kingdom economy. What plans has he got in this budget to try and deal with that problem? There are two things I would say to Mr Rennie. The first is that in the Scottish Fiscal Commission's projections about tax, they indicate a strengthening of the income tax base in Scotland, which is a reflection of the strengthening of the economy, which the Fiscal Commission expects. The second thing is that the contents of the national strategy on economic transformation, with its focus on entrepreneurship, its focus on the development of regional economies, is a foundation of the economic strategy that will deliver for the people of Scotland. Mr Rennie is right to raise the issues of economic performance because they lack the heart of being able to generate the revenues to create the fair society that I have talked about. Next year, we will support our investment in ensuring that children get the best start in life with the investment of around £1 billion in high-quality early learning and childcare provision and a further £42 million to be invested in holiday food provision and expanding our support for school school children. From the Chancellor's autumn statement, we know that there are about £200 million extra for the next two years coming to Scotland in the form of Barnett consequentials for education, but in this budget, it is less than £100 million going additionally into education. Where is the other £100 million that does not appear in the budget for education? I think that this demonstrates a spectacular level of ignorance on the part of Stephen Kerr. Is Mr Kerr unaware that education in Scotland is fundamentally delivered by local authorities who have seen a £550 million increase in their budget in addition to the extra money for colleges and universities that the education secretary just put on the record? If Mr Kerr is shouting at me, where is the £100 million, local government budgets have gone up by £500 million and they deliver education in Scotland, and the budgets for colleges and universities are up, would Mr Kerr please keep up with the budget and we might make some more progress? Scotland is built on the foundations of our public services. For those reasons, the Government has prioritised investment in the national health service, and I am delighted that we are in a position to provide over £1 billion of an increase to the health service in Scotland. That provides over £13 billion for NHS health and social care services in Scotland, supporting NHS boards to continue to drive forward our five-year recovery plan. For social care and integration, we are delivering £1.7 billion of improvements as we prepare for the introduction of the national care service, and we will support the delivery of the £10.90 real living wage for adult social care with an additional £100 million. Investment in local services continues to be a priority, and we have reconfirmed our commitment to work with local government, recognising the importance of collaboration and partnership, and to work with accountability in delivering high-quality person-centred public services. The budget provides over £13.2 billion for local government in Scotland, which is an increase of over £570 million for essential public services delivered by councils. We will also invest almost £3.4 billion across the justice system in 2023-24, including an additional £80 million for the Scottish Police Authority. As we look to a more sustainable greener future in Scotland, our ambitions to deliver economic growth must be achieved through delivering a just transition to net zero. Over a decade ago, the Government led the way with its inspiring climate change targets. As we now work to deliver a net zero future, the Scottish Government will continue to lead the way by investing over £4.6 billion in our net zero energy and transport portfolio. That includes over £1.4 billion to maintain, improve and decarbonise Scotland's rail network, ensuring that the critical infrastructure continues to serve the needs of the people of Scotland. We have provided substantial funding to help households to face the cost of living crisis. The next year's budget will continue that, and we will spend over £360 million across our heat and buildings and fuel poverty budgets. Protecting Scotland's natural environment continues to be a priority, and we will also spend almost £467 million on restoring our peatlands, expanding Scotland's forests and tackling the causes of climate change and biodiversity loss, all contributing to the achievement of the net zero ambitions. I have just come from an event that was well attended by MSPs with the rail unions, and it was about getting the right investment in rail. The Government said last March that there would be a national conversation on rail, but no date has been set. How can we make sure that we have the right investment when we are not even having the conversation? I am pretty sure that the transport minister and other ministers are regularly engaged in the discussion about rail, but we will reflect on the comments that Monica Lennon made on the record. She is right that it is important that a rail network and infrastructure meets the needs of those who are required to use it. That is why we are pleased to bring forward the proposals on peak rail fares to remove some of the disincentive to the full utilisation of our rail network. The Government is committed to sustained investment to support businesses and our economy, which is why we are providing the Scottish National Investment Bank with an additional £244 million to continue its investment in Scottish businesses, projects and communities. Over the next five years, and this will be one of the most significant investments that the Government makes, we will invest £42 million to boost entrepreneurship by supporting startups in Scotland through our national network of tech scalers and prescalers. Of course, as we manage the transition to net zero, we must ensure that communities are well supported with an investment of £50 million in the Just Transition Fund for the Northeast and for Scotland. In the course of the pre-budget dialogue, businesses asked me to freeze the poundage in business rates and the Government has been able to do that, which is expected to save rate pairs over £300 million in the forthcoming year, which combined with the transitional relief that will be applied to the forthcoming revaluation and the continuation of the small business sponer scheme will remove 100,000 properties from business rates altogether. This package ensures that Scotland has the lowest poundage in the business rates in the United Kingdom for the fifth year in a row. It supports a package of reliefs worth an estimated £744 million. The budget delivers the priorities of a progressive Government. It provides us with an opportunity to demonstrate how we can collaboratively and successfully, as a Parliament, in the most difficult times deliver support and the best outcomes to the people of Scotland. I believe that the budget represents a fair and ambitious package, and I urge all members across the chamber to support it today. I now call on Kenneth Gibson to speak on behalf of the Finance and Public Administration Committee around eight minutes. A key theme of the Finance and Public Administration Committee's report on the Scottish budget 2324 is the need for the Scottish Government to balance responding to immediate pressures and undertaking long-term strategic financial planning. It is understandable that, given the current economic climate, the ministers are focused on the here and now. However, the committee believes that more attention is needed to ensure Scotland's financial sustainability. The immediate challenges of high inflation and interest rates because of the living crisis and on-going demands for improved public sector pay offers will persist into 2324. Only today, we saw interest rates rise to 4 per cent, and interest payments on UK Government debt are already an eye-watering £115 billion a year. To put that in perspective, that is more than five times Scotland's public sector wage bill. The chaos of the short-lived trust government and the inept economic policies that Tory MSPs such as Murdo Fraser and Stephen Kerr urge us to emulate led directly to the imposition of £55 billion in tax increases and spending cuts amidst rocketing inflation. As a result, households across the UK will endure an average fall in living standards of 7.1 per cent over the next two years. The biggest fall in disposable income since Scottish records began in 1998 according to Office for Budget Responsibility. I may have misunderstood, but is Mr Gibson speaking on behalf of his committee, or is he speaking on behalf of himself? The comments that he has given in his speech so far would lead me to believe that it is the latter rather than the former. My understanding is that Mr Gibson is speaking on behalf of the committee. I thank you very much, Presiding Officer. The Deputy First Minister told the committee that, and I quote. Murdo Fraser is happy to hear that. Perhaps Mr Gibson could clarify if all members of his committee would sign up to the comments that he has just made. I have to say that most of them probably would, to be honest, in terms of the comments that have been made regarding the fall in living standards of 7.1 per cent. I know that the lady sitting next to me wished to mean if she also wished to do so. She was not a great supporter of the policies imposed by Mrs Truss, which she was so keen on as adopting in this Parliament. I shall move on. Balancing the books this year will be a herculean feat given in early January. The Deputy First Minister was 200 to 500 million pounds short this year in his budget, and an update on that during winding up would be helpful. The shortfall adds to 2324 budget pressures, and in addition the SFC expects resource funding to increase by only 270 million pounds in real terms compared to the latest funding position for 2223. That assumes a 3.2 per cent level inflation using the Treasury GDP deflator. A reality of course is much different, given that the consumer price index inflation exceeds 10 per cent. Indeed, the Institute of Fiscal Studies a week ago today, taking into account a venue financial one-off top-ups unavailable next year, said that funding will fall by 1.6 per cent in real terms even using the GDP deflator. Tough times lie ahead. Following on from last year's UK Government real terms cut to capital budget of 9.8 per cent, 2324 includes a further real terms at UK cut of £185 million even using the GDP deflator, while construction inflation is in reality over 14 per cent. The Deputy First Minister confirmed that ministers are now unable to fund all the projects that are planned as part of the capital spending review, and the committee therefore asked the Scottish Government which projects will be deep prioritised and how the fallen capital spend will impact on its ability to achieve both its net zero ambitions and the delivery of national outcomes. Following UK Government's November fiscal statement, the Scottish Government's resource spending review no longer provides a level of certainty or a clear planning scenario intended when published last May. With that significant change, public bodies must manage their finances and plan future service delivery. We have asked for more clarity and certainty around resource spending to ensure that there is confidence in the sustainability of Scotland's public finances. We therefore seek an updated resource spending review as soon as possible. Professor Anton Muscatelli said that this year's budget protects certain public services and welfare payments, so serious thought needs to be given to ensuring that growth can continue improving the productivity and resilience of the economy in the medium to long term. We often highlight the need to address Scotland's long-standing demographic, productivity and growing the tax-based challenges. The SFC's first fiscal sustainability report, when published in March, will be a valuable contribution to how we meet those challenges. The Government's national strategy for economic transformation must be pursued with vigor and we have asked the Government how it is driving forward this strategy and how current financial constraints impact delivery. The SFC forecasts that plans to increase the higher and top rates of income tax by a penny in 23-24 would raise revenues of £30 million on paper. However, when behavioural changes factored in, that figure reduces to only £3 million. Such change is not so much from wealthy citizens switching their tax domicile from Scotland to England or even incorporating to avoid tax. In fact, the SFC asserts that behavioural change is more to do with people simply deciding to work fewer hours rather than be taxed more. We saw that with the impact of tax changes on doctors when Tory tax impositions from April 2014 of up to 55 per cent in their pensions persuaded thousands to retire early and act of stupidity from which the NHS is still reeling. Therefore, MSPs think that if an additional income tax burden of £1 billion say on the wealth that is imposed will see an extra billion made available for public services are diluted. Behavioural impacts are relevant to other devolved taxes too, including the recently increased additional dwelling supplement. We are keen to understand more about the drivers for behavioural change and ask, as a starting point, that Scottish ministers will, with the HMRC and Revenue Scotland to ensure more data capture on the behavioural impacts of tax changes. Turning to spending, Social Security alone has forecast to cost £5.25 billion in 23-24 growing to £7.25 billion in 27-28. The forecast gap between the expenditure and block grant adjustment is projected to almost double from £776 million to £1.4 billion by 27-28, as Scottish ministers work to realise the ambition of reducing child poverty. Those resources will have to be found from other areas of spending. Health and social care expenditure will grow by £1,117.7 million, with £102 million more for railways and £81 million from the Scottish Police Authority. However, there is uncertainty around how much might be needed to fund increased pay, and that is a major issue across all portfolios. The resource spending review identified key priorities for reform, digitalisation, innovation, reform of the state and public body landscape and public procurement. The Scottish Government committed to report the initial outcomes of its public service reform programme in the 23-24 budget and to setting out proposals for the future of the public body landscape. We seek assurances that the Scottish Government remains committed to those aims. The Auditor General said that there has never been a more important time to consider prioritisation in public services and productivity-enhancing reforms in the public sector. We seek a clear and detailed response on how the ministers plan to achieve each reform priority, with milestones for delivering each, along with anticipated costs, efficiencies and savings, and we will scrutinise how public bodies are working towards reform and the support that they are receiving from the Government to do so. The draft budget 23-24 has not details on whether resource spending review targets for public sector pay and headcount remain, and if so, how they might be achieved. A breakdown of where headcount reductions will be made and to what timescales would be helpful. The committee acknowledges a significant chance ahead and urged the Scottish ministers to undertake more strategic, long-term financial planning to ensure future fiscal sustainability, including on public service reform and social security commitments. For our part, the committee looks forward to considering an updated resource spending review, the Scottish Government's public service reform programme and the new public sector pay policy in due course. I must comment on potential bids for increased spending from the opposition. Every year, and it seems this year will be no different, we have MSPs loudly demanding additional expenditure across portfolios. In recent weeks, Annie Wells called for an additional non-domestic rate support, which would cost £85 million, Douglas Lums and Sotmore and specified resources for local government. Only yesterday, Donald Cameron asked for additional indeterminate funding for the creative sector. Alternatives are fine. Members and parties that demand additional funding lack any credibility whatsoever, unless they can explain how much they want and where that additional funding should come from. It is very clear that this cannot possibly be the speech of a convener of a committee of this Parliament, because this speech cannot have been written by a clerk employed by the Scottish Parliament. Therefore, this speech, eight minutes, which is in effect a second Government speech, is completely out of order. Mr Kerr, I can hear you from this distance. I have already, in response to Mr Kerr's first point of order, said that my understanding is that this was a speech on behalf of the committee. Secondly, I would point out that Mr Gibson has clarified the position for the record. Thirdly, I would say that if there are any outstanding questions, that would be a matter for the committee to pursue. I have just got a slight bit to finish off. I thank you very much for your indulgence. I would say that this is a mild speech compared to my stage 1 last year. Members across the party divide expressed concerns that even witnesses to the committee did not give funded alternatives little on other political parties. We are on solid ground here. Alternatives are fine, but members and parties that demand additional funding lack any credibility whatsoever, unless they can explain how much they want, where that additional funding should come from. I am not over the conflict that this will change today, but I live in hope that, although clearly, I have touched a raw nerve with Mr Kerr. Thank you, Mr Gibson. I am not sure if Ms Gallagher wanted to raise some point of order. I do not know it. Ms Gallagher, if you wanted to raise it, please raise it, otherwise please don't. Mr Cheikh, on the timing for speech, is it because that was well over the time? Ms Gallagher, what I would say is that I am well aware of what the time is. I wish to point out to members that at this point there is some time in hand. Where a member takes an intervention, for example, that is duly noted by the chair, and that will be the case for other front-bench speakers as well. I now call Liz Smith. Here was me last week giving great praise to the objectivity and the straightforwardness of the leadership in that committee. I think that I will have to seek to correct the record. It was in the same debate last week, when I thought that John Swinney was uncharacteristically rather unkind, because he warned that he was going to pay far more attention to what Opposition spokesman had to say on that occasion than he is today, as we set out our political stalls. I am well used to Mr Swinney's brand of humour, but I thought it was a rather odd remark for him to make, given that he is always jumping up and down, urging Opposition members to outline their alternative choices for the budget, which, of course, is exactly what stage 1 is all about. However, can I begin on a few points of consensus firstly by acknowledging that the backdrop to this budget is the most challenging on record? Global inflationary fall-out from the war in Ukraine, supply chain issues, energy costs, the Covid situation, which, although it is hopefully getting better, it has still not gone away, labour markets having to adapt to post-Brexit and post-Covid landscapes and, of course, the fall-out from the significant changes to fiscal policy in the autumn by the UK Government. None of those has been in the cabinet secretary's control, so we do appreciate the predicament in which he has found himself. Now, he says that budgets must be established on the basis of sound public finance—that's true—but budgets are also about choices, and it's here where we differ from John Swinney. Let me explain why that is, on what evidence we feel this is supporting our arguments, and, of course, about how we would allocate our rather scarce resources. Last week's business breakfast, the Scottish Fiscal Commission set out its usual, very objective analysis—I hope that Mr Gibson agrees with that—showing us exactly where we are within the Scottish economy right now. More optimistic about earnings growth and the short-run tax revenues, but warning that when the nominal £1.7 billion additions to the budget are drilled down with inflation accounted for, the real-terms effect is much more like £279 million. However, the greatest concern remains the fact that the Scottish economy has for quite some time and forecast to be underperforming against the UK economy and that the demographic issues relating to a diminishing percentage in the working population are still having major impact on productivity and on overall tax revenues for the future. I'm grateful to Liz Smith for giving way, and I agree very much with her about the significance of the population issue and the working-age population. Would she agree with me, and she mentioned this point earlier in her remarks about the labour market implications of Brexit? That one of the implications of Brexit has been to reduce the eligible working-age population. The Scottish Government will do all that we can to try to boost employability, but does Liz Smith agree with me that the strategic impact of a measure that has undermined population growth in Scotland is undoubtedly a factor that will undermine economic growth in the forthcoming period? I would say to the cabinet secretary that other countries who have not been through the Brexit process are not having quite the same problems. I come back to the point again when Mr Swinney is going on about growth. I'm just coming to that point because I think that it's most important. Yes, I do agree about some of the aspects that he has talked about before, but can I just focus on this growth thing? I think that it's extremely important. Mr Swinney always likes to blame Westminster for the ills that we've got in the Scottish economy. As I said in my response to the budget statement on 15 December, I think that that is disingenuous because the structural weaknesses—this is where the growth point is important—are not related to Westminster, but to the choices that have been made right here in Scotland for all the time that the SNP has been in power. It's also disingenuous because Mr Swinney has had more money from the UK Government than he has been prepared to admit. I won't, if you don't mind. I remind him of the comments in the middle of December from the Fraser of Allander Institute, which I know Mr Swinney respects, when he said that the block grant money from the UK Government more or less covered the inflationary pressures upon it. Mr Swinney has said on more than one occasion that there is a moral argument for paying more tax because it allows the Government to fund free prescriptions, increase child payments and free tuition fees. The trouble is that the public doesn't see their higher tax burden delivering far better public services in health, in education, in transport, in policing and in housing. All they see at present is cuts, especially in local Government, and a stand-off between Nicola Sturgeon and Cosla about the lack of flexibility when it comes to council spend, especially on teacher numbers. Mr Swinney knows only too well that Scots are accumulatively paying more than £1 billion extra a year because of the slower growth. That is raising just £325 million extra for public services. Plus, the higher tax of differentials create disincentives. I am well aware regrettably that, looking at the books, there is not enough money available just now to remove all the income tax differentials that currently exist and what we would like to do. I would say that the additional tax on over half a million Scots is due to raise £95 million. That is less than 0.2 per cent of the Scottish budget, which makes a rise very much a political choice of the SNP, rather than helping the economy. What has to be done differently? Let me begin with the Scottish Government's proposal for a national care service. The minimum estimate from an albeit seriously flawed financial memorandum was £1.3 billion over a five-year period. The best estimate from an albeit flawed financial memorandum just now is that it is £95 million for the coming year. Is it not the case that that money would be far better repositioned with local government, who are very much on the front line of delivering health and social care services? We know that, for three committees in this Parliament, the evidence is compelling from stakeholders that they do not believe that this national care service is workable. I have heard John Swinney virtually admit that. I think that that money should be better spent in local government because they are absolutely at their wit's end about where that extra money is going to come from. It is having huge implications for their plans for the future. We know that, over the years, the cumulative Barnett consequentials in health and education have not actually been fully passed on to the local authorities in the way that we originally expected. Turning to business very quickly, especially to the small businesses in our retail, hospitality and leisure sectors, we welcome the announcement that the Scottish Government is freezing non-domestic business rates. We also note that, as a result of various measures announced by the Chancellor to reduce the burden on business, there will be £222 million of Barnett consequentials, which could well go to a 75 per cent rates relief package. We do not have to remind the cabinet secretary of just how important our business sector is. We welcome the £20 million that has been transferred from the INDIREF2 into additional fuel payments, but we do question why as much as £35 million is designated for the external affairs budget. Absolutely right, an international development humanitarian aid, but we have much more of an issue with the SNP spending on various aspects of external engagement that could be done by the UK. Budget is all about choices. I do not doubt that those choices are extremely tough, but given the limited resources that are available for us on this side of the chamber, we do not believe that the SNP's priorities are in line with the priorities of the people of Scotland. Thank you, Ms Smith. I now call on Daniel Johnson, around six minutes please, Mr Johnson. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Right now, everyone in Scotland is asking themselves two fundamental questions. First of all, can I afford to get ill because I do not know when an ambulance will turn up to take me to hospital or if there will be a bed for me when I get there? Secondly, that if bills have been a struggle to pay this year, what will it be like next year once the UK Government help is withdrawn? This budget needed to provide answers to those two big questions, but it does not. The budget has no new plans, no new solutions, no new answers to those big problems. Those are challenging times. Inflation has eroded at just a moment the spending power of government, but challenging times required decisive action, but the budget simply does not offer those actions. I am grateful to Mr Johnson for giving way so early in his speech. I just want to be clear about his line of argument that he has begun with. Is Mr Johnson saying that should the United Kingdom Government, which has proper responsibility for the management of the energy market, fail to deliver support to the outrageous energy bills that members of the public are facing, the Scottish Government should use its resources to support such an endeavour? That is exactly what he has just put on the record. Let me be very clear. I think that there is an overarching need to help people to lower their reliance on gas. What I am talking about is mitigations so that people can actually make their homes more energy efficient, and yet what this Government is doing is repeating a scheme that it cut back in September because it was not working through a lack of demand. I asked this Government how on earth did it manage to devise a scheme for energy efficiency and insulation at a time of a cost-of-living crisis, fuelled by utility bills, and have a lack of demand? Yet it is wanting plaudits for repeating the very budget line that it cut in September last year. It is a nonsense. More of the same, which is all that the budget is offering, will not fix the discharge crisis. Repeating policies that it has cut will not fix our help energy bills. Leaving local councils with a £600 million shortfall will not fix a single pothole, reopen a single library, pay for a single extra social worker or help our kids learn. Ultimately, the so-called national care service sums up everything that is wrong, both with this budget and this Government. It is a plan that assumes centralisation will solve everything, a plan that is losing the support of those that work in the sector and those that need the sector, a plan that will cost billions and not add a single penny to the front line, and this is a budget that is ultimately so lacking in transparency that it does not even specify how much it contains for this plan. For those who are delivering care, this budget offers just 40 pence an hour extra, even lower than the 50 pence that it got last year, a 3.8 per cent rise, while others in the health sector are being offered seven and a half, and while inflation is running at more than 10 per cent. This just does not make sense. We all know that the front door of the NHS is jammed because the back door is broken, and why? Because we cannot recruit care workers to deliver the care packages so that people who are well cannot get home. So £12 an hour is not just a budget call, it is a budget imperative to save the NHS. Let's be clear, £12 an hour is affordable. According to Spice, creating a £12 an hour floor to adult social care workers would cost £150 million. Using the Government's own figures that they used in 2021, it would be £200 million, and this money can be found. Reallocate the £100 million in the miscellaneous line item in the central NHS budget. Save £100 million by reducing delayed discharge. Pause the national care service, which would save £95 million in the coming year. That is where £12 an hour can be found. It is affordable, but instead, the Government chooses to pursue a ministerial power grab instead of doing what would be right—paying social care workers a fair wage. I am grateful to Mr Johnson for intervening on the intervention. He suggested deleting the miscellaneous line item in the NHS line in the budget. Could he tell us what that would result in cuts to? What services are in that line item? I think that the member does not know shows about the lack of transparency in this budget. The budget is there to be done. Let's have the discussion. There is a wider context here because there are 300,000 people in the public sector earning less than £15. You cannot and should not build public services based on low pay. A budget that does not even have a public sector pay policy, let alone a workforce plan, is, frankly, deficient. However, the budget damages local services. SNP councillors are clear that the £600 million shortfall is going to cause them to look at 8,000 job losses. The claim of additional funds also points out as bogus, because it is all so ring-fenced that it is forcing finance directors to look at whether they can continue to afford to deliver statutory services. The reality is that it is 15 years of underfunding that has caused this situation, not a single budget or a single budget line, but 15 years of decisions from the SNP to cut those front-line services. The absurdity of that is that those service cuts impact health, learning, poverty, transport, employment and inequality, which will ultimately cost this Government more. What Labour would do is deal with that structural problem, scrap the council tax and on domestic rates, replace it with fairer, more progressive levies, and the STUC estimates that that could raise as much as £450 million to do so. However, instead of a plan for local government, all we have is vague promises of a concordat mark 2. I am afraid that I do not have time to take another intervention, Mr Kerr. In conclusion, we do live in challenges times. Resources are tight, but challenging times require decisive action and a clear plan. However, there is no plan from this Government to deal with the NHS crisis, no plan to secure vital services delivered by local government, no plan to help people manage their bills. Just like this Government, this budget provides nothing new, no new answers to the challenges that people have up and down in Scotland this year, as priorities are wrong, and that is why Scottish Labour will vote against it. We have approached the budget in good faith. We are ready to support it if it is right. Not perfect, perhaps, but good enough. After all, we reached an agreement before the last Scottish Parliament election and the heat of the pre-election period, so that we were prepared to cross that great constitutional divide, because the budget was good enough at that stage. In particular, we secured £120 million extra for mental health, and I hope that the Deputy First Minister agrees that my party leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has engaged constructively in the budget process so far. I accept that this is a more difficult environment, compounded by the actions of a Conservative Government that is in utter chaos. We should be able to agree that innocent people should not be left to pick up the bill for this Conservative Government wrecking the economy, including this week's desperate economic news, that the United Kingdom will lag even behind Russia in its performance this year, even behind Russia. That should sink in and should terrify us so much for the great Brexit bonus that was promised. We will continue to make the case at Westminster for the investment that should be coming to the various regions and nations of the United Kingdom for investment. You only need to look, I would argue, at the Shell profits reported today, unprecedented in UK company history to see why we need a proper windfall tax. We have also told the Deputy First Minister where we think the money could come from to make the investments that I am going to set out in my contribution today, but it is worth just dwelling on the performance of the Scottish economy. The Scottish Fiscal Commission believes that the Scottish Government may be losing out on almost £700 million of income tax revenue because of weaker economic growth. It is also projected that Scotland's economy will grow more slowly than even the United Kingdom economy over the next 50 years. That is staggering, and it should also be sobering for this Parliament here. We need to do something dramatically different compared with what we have been doing, particularly over the past 15 years, certainly. John Mason. Will the member accept that perhaps some of this is to do with a flawed fiscal framework? Willie Rennie. I have to say that always reaching for flawed frameworks and flawed relationships with the United Kingdom is not going to deal with the fundamentals of the Scottish economy. I am afraid that this Government has a perception in the business community that it is not interested in the business community. That needs to change if we are going to get the skills and talents of the people in this country to invest in our economic growth. We will continue to lag behind if we try to reach for constitutional grievances every single time. I reject what Mr Mason says. Of course, there might be flaws in it, but that is not the reason why we are lagging behind over the past 15 years and are projected to lag behind for the next 50 years. Productivity is the same. The Productivity Institute said that Scotland's productivity has been very weak over the last decade and trails behind similar foreign countries. That sets the context for this budget. I have only got six minutes, so I would love to have had more time. The Liz trust budget was reckless, of course it was. Brexit has damaged our economy without doubt. It has made us poorer. However, the Scottish Government has a tremendous responsibility to turn those matters around. The slower growth and poorer productivity in Scotland affect our income, and that needs to change. Let me set out our costed proposals. First of all, the NHS. When the NHS recovery plan was launched, one in five children were waiting too long for mental health treatment. One in three from one in five. Young people are battling the long shadow of the lockdown and the rising cost of living. We are opposed to freezing of the mental health budget in cash terms at £290 million. That will be eroded also substantially by inflation. That comes on top of the £38 million cut from the mental health budget this year, or last year, announced on 2 November. I am also disappointed that the Scottish Government is ending its excellent work on providing mental health councillors for students at universities and especially colleges. I hope that the Scottish Government reflects on that because young people have suffered greatly through the pandemic and we shouldn't be cutting support for them at this time. We want to see more money for those suffering from long Covid, something that Alex Cole-Hamilton has referred to repeatedly. An extra £20 million would triple the size of the Scottish Government's existing commitment, and the £158 paid draft budget was completely silent on that. We need to have action on mental health and action on long Covid, which would help the fundamental problems that the whole of the NHS is feeling at this time. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that the Scottish Government has understated the real terms cut to councils. Once you take into account existing pay awards and ring fencing, even SNP cosla president Shona Morrison says that it is a bad deal. The Scottish Government not unreasonably challenges members in this chamber. If we are wanting more investment in certain areas, we have to spell out where it is going to come from. That is not unreasonable and that is why we have a costly plan. The Scottish Government is telling local authorities that they should not cut teacher numbers. It is equally incumbent on Scottish ministers to tell local government where they are going to get the money from. If it is good enough for us, it should be good enough for the Government as well. I hope that the Government acts responsibly through this budget process that it is fair to local government, that it provides it with the money that it needs to pay for the teachers to get the recovery in our education system that it desperately needs. If the Government does all of those things, then we will look seriously at the budget when it comes to stage 3, because we want to act constructively. This country needs a Government that is working for people. So far, I am doubtful as to whether the budget is going to meet that, but we are prepared to look at it and prepare to vote for it if the Government does the right thing. We face a whole range of issues as we go into the 23-24 budget. The economy has taken a massive hit because of Covid, and a range of sectors, especially health, are needing both financial and human resources to get on top of things again. On top of that, we have the war in Ukraine with its impact on food, energy and steel production, and the impact of inflation both here and around the world. It is worth saying that however difficult we find our situation in Scotland, many other countries, including our partners in Malawi, are finding things much more difficult. However, I did want to say a little on another major challenge, which I hinted at earlier, and that is the fiscal framework. I know that we signed up to it fairly voluntarily, although, if I remember correctly, the Conservatives wanted us to agree to a previous version, which was even more disinvidtages to Scotland. The framework is to be reviewed, which is very welcome, but in retrospect, I think that we can see that we are not in a fair fight. So much depends on how our economy fares in comparison to the rest of the UK, and in practice that means how we do against London and the south-east. Even before the union in 1707, Scotland found it difficult to compete with England and especially with London, and that union has only tended to re-emphasise this challenge. Ireland has shown that it can be done in leaving the UK and developing the economy in a different kind of way. However, that is not an option for us in the next couple of years. In the meantime, we have to adhere to the UK's economic rules, taxation rules and immigration rules. I am very grateful to Mr Mason, and I do not disagree with some of the things that he has just said. Nonetheless, does he accept that the Scottish Government signed up to the current fiscal framework of 2016? I think that I said that. I was on the finance committee at that time, I think, and we all looked at it and thought that it was a better deal than we had previously been offered. However, in retrospect, we are now finding that there are some disadvantages in it, which I do not think any of us had foreseen. As I was saying, we are expected to outperform England if the block grant adjustments are to work in our favour. Clearly, the odds are stacked against us and the fiscal framework needs to change. Either the UK has to make it more advantageous for us to remain with them, or more and more people in Scotland will come to the conclusion that the present set-up is not working for any of us. Clearly, there is no union dividend. To move on to more of the detail of our actual budget, we firstly need to maximise the resources available to us. I very much welcome the various measures to increase tax, including one-pence more on income tax for those who are better off and 2 per cent additional dwelling supplement for those who are buying a second home, either for their own use or to let out. I hope that that will also be a boost to first-time buyers, if it is very quick. Agree with me, though, that the additional dwelling supplement being charged for local authorities is the wrong way, and it should be addressed by the Government as soon as possible. There is a commitment from the Government to review that. In one sense, that is money that is going round in the circle and it is public money going and staying in the public pot, so I accept that to some extent. We should also remember the point that was made by Professor Anton Muscatelli and the expert panel that, although our income taxes are fairly progressive compared to the UK and beyond, our property taxes are not so progressive and yet they are devolved. I realise that major changes in taxes take time, but at some point we need to grasp the thistle and look at changes to council tax, wider property taxes and possibly wealth taxes. I am sorry, I have given away twice already, unless the chair is giving me a lot of extra time. The last council tax valuation took place in 1991. Since then, I understand that house prices in the richer areas have gone up by more than they have in the poorer areas. Therefore, people in richer areas are paying comparatively less council tax than they probably should be, and relatively speaking, people in poorer areas are paying too much. Councils will decide how much they need to put up council tax this coming year, but the system has to change and the sooner the better from my perspective and I believe for many in my constituency. However, whatever resources we manage to bring in, we still need to make difficult choices on how we spend. The idea that we come to the budget and just present a list of demands is unrealistic and effectively misleads the public as to what is possible. I was slightly disappointed in last Thursday's debate when the subject of colleges came up and I asked the convener of the education committee if they would recommend a reduction in university funding in order to give more money to colleges. She declined to comment. Then, on Monday, I was at a launch of a report on the city of Glasgow College and I can assure you that Principal Paul Little did answer that question. According to him, that college receives £10,000 for a student to get a degree while across the road at Strathclyde the university gets £30,000. I did not investigate his figures, but I suspect that there are some nuances to that. However, the point remains, and I would hope that the education committee, when it looks at colleges and their funding, would not ask for more funding for them, but would just look at that, whether the balance is right between funding for colleges and universities. I think that the finance committee would be keen for other committees to work on this area of priorities within portfolios rather than just saying that colleges and universities all need more money. It would be helpful if the committee came back to the government and said that colleges, for example, should get more and universities less or vice versa. I do accept that that would require a degree of courage from committees—sorry, Mr Doris—and I'm sorry, I've taken two already. The member is about to conclude. I think that I'm winding up, am I? I've checked his order. Well, there's a point of order. Sorry. The member should really start to conclude now. I think that it's just Mr Kerr that misuses points of order. Finally, I would just mention local government. Primarily, the debate is about how much cash they get, and we face hard choices between the NHS and local councils. But other aspects that colleagues in Glasgow have raised is lessering ffencing and more flexibility and perhaps allowed to increase penalty charges by more and similar. So I do commend the budget to the chamber today, and I hope that we can all support it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr Mason. I now call Douglas Lumson to be followed by Paul MacLennan. Up to six minutes, please, Mr Lumson. Thank you, Presiding Officer. As a former council leader, I well remember the yearly merry-go-round of budget negotiations with the government. Letters would fly back and forth, meetings would be demanded and sometimes even granted. The Greens would demand more money for local government, and the pantomine would close with money being found down the back of the Derrick MacAe sofa. Unfortunately, we don't have that pantomine anymore. The Greens' slavish devotion has been bought for the price of a couple of gas-guzzling ministerial cars. That is shameful, Presiding Officer. Because despite the SNP-Green devolved government having the largest core grant since devolution, it is local government yet again that has to provide more essential services for less. I have long argued that the only way to deal with some of the key issues in our communities is to deal with the problems at the grassroots and to fund community projects that lead to much less funding required further down the line. A prime example of that is our men's shed network, a tiny amount in the scale of the budget, but it has proven to massively reduce health and social care costs further down the line. By investing in these small community projects, we can address so many issues such as loneliness, ill health, social isolation and health needs in a personal and local way. However, the Government has slashing the budget to the men's shed network. It talks about early intervention and prevention, but it is all talk. Warm words and no action. I would challenge the Government to put their money where the mouth is and fund the immense health organisations correctly. The reduction to funding of our councils and the likely increase in the budget for our teachers along with much-needed additional money for our social care staff means that there will be cuts to services in our communities. The money has to come from somewhere, cabinet secretary, and if not from the Government, then it has to come out of the roads, parks, refuse collection, leisure and education budgets. I will give way. Daniel Johnson was very honest about how he would find more money for councils. He'd robbed £100 million from Scotland's NHS. Where would you get the money from? I'm not sure if Daniel Johnson did say that, but I'm not going to defend Daniel, but Liz Smith has already set out where additional funding for local government would come to it, and I will come on to that as well. Councils have, for many years, been asking for a fair funding settlement so that they can continue to meet the needs of our communities. The Government has continuously squeezed those budgets to break in point. The cause of finance spokesperson, a member of the SNP, no less said that local authorities had faced extremely difficult financial choices in recent years due to real-terms cuts and wider economic pressures. She added that there is a real danger that, as well as cuts, some essential services may stop altogether. Essential services stopping altogether is quite a legacy for this SNP-Green coalition. However, there is a different way. Given that the national care service appears to be dead in the water after key unions were drawn from the process and ministers backpedaling, perhaps the £1.3 billion that has been earmarked for this can now be diverted to the bodies that are currently delivering social care and are struggling, our local councils. To continue to pour our money into this dead duck policy that no-one thinks is a good idea given the current financial pressures on our social care providers is a disgrace, and this SNP-Green devolved Government needs to wake up to the reality that currently exists, a crisis in delivery and a crisis in care that has happened on their watch. I am struggling for time, apologies. I would like to turn now to the impact that this budget will have on business. The Fraser Valander Institute has described this as a hard-line approach to business, with no additional release being applied to hospitality and retail as is the case south of the border. This devolved Government has further cut £66.4 million to the city's investment and strategy and regeneration budget in cash terms. This is vital funding that drives growth in cities such as Aberdeen. Last week, I spoke about the impact on growth that this budget will have. Zero. This is a short-term budget with short-term goals. There is no financial planning or growth planning. It is a budget that lacks ambition from a Government that has run out of ideas. However, it is the public that is paying the price for this lack of ambition and lack of solutions, not only in the demise of our services but in their pockets through higher taxation than the rest of the UK. Middle-income earners such as teachers and healthcare workers are going to be hit hard with increased tax, meanwhile the cost of living is hitting them hard. The Government is just making it so much harder for hard work and families in Scotland, but, while the tax gap between Scotland and the rest of the UK sees Scottish taxpayers pay £1 billion extra each year in tax, that only adds £325 million to our public services. That is the result of slower earnings and employment growth. Without growth, increased taxation becomes meaningless. Without ambition, growth is impossible. As my colleague Liz Smith has pointed out, services are not improving. In fact, they are getting worse. More and more people are seeing their bins only collected once a month, police numbers are falling, the attainment gap is not improving, our NHS weight in time increasing, number of social care staff is falling, drug deaths are not improving, growth is stalling or high streets are closing, the list goes on and on and on. The Government has more money to spend than ever before. It has more opportunities than ever before, but it has run out of ideas. In closing, this is a budget that is short-sighted, short-term and damaging the economy of Scotland and the pockets of hard work in Scotland. It will see services cut and higher taxation for many of our constituents. It does nothing to deal with the problems that this Government has created and failed to address. It will harm growth, harm business and harm hard work in Scotland, for which we will be left picking up the belt for this failed Government. I now call Paul McLennan to be followed by Mark Griffin. Up to six minutes please, Mr McLennan. Context is key in politics and any political decision that is made, particularly at budget time. To financial times, on 31 January, the IMF consigned Britain to the economic doghouse on Tuesday. That is the only DNA economy that is likely to contact this year. The UK's growth forecasts were revised down by the fund and at the same time it boosted those of most other countries. Even Russia is expected to grow more than the UK in 2023 in the fund's outlook. They are then going to say that the longer-term problem about expenditure and productivity growth persists. UK productivity growth rates have dropped more than in other countries and after the 2008-2009 financial crisis. Investment has not grown since the 2016 Brexit referendum. The Tories are talking about business growth. Scottish Government modelling shows that Scotland's economy and social well-being are disproportionately impacted by Brexit. With Scotland's GDP set to be £9 billion lower in 2016, in cash terms, a 6.1 per cent cut by 2030 continued to UK, continued EU membership, yet Labour and Tories still support and want to make Brexit work. Why does all this matter? Along with high inflation and low growth, that impacts on our Scottish economy and its ability to raise taxes. Denmark has talked to international institute for management developments, seventh annual digital competitiveness ranking and assessment of 60 countries. Capacity and readiness to adopt and explore digital technologies has a key driver for economic transformation and business. The UK lagged in 14th. Small, independent Denmark, who have all the powers over economic leavers, will touch on that later. If families, businesses and their public finances are under sustained economic pressure real to get to this stage. Douglas Lambson. I thank the member for taking intervention. He talks about more powers, but why does the Scottish Government not use the powers that they have got? They do use the powers that they have got and I will touch on other powers that we should be looking at within the current devolved setup. Families, businesses and our public finances are under sustained economic pressure and the Scottish Government has acted decisively to provide what support it can with its limited resources. The budget focuses on what steps now that will ensure that Scotland emerges from the current crisis, a stronger, fairer, greener country. The Scottish Government, of course, would like to go even further, but the cost-loving crisis has laid bare the fiscal constraints of devolution. The Scottish Government has proposed changes to a number of devolved taxes, which will raise additional revenue to support around NHS and other public services. The finance secretary has set out plans to add one pence to the higher and total top rate tax rates, maintaining the starter and basic rate plans at their current level and reducing the threshold to which people pay the top rate from 150 to 125,000. According to the Scottish Fiscal Commission, that will raise £129 million. I also talked about the higher rate threshold, which will generate a further £390 million. The Scottish Fiscal Commission estimates that the tax decisions made in Scotland since income tax powers were devolved could raise around £1 billion more in 2023-24 compared to the income tax policy decisions made by the UK Government. I support that approach and, of course, those who are able to contribute more to society should do it. I want to focus on child poverty. The Deputy First Minister touched on that point with that investment of £442 million this year. The child poverty action group in everything stated that we welcome the prioritisation of child poverty in this budget. Prioritising investment to reduce inequality and eradicate child poverty is absolutely the right thing to do. We know that this investment is working. Our cost of a child in Scotland report analyses the difference between commitments that have been made to make families in Scotland. They then went on to say that investment in Scottish child payment and other low-income benefits, such as free school meals, free bus travel, funded childcare and reducing the costs of school days, are already having a welcome impact on low-income households. The Scottish Government is the only part of the UK to introduce a child payment, which has now been increased to £25 per 100 and 50 per cent increase in eight months. It has been extended to under 16, which is estimated to lift 50,000 people out of poverty. The Scottish Government, of course, would like to do more, which takes me back to the financial constraints of devolution. The Scottish Government cannot borrow to support the day-to-day expenditure when times are hard to assist—I have already had an intervention—to assist us to these difficult days. John Mason touched on that the fiscal framework discussions are taking place within the UK government. The UK government has to give more fiscal flexibility, including additional borrowing powers, particularly over social security and housing, which are demand-led services. Labour MSPs should support that, too. That takes me on to my final point, which is a fundamental point about where powers lie. What can this Parliament and can influence? We cannot control the UK having runaway inflation, which impacts on our budget, not only this year but next year's budget, and affects every person in Scotland. We cannot control how much profits energy companies make in what the contribution is to tackling fuel poverty. Shell recently announced profits of £68.1 billion, a 53 per cent increase in 2022 due to soaring oil prices. Profits when the many cannot afford to eat or eat—no, I am about to conclude. Now we know that Tories will always cozy up to corporate giants. Imagine if the powers to introduce a windfall tax life in this Parliament were here. Yet Scottish Labour orla Dems will not support and give power to this Parliament to deal with poverty issues, a windfall tax. Why not? What logic? I welcome these Scottish budget proposals, but we need full powers over all the economic levers to ensure a fairer, prosperous, greener Scotland. I now call Mark Griffin to be followed by Christine Grahame. Stage 1 debate is generally a debate on principles of the bill. While the annual budget bill is slightly different, we should still be able to have an open debate about priorities and the strategic direction that the Government plans on taking the country with its budget. That has been almost impossible. The smoke and mirrors, the political spin, and at points, verger on dishonest presentation of the figures and their impact, means that we cannot have that debate with Government because the response is just to deny reality. The Scottish Government talks in the same breath of the changes to their budgets in real terms, but then the changes to local government's budget in cash terms. The Government talks about increases to local government budgets, but does not bother to mention that the extra funding is already set aside for new commitments. We see that extra funding trip certainly. I am concerned that, in the way that the Deputy First Minister handed my intervention on him about £100 million. My concern is that that £100 million will not be additional to the current budget for education in our local authorities because of the situation that he is outlining. The Government asks us to come to the table and have an honest discussion about where we would spend additional funding, but until we have the transparency, that honest starting point is impossible for anyone in this party without the support of Government and civil servants. We have seen that year on year. The Government announced extra funding for new Government, the so-called extra funding trick. It announced with fanfare a new welcome policy. I give an example that I live in 40 nurseries, and it is a warmly welcome policy, hugely important in terms of getting working parents back into the economy, supporting kids with extra early learning in childcare. However, the funding is announced, and it is allocated in year 1. It is combined with the general grant, and it never gets uprated with inflation. The Government gets the plaudits, and the council is left needing to squeeze other areas of budget to maintain that commitment, or else what we have seen recently is threatened with legislation to keep it going. It is not good enough for Government to come to this chamber and talk about shared priorities, shared commitments. If they are shared commitments, then there surely must be a shared commitment to pay for the increasing cost year on year rather than leaving that burden with local government. In a way, we cannot have an honest debate with the Government when it comes to ring fencing, when Government maintains that ring fenced funds for local authorities amount to just 7 per cent. Relying on a strict legal argument, when there are billions more in directed spending that councils have no control over, the recent announcement of legislation from the Government in response to Glasgow considering reducing cutting their teacher numbers shows that 7 per cent figure was always just spin. When we considered the impact on councils of that announcement, what does that say to other council staff? That the Government only cares about teachers, that teachers are the only jobs in local government worth protecting. My five-year-old daughter can tell you that the janitor, the catering staff, the cleansing staff, the bus driver, the school crossing patroller are just as much a part of her education as teachers, but they are not worth protecting because this Government only seems to value teachers when it comes to education. All those extra staff that do just as much work, what is just as hard to support my daughter's education, will take a bigger hit as a result of this budget, and I am sure that they will hear the message of the Government's priorities loud and clear. The Government also talks about the huge cuts to the housing budget, appalling in the year when we have just seen the highest ever recorded homelessness figures since they have been recorded. They talk about that huge cut as just re-profiling, re-profiling of the £3.5 billion that they plan to spend anyway. However, that has taken us and the public for absolute fools when inflation is at the highest that has been for years, when inflation in the construction industry was already running out of control before general inflation caught up. It is clear that spending the bulk of that funding further down the line means that it will be worth less, fewer houses will be built, fewer people who are experiencing homelessness will find a home, and it is all just because the Government wants to pretend that a budget cut is not a cut. Shelter and spice tell us that it is a cut, Government say that it is re-profiling, and I know who I will be listening to. When he announced his budget, I asked the cabinet secretary what are the costs to the health service of reading budgets. What happens when people can't access a local authority's preventative services because they simply no longer exist because of cuts? I have not had an answer, councils haven't had an answer. What does that do to our NHS? All of that amounts to cuts and someone will have to pay the bill. Given the preventative nature of spending in communities and housing, we know that. We know that it will be the NHS and ordinary people that will pay that price. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. A budget debate is not my usual metae, but the principle of budgets is not a mystery. An individual's domestic budget will have to balance income against expenditure or require borrowing. The Scottish Government's income is no different, except its income in the main is set by the UK, and we have no borrowing powers for revenue. Likewise, an individual's budget has first to prioritise payments for necessities, such as mortgage, rent, utilities and so on. Then, as inflation erodes the value of that income and costs rise, the savings slash cuts slash choices have to be made. For some folk, now quite simply the choice is between food bills and energy bills. It is much the same with the Scottish Government. It has responsibility for billions, but the principles remain the same. The necessities of government are the principles that we all know about. The delivery of public services, health, social care, education, the justice system, policing and providing funding to local authorities. In most of those, 80 per cent of what is provided is fixed in nature. For example, in health and social care, hospitals, staff, salaries and pensions, providing ambulances, medical treatments and so on. Those are fixed costs. It may seem obvious to us in here, but many do not understand that to cut into one budget to move to another, and if any substantial effect would perhaps mean cutting into staffing levels, for example. Then, looking across the Scottish Government budget, the biggest slice rightly goes to health and social care, which takes nearly 33 per cent of the total. I do not think that we would argue with that being a priority. The next large chunk, almost 20 per cent, goes to local authorities via COSLA, which then divises it up per council area under a formula agreed by it, which will take into account inter alias such things as demographics, population, rurality and so on. The Scottish Government does not negotiate separately with each 32 local authority in Scotland. I start from this to put the budget choices into context. Now, in my many years here, I have never known such pressures seen across the UK on government budgets. In over a decade of Tory government, austerity and deed stagnation was inbuilt, which was tolerable while interest rates and inflation were low and borrowing was cheap. However, it was a fragile UK economy. Factor in the years of Covid—the war in Ukraine, Brexit and four chances of the exchequer in one year—we have a runnagless shambles of a UK Government that had no clear idea or consistent idea how to manage the UK economy otherwise. Why four chancellers in 2022? We then end up where we are today. 10 per cent general inflation with food inflation reckoned to be nearer 15 per cent, energy companies swimming in un-earned profits of billions. The Scottish Government is almost wholly dependent on its budget from the UK and is dealing with inflation of at least 10 per cent. Pay demands to match that is fire-fighting, like it never had to fire-fight before. I am grateful to Christine Grahame for giving way on that point. Would you not accept the analysis by the Fraser of Allander Institute that the Scottish Government's budget for the coming year has been more or less protected against inflation by the increase in the block grant from Westminster? I would like to address that by quoting from your report in your preamble. It is clear from our scrutiny of the Scottish budget 2020-24 that the Scottish Government is firefighting on a number of fronts in your report. No wonder there is little opportunity for long-term planning. That is the problem. Not only is so much of individual portfolio budgets are fixed but the horrendous pressures today. I welcome progressive policies, such as free travel for all under 22s and over 60s, those with certain disabilities and their carers, no tuition fees, free prescriptions, free school meals, P1 to P5 and the proposal to extend to all primary pupils, the baby box, the child payment, prioritising families and children—these are Scotland's future. Incidentally, the Deputy First Minister referred to the small business bonus scheme, where some businesses pay no rates whatsoever. That came into the Scottish Government budget after negotiations with the then Conservative finance spokesman, Derek Brownlee—a big loss to this Parliament—and that Tory group supported the budget and amended that into it. Those were the days when the Tories did not just oppose what oppositions seek. However, other financial commitments will fall into mitigating harsh Westminster policies and underfunding. No-one pays the bedroom tax imposed by Westminster. That costs £70 million. Fueling security fund, £20 million this year, is just an example of millions in mitigating Tory austerity. However, there are limits. The Scottish Government is perhaps a victim of its own success in these years, as we tend to take in our last minute for granted these mitigations. I have listened with interest to the contribution so far, which always failed to say not only how much the proposal will cost on a recurring basis, but from which existing budget. Neither is the essential recognition of the devastating impact of inflation. Back to where I started. Every household in Scotland—the dogs in the street—know its money is not going as far as before. Savings are having to be made. Choices are shrinking back to the basics. Rent, mortgage, heating bills, food, and by the Scottish Government it is no different, just as it is no different for Wales and indeed for England's domestic budgets. I call Ross Greer to be followed by Miles Briggs. As has been noted a number of times today, in the last week's finance committee debate, this is by far the most difficult context in which a Scottish Government budget has had to be set. At this point last year, inflation was running at about 2 per cent. The UK Government had cut the Scottish block grant by just over 5 per cent in real terms, and we were rightly describing that budget setting process as the most challenging that this Parliament had faced. But since then, a combination of the continuing damage of Brexit, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the spectacular disaster of Les Trus and long-term Tory mismanagement of the economy have created a set of circumstances much worse than what we at that point thought was, hopefully, our worst case scenario. Despite the challenges out with our control, this is the greenest budget ever. Scrapping peak-time rail fares from September will save travellers hundreds of pounds and end what the Aslav Union correctly label attacks on commuters. 20,000 more children will be eligible for free school meals, and 80 million pounds will be invested in expanding school catering facilities, so that eligibility can be expanded to even more children as soon as possible. I thank the member for taking in an intervention. Tomorrow afternoon I am taking part in a cross-party briefing with Jim Logue and North Lanarkshire Council. They have a £67 million projected budget deficit. What am I going to tell them about the difference the green element to the SNP green government is making? You are doing exactly the same thing as previous SNP governments did, and that is you are cutting services, you are cutting local jobs. What are you asking them to do? Wait for a de facto referendum before anything changes, because it is carrying on just as it was before. Where is your wealth tax now, Ross Greer? That is a bold comment from a Labour party that, about 20 minutes ago, proposed cutting £100 million from the NHS without even knowing what that £100 million cut would be. I will reference the Mr Johnson. Would he recognise that that would be redirected within the health budget, because he would go to social care? Ross Greer. Of course, Mr Johnson proposed that that £100 million would go into increasing wages for social care workers, something that everybody, I am sure, both in the Greens and the SNP wants to see happen. The difference is that Mr Johnson does not know what he is taking that from. That is a cut to healthcare services. The Labour Party has proposed it, but they do not know what it is actually proposing to cut. That is just comically irresponsible. What we are actually delivering in this budget is funded, in part, by the most progressive tax system in the UK, by raising the higher rate of income tax and the additional dwelling supplement. The highest earners in those buying holiday homes and extra properties will pay a bit more to fund the public services that are so desperately needed during the cost of living crisis. Scotland has extremely limited devolved taxation and revenue raising powers, and, although we certainly need more financial powers, it would be wrong to just make the argument without making the best use of the powers that we do have. In 2018, the Greens worked with the Scottish Government to deliver progressive changes to income tax. We lowered the tax paid by the lowest-paid workers and increased it for those on higher incomes. Those progressive changes have raised hundreds of millions of pounds for public services, but, given the monumental pressure that the budget is now under and the need for high-quality public services during this economic crisis, we need to go further. We might be in a cost of living crisis, one pushing many households to crisis point, but there are plenty of high-income and wealthy people in this country who can afford to pay a bit more. Those on the highest incomes can afford an extra penny on the tax rate paid on the top-slice of their salary. Those in the position where they can buy a second home or a holiday home can absolutely afford—yes. Liz Smith. Does he accept none the less comments from a lot of business and industry, particularly groups like the CBI, that Scotland is desperate to have more well-paid jobs? Of course we're desperate to have more well-paid jobs, including for the purpose of raising additional tax revenue. However, as we've seen from the SFC forecast for income tax over the next couple of years, the fact that Scotland has a more progressive income tax regime than the rest of the UK has clearly not had any detrimental effect on our ability to raise income tax revenue. As I said, this is a budget that we are proud of because it will see those on the higher and top rates of income tax and those paying the additional dwelling supplement pay a bit more. Between those rate changes and freezing income tax thresholds, about £1.5 billion more will be raised to support public services and to deliver vital additional interventions like free school meal expansion. I have taken a number of interventions at this point, so I apologise, Mr Kerr. I was intrigued by the point that Liz Smith made about the £95 million that will be raised from the income tax rate increase. She identified it with the national care service spend and quite legitimately said that the Conservatives wouldn't spend it on that, that they would rather see that £95 million go to local government. Given that, I look forward to seeing the Conservatives vote for the rate resolution that delivers that £95 million of additional funding for our public services. As I said last week, fair pay for public sector workers is now one of the biggest challenges that the Scottish Government faces. To be absolutely clear, the Greens believe that all workers in the public, private and third sector deserve pay rises at least in line with inflation and we support their right to take whatever industrial action they believe is necessary. With inflation rising above 10 per cent, a real-terms budget cut from the UK Government and extremely limited tax powers is impossible for the Scottish Government to deliver that level of pay increase in the short term without paying for it with devastating service cuts and job losses. It would cost about £2.5 billion. That is why the proposals brought forward by the STUC and Unison are so important. I welcome Labour's commitment to reform and replacement of the council tax and the non-domestic rate system, perhaps with what is in the STUC and Unison papers. The last time council tax was in date was before I was born. We have an opportunity in this term of parliament to deliver the kind of systematic structural change that should have been delivered a long time ago. I hope, from the contribution that Labour has made this afternoon, that it will join the two parties and the Government who have already committed to do so. I want to focus my contribution today on the housing crisis and homelessness emergency in Scotland. I could not believe that the finance secretary did not mention housing or homelessness once in his speech. He had more to say about peatland restoration than the housing emergency that we face in Scotland, because figures released this week show that there were 28,944 open homelessness cases recorded in Scotland, the highest, and I disappointed the Deputy First Minister's leaving the chamber. However, those are the highest records since figures began in 2002 and 11 per cent rise on the previous year. In a written answer to myself on the time children in Scotland are spending in temporary accommodation, Scottish Government data now shows that 447 households with children included in their homelessness application have spent more than three years living in temporary accommodation. Let that sink in for a minute. In Scotland today, children and their families are living in bedrooms in former guest houses for three years or more under this Government. If that really is the progressive pathway that the Deputy First Minister outlined, I do not want anything to do with it. Hundreds of Scotland's children are spending years in this sort of accommodation, which will have a hugely detrimental impact on their physical and mental wellbeing. This Parliament should be doing something about that, and we are not. The numbers are getting worse—a 10 per cent increase in the last year alone of children living in those conditions. SNP and green ministers cannot continue to fail to act, and taking forward cuts to the budget on housing is not going to help to achieve that. Our young people are paying the price for this SNP green government in action. Scottish Conservatives last week called on this Government to declare a housing emergency, but ministers failed to act. It is deeply concerning, I believe, that this budget once again looks to target the housing budget for such significant cuts at the very time pressures on our housing system are increasing, especially here in the capital. As Shelter Scotland said in its briefing ahead of today's debate, the Scottish Government often talks about living up to the preventative ambitions outlined in the Christie commission, yet failing to invest in social housing simply damages health and education and will leave children trapped in temporary accommodation for longer periods of time and cost the Scottish Government more in the long term. We all recognise that there is massive pent-up demand and a chronic shortage of housing. Given that, will he support my calls for a massive increase in the capital borrowing powers of the Scottish Government for exactly that sort of project? I think that the member really should consider what she is about to vote for, because SNP green ministers will be asked very soon to vote to cut the housing budget by 16 per cent and £113 million, so I am not quite sure how she thinks that will have any positive impact, but I would say that they need to think twice about supporting this budget later today. Increasing the supply, and I think that I agree with her on this point, increasing the supply of social housing in Scotland is crucial if we are going to address the housing emergency, and developing new and sustainable tendencies with the private sector is also critical if we are going to help deliver the tendencies which people who are homeless or in housing emergency need to see, but we are not seeing that. We need to see a Government that brings forward solutions and that requires adequate funding to ensure enough homes are delivered to reduce housing need and get people out of temporary accommodation permanently. Charities like Shelter and Crisis working in Scotland day in day out to end homelessness are clear that this impact of cutting the budget will have potentially derailing the Scottish Government's ability to reduce housing need in this parliamentary term. Just like with the drug deaths crisis, SNP ministers do not seem to understand the growing need now for a direct emergency action to address the housing emergency in our country. I think that in years to come we will see them actually come to this chamber to acknowledge this, but I am saying today that this is when we should be taking action, not cutting budgets, because decisions taken by SNP and green MSPs to cut the affordable housing supply programme at the very time we are seeing significant increases in homelessness are the wrong decisions. The policies that we have seen, especially pushed by green MSPs in this Parliament recently, are also undermining the potential for the private rental market to help to address homelessness and deliver homes for the people across here in the capital but across Scotland. As far back as January 2022 concerns were being raised here in Edinburgh with regard to the capital losing out on £9.3 million of homelessness funding due to a bureaucratic anomaly. I raised those issues with Parliament several times with the Cabinet Secretary and we did not see any action to address this in the capital. We need to see more resources given to both of Scotland's cities. Glasgow and Edinburgh are at the epicentre of the homelessness crisis and we need to see the resources that they require. All parties across this chamber at the election pledged that we would work to end homelessness during this session of Parliament. After this week's shocking figures, that pledge now looks unachievable without a total new approach from the Scottish Government. To conclude, I want to return to an issue that I have consistently raised in previous budget debates and one that ministers continue to fail to engage on or act to reform. That is the underfunding of both Edinburgh City Council and NHS Lothian. We received the lowest level of funding per head of population for both our council and health board. That is also driving many of the crisis that my constituents face and lack of opportunities to find solutions. Edinburgh deserves a fair funding deal but after 16 years in office it is clear that this SNP Government is content to continue to short-change the communities that I represent. That is not fair and it has to change. This is once again a budget where the reality has fallen way short of the Government's rhetoric. Take that that they claim that the Deputy First Minister repeated again today that local government has an extra £550 million to spend. What he failed to say is that almost every single penny of that is ring-fenced by him entirely for central government commitments. As SNP-led Coslav said, the actual increase is just £32.8 million. At a time, local government needs £612 million just to avoid any more cuts. That does not return a penny of the £6 billion that has been stripped from local government in the past decade. When I outlined his budget, the Deputy First Minister said, in something I welcome, he wanted a new partnership with local government and end to the fractious debates about resources and accountability for spending a more effective way of working, he said. I wonder if he has even read his own budget, because SNP councillors clearly have. Coslav resource spokesperson Katie Hagman said of the budget, council services will now be at absolute breaking point and some may have to stop all together. That is a result of cuts to our council's core budget. SNP councillor Shona Morrison and Coslav president said, the reality of the situation is that, yet again, the essential services councils deliver have not been prioritised by the Scottish Government. Just two days ago, the finance director of SNP on Glasgow City Council told its Parliament that councils are on a knife edge. That was the worst year that we have ever had. It is not a new way of working, it is the same old anti-council, anti-local service way that we have seen for the past seven years. As a direct result of the cumulative effect of budget after budget voted for by SNP and green MSPs, councillors of all political persuasions and none will once again have to wrestle with the painful choice of which of their community services do they cut and which of their neighbours' jobs do they access. Part of the 7,000 jobs that COSLA warn could be lost because of this budget. The debates that are taking place in council chambers up and down Scotland in the next few weeks will not be about what local services to trim, they will be about which services to scrap all together. I recognise the difficult financial position we find ourselves in. It has been made more difficult by the Government presiding over years of low growth, but we need to ensure that we focus what funding we have and how best we protect services such as social care, deliver fair pay for workers and support people through the cost of living crisis. Those priorities are connected, we will not protect social care in the NHS without addressing the scandal of low pay in social care. A day really goes by when my inbox and I am sure others does not contain another heartbreaking case exposing how utterly broken our care services are. Today a third of beds in Dumfries and Galloway royal infirmary are occupied by patients whose discharge is delayed by a lack of carers. Over 3,000 hours of assessed care are not being covered because there are no carers to cover it. Everybody except this Government knows that we will not recruit those carers with the derisory 3.8 per cent pay rise being given to social care workers by the Government. SNP Greens should listen to those calls for a delay to their current unpopular, unworkable, uncosted national care service plan and use the funding to give our carers a pay rise, actually saving money in the long term by reducing that bill for delayed discharge. It is not just in social care that we need to better focus on how we spend our budget. It is on how we support people during the cost of living crisis as their energy bills rise. It was shameful that the Deputy First Minister, with the support of the Greens, cut this year's energy efficiency budget by £133 million, given the shameful level of fuel poverty that we have in Scotland and knowing that properly insulating our homes not only cuts fuel bills but cuts fuel use and emissions. Last year, the Government's warm homes funding helped fewer people than it did in the very first year that the scheme was launched. Only around half the funding allocated for energy efficiency schemes administered by councils was ultimately spent. However, you do not tackle low uptake by cutting the budget, you tackle it by dealing with the reasons why the current poorly designed schemes are not being utilised. I certainly will. Patrick Harvie I am grateful to the member. I think that we all know that when one particular budget is underspent, that money does not disappear, it goes back into other public services. Would he acknowledge that, as a result of changes that we have made recently, Scotland now has, by far and away, the most generous and the most flexible package of grants and loans, not only better than any other part of the UK but much, much better than Scotland itself has ever had, and that the industry is stepping up and making sure that the capacity is there to make sure that people can use those grants and loans. Colin Smyth There is no point in having schemes and grants if they are not actually being spent. You have just returned £133 million to the budget because those schemes were not actually allocated. The minister needs—I know that he has made some changes, and I welcome those changes for this financial year, but he knows perfectly well that organisations such as the Existing Homes Alliance want him to go an awful lot further. They want him to ease the restrictions that are still imposed on councils and others for what are currently unworkable schemes. There needs to be more flexibility and owner contribution levels to make those schemes affordable. We need to tackle the utter failure in workforce planning from Government to make sure that we have the trained workers to deliver the schemes under the new regimes that the Government has set. It also means providing more certainty on future funding, such as writing to councils and setting up the minimum funding levels for future years. That will allow councils to plan longer-term projects, give supply chains a proper pipeline of work and enable them to plan and invest. We cannot find ourselves in the same position next year when households are crying out for investment to keep their families warm, but the Government is not able to spend funds that should be being invested in rapidly insulating people's homes. Scotland is facing a dual crisis, as the cost of living sores and social care in the NHS is facing the greatest crisis in living memory. I call Michelle Thomson, the final speaker in the open debate. This budget debate already feels like Groundhog Day. Unless Scotland gets many more meaningful economic powers and, ideally, from my perspective independence, I confidently, albeit sadly, predict that my speech will be replicated in the coming years. The fact is that there is no prospect of the UK doing anything other than continuing to fall behind the economic performance of other comparable states. We have talked earlier about the damning verdict of the IMF that the UK is predicted to be the only country facing a shrinking economy in the coming year and is expected to be the worst-performing state amongst the G7, the G20 and is predicted to be worse than sanctions hit Russia. However, I concede that those are uncertain predictions for the future, so let's look to the certainty of the past. Data over the past 40 years, particularly since the financial crash of 2008, shows that UK economic growth has lagged behind the average for large and small advanced economies over the past four decades and particularly over the last two decades when the economic growth gap has widened. Yet small advanced economies of a similar size to Scotland experienced cumulative economic growth that was double that of the UK between 1999 and 2019. Put another way, by 2019, the gap between the small economy average output and the UK output had grown to more than £12,700 per person. That is other real-world practical consequences. For example, within the last few days, data from the UK Insolvency Service reveals that annual companies and insolvencies in the UK have shot up in 2022 to over 22,000, a rise of no less than 57 per cent, jobs, self-respect, livelihoods and ambitions destroyed. As Faisal Islam reported, that is exactly the sort of pattern predicted by those who opposed Brexit. Of course, Labour and Tory alike are, as one, in accepting this Brexit debacle. They have become the handmaidens of Brexit and their intent on forcing the Scottish people to accept it, regardless of the cost in jobs and services. In this context, the efforts of the... Hackley, yes. I wonder as I traipse round the streets campaigning against Brexit, could she explain perhaps why the SNP spent more in the Orkney by-election than they did on opposing Brexit in Scotland? I'm sure she doesn't think that's an excuse for standing idly by, whilst exactly my point is made about jobs and services lost. Thank you. We will hear Ms Thomson. In this context, the efforts of the Deputy First Minister, acting as finance minister in particular, should be applauded. As if being faced by the UK failures I've just described is not enough, the devolution settlement ties his hand behind his back in multiple ways. So let me outline two examples. I've spoken of this before, the severe restrictions placed on borrowing powers. If the Opposition parties were sincere in their concern about productivity, for example, they would be actively supporting calls to give the same freedom to borrow, particularly for capital projects, as that enjoyed by the Westminster Government. Second, if they were sincere in their concerns about the Scottish economy, they would be insisting on the transfer of all fiscal powers to Scotland. Delighted. I thank the member for taking this intervention. The Scottish Government's budget document puts price inflation for the building sector, which I know that she's aware of, at 17 per cent. Why, therefore, cutting the capital investment budget at a time when investments are most desperately needed is taking place? Michelle Thomson. I think that you need to look in the wider context of the budget. The point that I'm making is that, if we had greater powers over capex in particular, we could do a great deal more. Until you start joining me in those calls, those are shallow words when you claim looking for more housing. That is the fact. We know that the Unionist Brigade will do nothing but deny Scotland the necessary powers to tackle the key challenges that we face. As I've said before in this chamber, recent reports again from Transparency International, Open Democracy and authors such as Oliver Buller of Evidence, there is corruption at the heart of UK Governments and key institutions. Leaving aside even the individual records of recent Prime Ministers, chancellers, baronesses and goodness knows who else, corruption destroys the potential effectiveness of markets and puts obstacles in the paths of many decent businesses seeking to survive, compete and progress. The historic legacy of Labour and Tory actions of years past continues to haunt Government, including local Government in Scotland. My patch, Falkirk Council, has a £13 million obligation legacy from PFI. It's not the only legacy that it faces. Commenting in 2016 Audit Scotland's best value audit report criticised previous Labour and Tory Administrations for failing to grasp the metal of major challenges and instead squandering money, leading directly to a deficit of £67 million. In such circumstances, the Scottish Government and the acting finance secretary in particular have faced huge challenges with imagination and with a clear commitment to the interests of the Scottish people. So let me finish with an appeal to the finance secretary. In the midst of all the challenges, let us work to unleash the contribution of female entrepreneurs who face historical disadvantages, including cultural ones. It's never enough to look only to Government in facing challenging times or new opportunities. We need to mobilise all our talents, regardless of sex, race, age or other characteristics. We want to look forwards and outwards. We have global ambitions. We are European. Stop the world. Scotland wants to get on. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. As ever, the SNP presents a sleight of hand budget with their cuts and magically spun as generous settlements, particularly if you're in local government, but otherwise it's always somebody else's fault. Welcome to the SNP's Alice in Wonderland approach to budget setting. SNP members are keen to tell us that there is a fixed budget, but, of course, there are fiscal levers that the Government can pull—income tax, land and building transaction tax, goodness that it can even reform the council tax promised in 2007 but never delivered. What people are seeing is their taxes going up but services being cut at the same time. The budget is about setting out priorities. Where are the measures for growing the economy on which our future tax take will rely? Where are the measures for tackling the cost of living crisis, for investing in our public services? The national performance framework sets out what the Government believes are the priorities, but it's interesting that there's no link with the budget. Spending more than £45 billion in revenue but not linking it to the delivery of your priorities is frankly absurd and out of step with almost every other OECD country. Let me start with local government. One billion is what COSLA said that it needed to cope with the cost pressures for the year ahead. Instead, the unring-fenced money, they got amounted to about £32 million. Mark Griffin was absolutely right to point out that funding for new commitments doesn't actually help with core budgets. The consequence of this is libraries closing, teacher numbers being reduced, funding to repair our roads, slash and deep cuts across every local service. According to an elite report from COSLA, almost 7,000 staff could lose their jobs. A centralising Government that has decided to simply sacrifice local democracy and services criticised by its SNP councillors, but this Government is deaf to their concerns. Let me move on to health and social care. Inextricably linked and must be equally valued. The Royal College of Nurses tells us that they want to see fair pay for nursing staff in the budget, a focus on retention and reversing the growing number of vacancies that is having an impact on patient safety. We agree, but you can substitute the word social care worker in place of nurses and the same applies. The poor pay, leading to many of them, leaving their jobs and taking jobs in retail and hospitality because they get more money there and less responsibility and the increasing number of vacancies and the challenge to ensure the safety of those cared for. The crisis in health and social care cannot be resolved without addressing the scandal of low pay in social care itself, but this budget offers little. The £40 pay uplift is an insult to staff. A social care worker is comparable to a band 3 nurse. Social care workers got 3.8 per cent. Nurses got double that. The Scottish Women's Budget Group was also very clear that care workers' wages should be set at £12.50 in the short term, rising to £15 per hour, a move that Scottish Labour has repeatedly called for over three successive budgets. The coalition of care and support providers also makes the point that more money for social care workers, a predominantly low paid female workforce, is more spend in the local economy. Of course, the Deputy First Minister stripped £50 million away from the fair work budget in his emergency budget, so he has shown where the SNP's priorities lie. The cost of increasing adult social care pay is £150 million. That has been verified by SPICE. Daniel Johnson set out several budget lines from which that could be drawn, more than was actually required to meet the policy. Take it from the national care service, take it from delayed discharge after saying that it is a bit rich for Ross Greer to falsely claim that we were moving money out of the health and social care budget. I remind him that it was after all the Greens who promised £15 an hour to social care workers before the election in the manifesto, but sold out the ministerial Mondeos instead. The Deputy First Minister knows my view of the current framework bill for the national care service. Instead of a vision and approach that delivers cultural change, we have expensive structural change that does not invest one single penny extra in a care package. It is nothing more than a national commissioning service with nuances about what happens to the pensions of the 70,000 public sector workers who will be transferred in or, indeed, the potential to have an additional 20 per cent that cost imposed on a centralised service. Costs are unhappy, trade unions are unhappy, the third sector, the voluntary sector are unhappy. Those with lived experience are beginning to understand that this is the emperor's new clothes. Pause the bill and listen to what the sector is telling you. Use the money released to fund social care. We all acknowledge that we are living through one of the worst costs of living crisis in a generation. At a stroke, the SNP could end non-residential care charges. At a cost of £68 million, that would help to sustain older people and vulnerable people, those with disabilities in their local communities. It is in your manifesto that you can do it now and you can help some of the most vulnerable people in Scotland. After 15 years of the SNP, her cuts to training places for nurses, her cuts to primary care, her reduction in the number of whole-time equivalent GPs, the cut of £1 billion by Nicola Sturgeon when she was health minister. All of that has contributed to the crisis in health and social care. Scotland cannot afford to pay the price of SNP mistakes any longer vote against the budget. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Early on in the debate, we had a bizarre contribution from Kenneth Gibson, convener of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. I have been the convener of three committees in my time in this Parliament. I had always understood the role of committee convener in a stage 1 debate, was to speak on behalf of the committee and express the views in the committee report, not to be a partisan lap doll for the Scottish Government, which is what we heard from Mr Gibson during his speech. I hope that, if that is going to be the trend in future debates, that you and the bureau will reflect on the time available to committee conveners to speak in stage 1 debates if they are going to be partisan. I will give way. Is the reason why you and your colleague, Mr Kerr, are not so upset is because people were reminded of the rather ridiculous comments that you made post-budget last September. If you had not been named, you would not have had any interventions, because last year I was more partisan than this year. If you had listened to the speech, you would find that most of the criticism levied towards issues such as the lack of reform, etc. It was a very balanced speech, but the reality is that it was your ego in Mr Kerr's that made you intervene. Murdo Fraser? That was a second speech by the convener of the Finance and Public Administration. Will he come to some of the points of substance that he raised? He seemed to suggest—there was a theme coming from the SNP benches—that the economic challenges being faced in the United Kingdom are somehow unique to the United Kingdom. That, of course, is not the case. It is true that inflation is high, but inflation is coming down. Inflation is also high in Europe, Presiding Officer, and it is coming down. In fact, in the month of November, UK inflation was lower than the EU average. In the month of December, UK inflation was lower than in many other European countries. It is true that, this morning, the Bank of England increased interest rates in the United Kingdom by 50 base points. It is also true that, today, the European Central Bank increased interest rates by exactly the same level—50 basis points. It is also true that, yesterday, the Fed in the USA increased interest rates in the United Kingdom. It is also true that interest rates are today in the United Kingdom lower than they are in the USA and in Canada. Maybe it is the case that Liz Truss is to blame for what is happening in the USA, in Canada, in Germany, in Italy, in France and the rest of Europe, but, frankly, that is somewhat unlikely. Let's look at the overall size of the budget. I will, if the member is brief. I just wonder how many of those countries withdrew hundreds of mortgage products in September this year, like what happened after the mini-budget and Liz Truss' intervention. There are plenty of mortgage products available today, Mr Johnson, to keep up with the news and see what is happening. However, I want to look at the overall size of the budget, because there was, in the current financial year—I think that this is widely accepted—a record high-level block grant from the UK Government to the Scottish Government. For the year that is coming, for the year that we are talking about, the Fraser of Algar institute says that the block grant more or less protects the money to the Scottish Government against inflation. The Scottish Government has, in historic terms, looking back over the period of devolution, more money to spend than virtually every year previously. Yet, at the same time, taxes are going up and services are being cut, thanks to the choices that they are making. We should never forget in all this that, in Scotland, we have more than £2,000 to spend for every man, woman and child in the country than is the UK average, thanks to the Barnett formula that they want to get rid of. That is the union dividend that John Mason was looking for. It is about choices. At Lysmouth set out the approach that we would take that would be different. Starting with the national care service, at least £1.3 billion to be spent over the next five years is money that could be reallocated elsewhere. We will look at the constitution budget and the money that is being spent on civil servants preparing for another independence referendum that is not now going to take place. We will look at the money that is wasted on projects such as Bifan, such as Prestwick airport, such as the ferries. There is a more fundamental point here, because we know that the UK economy has, since 2014, grown up precisely one-half of the UK average rate. If we could only just match the rate of growth of the UK economy, we would have hundreds of millions of pounds extra in tax revenue to spend. That is a matter that the Scottish Government needs to be paying attention to. That is not just a historic issue, it is one for the future, as both Willie Rennie and Liz Smith pointed out. We set out in this budget our ass. We believe that the support for business is the 75% rates relief for those in the retail, hospitality and leisure sector that is available elsewhere in the United Kingdom should be available here in Scotland. We believe that the settlement that is being proposed for local government, as Douglas London pointed out, is unfair. Mr Swinney set out how he is giving local councils more money, and yet all we hear from them is that they are having to cut services. Yesterday I got a letter from councillor David Ross, the leader of five council, expressing deep concern at the cuts in five council, saying that already, despite identifying £22 million of savings for the coming year, they are still facing another £11.5 million, rising to £33 million next year and £54 million the year after. That is reflected right across the country in Perthick and Ross council that Mr Swinney will be familiar with. They are looking at a funding gap of £26 million in the coming year. It is not just Labour-led councils or Conservative-led councils that are making those concerns, SNP council leaders are making exactly the same concerns as well. What that will lead to is cuts in services, hikes in council tax, we are going to see school crossing controllers going, breakfast clubs being strapped, education of psychologists strapped, libraries being closed, the cultural offer being cut back. We do not know yet what is going to happen to teachers because we are waiting to hear if teacher numbers will be protected, but Mark Griffin, I thought, made a really good point. Even if teachers are protected, that will come at the expense of classroom assistance, of janitors, of catering staff, of all the other people working in education, and that will be to the net detriment of our young people. In conclusion, John Swinney at the outset said that he was going to take a progressive path. We know now what that progressive path looks like. Despite having more money to spend than ever before, he is hiking taxes, hiking income taxes, we will see council taxes hiked and at the same time we will see cuts to vital services for people across Scotland. That is what this budget delivers and that is why we need to vote against it. I call John Swinney to wind up the debate up to eight minutes, cabinet secretary. Thank you, Presiding Officer. In his speech to the Parliament this afternoon, the finance committee convener asked me to provide an update on the current financial year and the degree to which I am wrestling with securing a path to balance. For completeness to the convener, I am still wrestling with an estimated overspend at this stage in the financial year, which is a very advanced stage in the financial year of approximately £100 million, so we are still working to secure balance despite the steps that we have taken in the course of the year to reallocate public expenditure, and that will be reflected in the spring budget revisions that are put to Parliament and for scrutiny by the committee. I want to thank Willie Rennie for the constructive contribution he made to the debate and assure him that I will follow up the points and the dialogue that he has raised as part of the discussions today. He raises serious issues about the mental health budget and about long Covid, and I agree very much with him about his reflections on the energy market and the significant opportunity for windfall taxation arising out of the ludicrous profits that have been made by energy companies at a time when our constituents are facing such hardships. I very much welcome the constructive contribution that Willie Rennie has made and we will try to build on that as I value the support that is given to the budget by our partners in the Green Party. Ross Greer referred to the budget as a progressive budget and I welcome the contribution the Green Party has made to ensure that the issues of taxation are properly considered in the budget process and result in us being able to afford priorities that would not have been the case had we not taken those decisions. That has been welcomed and put into the discussion. There was quite a bit of controversy. It is not the first time in life that Kenneth Gibson has found himself in some controversy, but let me try to be, as always, the peacemaker in Parliament. Murdo Fraser took great exception to the contribution of my colleague and friend Kenneth Gibson and asked whether members of the committee supported the reflections that Mr Gibson was putting on the record. I want to put on the record the quote that I was met with when I went to the Finance and Public Administration Committee on 4 October 2022 in the aftermath of the disastrous catastrophic quarter-time budget. I was met with good morning, Deputy First Minister, which is always a nice warm welcome from my friend Liz Smith. Liz Smith put on the record that I put on record that I understand and accept that your job is much more difficult because of the difficulties that have been introduced by the Westminster Government, particularly with regard to the forecast. I think that it is important that Murdo Fraser's bravado is disarmed by the calm and realistic contribution of Liz Smith to the Finance and Committee debate, which I appreciated, because she was right at that moment that I was resting with significant difficulties, and I continue to do so. Of course, I am delighted to hear more from Liz Smith. That is very kind, Mr Swinney, and in my calm demeanor, could I just ask the cabinet secretary if he agrees with the convener of the finance committee about some of the political aspects in his speech, as to whether that was appropriate in a convener's speech in relation to what he was supposed to be like? Cabinet Secretary? I think that it is really important that Government ministers do not interfere in the business of committees, so I shall resist the temptation to get myself into trouble, which I constantly try to avoid. On that subject, I want to explain to Parliament how the budget operates. A few members, Mr Kerr, have struggled very much with the concept today, and I think that Mr Griffin was a little bit… I am normally very appreciative of Mr Griffin's contribution. I think that it is maybe his cold that is getting him under the weather today, but it is derailing him in his contribution. When we get Barnett consequentials, they flow into the total funding envelope that is available, and then the total funding envelope gets allocated. What is in here is the sum total of all the resources at my disposal. When Mr Kerr asks me where is the £100 million of consequentials from the United Kingdom Government on education, the answer is that they are fully allocated in here, and as two examples of where they have ended up. Let me finish the explanation, because Mr Kerr needs to hear it. He is desperately in need of hearing this explanation. The £100 million of education consequentials is allocated to support the expenditure in here, which results in an increase for universities and colleges of £46 million, and an increase in the local government budget of £550 million, and the local government is the people who deliver education services in our country. I hope that that helps Mr Kerr to understand the situation. I said that I would give way to Mr Kerr first. I thank Deputy First Minister for his explanation. In fact, that is exactly what I was asking when I intervened. Where is the additional £100 million? The Deputy First Minister has now explained that it is in the local government budget. This is the same local government, the COSLA, that are complaining about the fact that they have now to make cuts. I am asking, will the Barnett consequentials from education be additive to the education spend, and the answer to that clearly is no. I think that Mr Kerr has demonstrated that he has not a single clue about how the public finances of Scotland work. I am not going to explain it again, because he is going to have to go and read the official reports. I have just given the explanation, and Mr Kerr demonstrates that he is singularly unfit to be contributing to these debates today. It is absolutely appalling. The same explanation applies to Mr Griffin's point about the £550 million for local government. In the course of the debate, Mr Gibson made the fair point that alternative choices are brought forward. There has to be a funding source to come from them today. I am going to marshal what the Conservatives have said. They want more money for housing, Miles Briggs, more money for city deals, Douglas Lumsden, more money for local government, Miles Briggs, Douglas Lumsden, more money for business rates, Douglas Lumsden and Liz Smith. They oppose the tax increases, so that means that we get less money. If we do not have the tax increases, less money is available to us. Education, Mr Kerr, wants it to get more money, and Miles Briggs wants more money for health. Now, I simply say to Parliament that this is economic illiteracy of the highest order, because there is no source identified by the funding resources. I will give way if I am, I think that the Presiding Officer wishes me to close my remarks. I simply put on the record that it is just not credible to come forward. I will happily engage with Mr Rennie and anyone else who wants to talk about where we can take money from one ear of the budget to allocate to another to support priorities. However, what is not helpful to the dialogue and discourse in Parliament is that proposals are coming forward that play to a gallery and a lobby that has not got a hope of ever being delivered because the money does not exist because of the failure of the economic management of the United Kingdom Government, which is the problem that I am wrestling with today. That concludes the debate on budget Scotland number two bill. It is now time to move on to the next item of business, and there is one question to be put as a result of today's business. The question is that motion 77727 in the name of John Swinney on budget Scotland number two bill be agreed. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed. Therefore, we will move to a vote and there will be a brief suspension to allow members to access the digital voting system.