 The next item of business is a debate on motion in 9, 8, 8, 8, in the name of James Kelly on protecting public services. May I ask those who wish to speak in the debate to press the request to speak buttons, and I call on James Kelly to speak to and move the motion. 12 minutes please, Mr Kelly. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I move the motion in my name. It might be clear at the outset that Scottish Labour has no confidence in the draft budget brought forward by Derek Mackay, the Cabinet Secretary, last month. We cannot have any confidence in a budget that is neither progressive or fair that piles the agony and piles the pain on to local communities. It is also weak and incompetent on tax and lacks transparency in relation to pay policy, so it is not fit for purpose. As such, we declare that Mr Mackay needs to change that budget dramatically if it is to fill the gaps that exist in Scotland's communities because of the lack of funding. Let me make some progress, Mr Mason. If you look at it as an example at the way that local councils have been penalised, not just in this year's budget but since 2011, cumulatively £1.5 billion of cuts, the spice note relates to the fact that in this year's budget an additional £135 million of cuts is added to that total and it leaves a black hole in local government funding of up to £700 million. Councils are now starting the job of beginning to assess their budgets and look at the implications that have been passed down from Mr Mackay's draft budget. If you take South Lanarkshire, for example, we are looking at proposed cuts of £23.5 million and that includes cutting of library services and a proposed reduction of 225 jobs. Those are the real decisions that local councils are faced with, the real pain that they are having to face up to. Here in Edinburgh proposed £24 million of cuts, including reduction in leisure facilities. In last week's debate on sport, looking at the prospect of Glasgow 2018 and also the feeder venues, including the Commonwealth pool in Edinburgh, the Government, across and shared by other opposition parties, talked up the opportunity of the forthcoming games. However, how can you get the advantage from that if you are cutting leisure facilities in Edinburgh? In Clackmannanshire we see proposed cuts of £10 million and that includes reductions in teachers and classroom assistants, draining away that critical support for education, which is absolutely vital. Mr Mason, I will take your intervention now. John Mason. I appreciate it very much. Since I tried to intervene, the member has mentioned £700 million. Will he spell out for us how he would raise the £700 million, which would be cuts elsewhere or increased taxes? James Kelly. I have not seen what a mess the cabinet secretary made of his tax proposals. Labour will take adequate time in order to... This is a three-stage budget process. We are in the first phase and we will publish and fill our tax proposals ahead of the stage 1 debate. That is a perfectly reasonable position to take as part of the budget process. We will do so because we know that we are beginning to see the pain that local communities are going to have to suffer. We are going to see the reductions in teacher numbers, the closure of leisure facilities. Those are serious points that have to be considered. Of course it needs adequate and substantial changes in taxation, not the weak proposals that have been brought forward by Derek Mackay. If you look at the Fraser of Allander Institute, once the business rate offsets have taken into account and the social security changes, there are only £28 million available for allocation in other budget areas. As the STUC has pointed out, that is inadequate. It is weak. That is not enough to face up to the challenges that we have. The STUC told the finance committee that the gaps in the budget mean that there is at least a £500 million shortfall. We need to step up to the mark. The proposals that you have come forward with, Mr Mackay, are simply not good enough. The point that I would also make to the Greens in that regard, who are obviously involved in negotiations with the Government, is that the scale of what is required to fill those cuts is going to be at least £500 million. I hope that the Greens are not going to be bought off by a smaller sum, not at this time than we saw last year. In addition to that, the tax plans brought forward by Derek Mackay are riddled with loopholes. For example, those earning between £43,525 and £58,500 will pay less tax this year than they did last year. How can it be right that a nurse earning £33,000 will pay more tax this year, yet a civil servant will pay less tax? That is not only unfair, but it is incompetent in terms of tax proposals. The other point is that, when Mr Mackay published his scenarios for tax back in the autumn, one of the tests for those tax plans is that he should be able to tackle austerity and stop the cuts. Quite clearly it has failed to do that if you have only got £28 million available to stop the cuts. Part of the reason for that is that, once more and again, looking at the top rate, the top rate is only going to be £46. Once more and again, Mr Mackay has backed away from asking those at the top rate to pay £50, which is unreasonable when people are earning more than £150,000. Those tax proposals are weak, they are not fit for purpose and they do not meet the test of being either progressive or stopping the cuts. I think that the other point that I would make in terms of support for public services, the Conservatives make the point in their amendment about the importance of growing the economy. I would argue that support for public services is absolutely vital to growing the economy. If we are going to invest in education, we need to support education rather than reducing teacher numbers and classroom assistance that we see in Clackmannanshire, if we are going to tackle that, we need proper investment in education. If we are going to give our kids and our college students the proper support that they need, the infrastructure, the teachers, the lecturers and the proper information technology in order to get them best qualified to meet the engineering and information technology gaps that exist in our economy, I will take the intervention. I thank the member for taking that intervention. I have to say that I am genuinely puzzled. Labour has had the same opportunity as all the other opposition parties in this chamber to engage constructively with the finance secretary and to bring forward their proposals to make suggestions, to make choices that they would put forward. Why not engage with that process instead of a parliamentary stunt such as this? James Kelly This is not a parliamentary stunt. This is about setting out the very serious point that we want a budget that protects public services, that protects jobs in the community, that supports education and makes a real difference. What we are going to have from—Mr Gibson wanted to intervene earlier—Mr Gibson is an MSP. He is going for seven in a row. This is going to be the seventh budget in a row from the SNP that is going to reduce funding for council services. What I want to know is when are SNP MSPs, such as Kenny Gibson, John Mason and James Dornan, going to start standing up for their local communities instead of selling the jerseys? What is the point of coming to this Parliament and supposedly representing your constituents when it comes to budget time and you vote year after year after year for cuts? No, thank you, Mr Gibson. Excuse me, Mr Kelly. Mr Kelly is in his last minute. Can we stop the rockusness and listen to Mr Kelly's closing remarks, please? I will make the point as we embark on the remainder of the budget process. The Labour wants to see a budget that is serious about tackling that black hole in public service. We also want to see a budget that is transparent and serious. Excuse me, Mr Kelly. Excuse me, Mr Kelly. Can I ask for some peace and quiet, please? You have another minute, Mr Kelly. It is serious about tackling the issue of public sector pay. When Derek Mackay appeared at the finance committee on Monday, he could not tell us the cost of the public sector pay policy and he could not tell us how it was allocated in the local government budget. That is not even transparent, it is not even competent. We also want to see action to address the fact that we have over a quarter of a million children and child poverty, an absolute scandal in modern Scotland. Let's not have the seventh year in a row when local councils and public services are penalised. Let's have a fair settlement for our communities. We don't have any confidence in this budget. It's time to stop the rock, reject the draft budget and stand up for local communities. I call Derek Mackay to speak to you on move amendment 9.888.1. Eight minutes, please, Mr Mackay. Presiding Officer, as parliamentary stunts go, that was about as woeful as I have ever seen in the chamber of the Scottish Parliament. I think rather than asking questions of the confidence of the Scottish Government's budget, what that presentation does is ask questions of the confidence in the Labour Party to deliver alternatives or to be able to construct an argument in which they can engage positively in the budget process. There is a well-established budget process in which opposition parties can engage. James Kelly tried to insult the Green Party for engaging in those discussions. Is it not for all parliamentarians to engage in budget discussions? The draft budget process is about the Government presenting its position, recognising that this is a Parliament of minorities where we must work across the chamber to find compromise and consensus to give yes stimulus, yes sustainability for our public services but also crucially stability. I think that the public expect no less from the Opposition and the Government. I have taken, and I, of course. James Kelly. Thank Mr Mackay for taking the intervention. Does he think that the public expects you to deliver a budget that will result in local councils having to make cuts in the local area? Derek Mackay. The budget serves to invest hundreds of millions of pounds more in our public services right across the public sector. That is what the public expect. Deploying our tax powers, I set out four tests, including protecting the economy, using the system in a more progressive fashion, protecting lower income earners and investing in public services as well. I should say of the Labour Party. I thought that it was quite a consultative and collaborative approach that we engaged in in terms of the deployment of our income tax powers. So much we invited Opposition parties to give us the policies that they would have us cost so that we could have a fair and balanced debate in that. I did not receive any proposals for the Labour Party to be fair. The party was embarking on a leadership contest thereabout. Still, the people of Scotland are waiting to hear what the Labour Party's alternative is specifically on income tax. I would argue that the people of Scotland have no confidence in a Labour Opposition that fails to work constructively when the opportunity is given to them. I make the invitation again. My door is open to any Opposition party who wishes to discuss the budget going forward. It is a fact, of course. Mike Rumbles. This time last year, the Greens claimed to have won a concession of £150 million from the Scottish budget. I wonder if you could remind the chamber if that was the case and where that £150 million came from? Derek Mackay. I really don't see how that's relevant to this discussion, but what we were able to do is to be able to strike a deal that allowed for us to take forward budget amendments as part of the process before stage 3. I think that that was very welcomed and orderly. You see, this Government is trying to deliver the budget in an orderly fashion. The Labour Party returned to the top rate of tax. As I said in the presentation of the draft budget on 14 December, our income tax policy is intended to raise more money for public services in relation to the top rate of tax, which James Kelly has raised again. His proposition would raise less money next year for Scotland's public services, based on raising the top rate of tax above the level that the Scottish Government proposes. However, let's not forget the Tories' role in that as well. Over the 10 years to 2019-20, Conservative austerity will mean that the Scottish Government fiscal block grant allocation will have been reduced in real terms by £2.6 billion, and by 2019-20, the resource block grant will be around £500 million lower in real terms than in 2017-18. Our balanced and progressive budget proposals protect our public services from that reduction in real terms to Scotland, ensuring that there is a real-terms growth for Scotland's public services. If I can just make a bit more progress in terms of my contribution, because what that budget means is additional resources, for example, for the national health service, more than £400 million more for the NHS and in terms of local government, which has been referenced. If they use their council tax powers up to 3 per cent, that puts the local government arrangements in real terms growth as well, having protected the cash settlement and growing the capital settlement also. I think that it's significant to know that even COSLA—I think that it was the local government committee—said that even COSLA do not think that they are calling for an extra £500 million explicitly. Let me make a little more progress to say a bit more about what the budget does for public services, which essentially is what this debate is about, far short in terms of the wording of the motion. I have to say a vote and no confidence is actually a motion about public services. We have invested more in real terms and police and fire, to the extent that they can recover VAT as well and enhance their spending power. More support for colleges and universities in terms of a real-terms increase and, yes, a progressive pay policy that does, as we said we would, lift a 1 per cent pay cap in a far more progressive policy than that which exists south of the border. I think that it gives support to our public services and also to those that work within it. The budget is about fairness, it's about delivery as well, £750 million for new affordable homes, more for energy efficiency, more specifically around mitigation of the welfare reforms coming from the UK Government, more for ending homelessness together fund, more for attacking the attainment gap in Scotland and supporting our frontline education service, more for supporting the child poverty efforts and, as I said, all of that should ensure that we live in a fairer society. Extra investment in all those areas whilst ensuring our tax plans are fair and progressive and allow us to be the lowest tax part of the UK but in a progressive fashion. I'll take Alex Rowley now. Alex Rowley. My cabinet secretary, this week Audit Scotland published a report on Clackmannanshire Council, which is an annual revenue budget £118 million. They say that that council has to take £29 million out of its budget over the next three years unless he changes policy then that council will collapse. Does he agree that he needs to look again at the local government settlement? Derek Mackay. I think I've said over the course of this debate and I've said publicly that I'll engage with all political parties to find a compromise so that a budget can pass. I think it's a fair settlement to local government but I want to make this point as well. The Labour Party has stopped talking about the national health service. The Scottish Government is proposing to invest more than £400 million for the NHS. That's not matched by the Labour Party, who seem to have forgotten about the national health service when it comes to the budget settlement. A fairer income tax policy as well, more investment in infrastructure, some £4 billion for investment in infrastructure to help us grow our economy in an inclusive way. A well-performing economy is a prerequisite for ensuring that we have high-quality public services so that we can invest in our public services. Many of the interventions are to support economic growth and deliver that inclusive growth as well. Whether it's early learning and expanding childcare, affordable houses, expanding infrastructure, both transport, connectivity, digital and the environmental agenda as well, for example, more electric charging points. All of that is substantial new investment by this Government. All reasons to support this budget, whilst engaging, I have to work with other parties to reach a mature decision about what is right for our country. I would invite all political parties to act constructively and maturely in that regard. Could you move the amendment, please, cabinet secretary? Amendment, my name. I'll call on Murdo Fraser to speak to you and move amendment 9888.4. Seven minutes, please, Mr Fraser. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I start by welcoming James Kelly to his place on the front bench as Labour's relatively new finance spokesman? I hope that he'll forgive me when I say we feel a little bit shortchanged on this side of the chamber because we were led to believe last week that Richard Leonard would be leading this debate. We are looking forward to hearing this 21st-century Arthur Scargal entrancing the chamber with his rhetoric. We are feeling a little bit shortchanged, I'm afraid, this afternoon, but maybe it's no surprise that Mr Leonard is taking a backseat for this debate because perhaps he read today's poll in the times. The YouGov poll showing that the Labour Party in Scotland has slipped from second to third place in Holyrood voting intentions, while a staggering 60 per cent of the electorate has no opinion whatsoever on Mr Leonard. He needs to work a little harder on his public profile. He would have welcomed the chance to have led this debate so that the public would be aware of what he has to say to them. In the words of the song, things can only get better for Scottish Labour. The Labour Party has brought us today a debate on the Scottish budget. While it is quite entitled to choose whatever subject it wants for its debating time, it seems a bit curious to be sheddling this debate just two weeks before stage 1 of the budget. I have some sympathy for the points made by the cabinet secretary. The Labour Party really wants to be serious about influencing the direction of the budget. It is quite entitled to sit down and make a case to the cabinet secretary for finance as to what changes it wants to make. I really think that Mr Kelly would have been in stronger ground had he come to the chamber today and set out not only what additional spending the Labour Party wants to see but also set out the tax changes that it would make to pay for it, so we could all discuss that in the round. In terms of the basic motion put forward by the Labour Party, it is hard to disagree with that basic proposition because the budget that we have presented to us, the draft budget, does fail to protect public services. James Kelly was right to say that local government has been the loser from the draft budget. There has been a real terms cut in total central government funding for local authorities of £81 million from this year to the next. More significantly, local authority-distributable revenue grant has been cut by more than £200 million. Even if councils were to raise council tax by the maximum of 3 per cent from this year to the next, it would only offset that rise by less than half, about £75 million. Overall, councils have seen their revenue funding from Scottish Government cut in real terms by 7.6 per cent between 2010-11 and 2016-17 far above any reduction in the Scottish Government's own discretionary spending budget in that same period. The consequences of that will be known to us all because local authorities across the country looking to set their budgets are having to look at making savings across the board, closing schools, reducing the number of teachers, cutting arts and leisure programmes, reducing road and green space maintenance and, in some cases, increasing user charges for various council services. At the same time, councils are under pressure to increase staff salaries. The Scottish Government's pay policy proposes a 3 per cent rise for those earning up to £30,000 and a 2 per cent rise for those above it. Not surprisingly, the unions representing local authority workers believe that staff there should be getting the same rise. Indeed, they made the case last week for a 6 per cent increase, and yet the finance secretary's draft budget contains no additional sums for salary increases to match what he is paying elsewhere in the public sector. Derek Mackay If the Conservative position is to argue for more resources for those areas, how does it propose to balance that with the fact that if I was to follow Tory tax policies, we would have to find a further £501 million? Martin Fraser First of all, the cabinet secretary sums are wrong. Secondly, the cabinet secretary has more money to spend because the Scottish Government's budget, according to both Spice and Fraser Valander, is increasing in real terms from this year to the next. Indeed, the finance secretary explicitly accepted that point in the finance committee last week when I put it to him. While the Scottish Government will complain that, relative to the previous high point of 2010, its discretionary spending has been reduced, Fraser Valander's state of that reduction is some 3.8 per cent, well below the 8 per cent figure, often quoted by the SNP. More significantly, if we compare spending today with what it was 10 years ago when the SNP came to power, we find that, again, according to Fraser Valander, there has been no real-terms reduction in the Scottish Government's discretionary spending. If you want to contradict Fraser Valander, I will be interested to hear that from him. Derek Mackay I am actually stunned that Murdo Fraser does not know the point that I am making, which is that, if I follow Tory tax policy for the next financial year, it results in £501 million less, irrespective of an argument over historic reductions, this is about what we propose for the next financial year if I follow their tax policies. You cannot have it both ways, raise less and spend more. That is a very curious intervention to get from the cabinet secretary, because for years we sat on this chamber and we listened to people on the SNP benches, Mr Salmond among them, telling us that the way to grow the tax take was to grow the economy. That was the way to get more money for public services. We remember Mr Salmond arguing for cuts in corporation tax to grow the economy. Mr Mackay produced an excellent paper just before Christmas, arguing for tax cuts to grow the economy. He argued that, if you cut air departure tax, that would grow the economy, it would grow tax revenues. Why could he not see the logic of his own party's position and his own argument when it comes to the broader economy? Instead of increasing taxes, let's reduce them and grow the tax take. At the same time, if we cut out waste, if we cut out the unnecessary vanity project from the SNP, if we scrap the name person policy, think how much money we would save from all that in addition. Any cuts that the Scottish Government is making are entirely of its own choice. I appreciate that my time is almost at an end. The SNP's approach to the budget is not just to cut local services but to increase tax, despite promising that, at the last Scottish election, they would not increase tax for those paying the basic rate. That is exactly what they are planning to do. The Scots are facing a double whammy. Their taxes are going up at the same time as services are being cut. Under the SNP, we are asked to pay more but we get less in return. In contrast, we are quite clear about what we want from the budget. There is no case for tax rises, particularly when promises will be made that they should not go up and when the budget in the block grant is increasing. What the budget should be doing is cutting waste and growing the economy so that tax revenues rise. That is what we are saying in our amendment today and I have pleasure in moving it. I call Patrick Harvie to speak to and move amendment 9888.3. Six minutes please, Mr Harvie. I welcome the opportunity to have this debate. I was going to reflect on the fact that it is perhaps the second half of the stage zero process in the budget, because Murdo Fraser will remember that the Conservatives brought a motion the day before the draft budget was published. It strikes me as a little odd that he says that it is curious that the Labour Party chose to debate this two weeks before the budget is voted on at stage one. I think that it is fair enough to have a little advanced debate, whether before the budget is published or before it is voted on formally. Fair enough if we use that opportunity properly. Budget scrutiny has been shorter in recent years than it ought to be and so additional time in the chamber is helpful if we put it to good use. There is a lot that we could gain from more debate on how we fund our public services, as well as other aspects that are often under-examined, such as the carbon assessment progress, or the shortcomings that the finance secretary admits exist on issues such as gender budgeting. I commend the written submission from the Scottish women's budget group and the serious criticism that it makes, some of which the cabinet secretary accepted in the discussion with the committee this week. I really want to ask this in a constructive spirit. Are they using this opportunity, or indeed the wider opportunity that comes from a period of minority government, to best effect? Two weeks before stage one, we ought to be at a point where Opposition parties are putting forward positive constructive ideas to the Government, which can make the budget better. Government then needs its time to conduct its own scrutiny, as well as the fiscal commission's scrutiny, and then we can all look at the parliamentary scrutiny of those proposals. Producing tax proposals after the budget bill has reached stage one won't give any time to change the budget for the better and see a positive effect. I thank Patrick Harvie for giving way. Earlier, I asked the Cabinet Secretary for Finance whether he could tell us that the £150 million that Patrick Harvie received from the Scottish Government last year, where that money came from. He couldn't tell the chamber. I wonder if Patrick Harvie could take the opportunity to tell the chamber where that £150 million came from. I am happy to ask my office to send Mr Rumbles the links to all of the formal discussions that he was very well aware of at the time. £160 million of cuts to local government reversed. I think that I am right in saying that the only stage two amendment of its process since devolution, and certainly the biggest budget concession since devolution, is the only stage two amendment of its process since devolution, and certainly the biggest budget concession since devolution. We are being asked today to vote on the draft budget instead of debating changes to the real thing. I can't disagree with a word in the Labour Party motion, but everybody here is aware that that draft is just that. The purpose of a draft is for the Government to put forward its proposals so that we can all challenge them and examine them. The vote that matters is the vote on the actual budget bill that will be introduced and on the rate resolution in February. Labour's rhetoric around today's debate is a vote of no confidence in the budget. Before this committee scrutiny has even been completed, it sadly suggests to me that it has no more interest in improving the budget than it has shown in previous years. Last year, I challenged Labour's refusal to engage in that process properly, and maybe I did so too aggressively. If so, I apologise. Let me say now more in sorrow than in anger if Labour MSPs care about a better budget that protects our public services, they need to bring forward solutions that have been lacking so far. Monica Lennon. I thank the member for taking the intervention. I thank James Kelly set out that we will do that, but doesn't Patrick Harvie agree that there is an important principle at stake in this process? We have the cabinet secretary wanting to engage constructively, but he is denying that the draft budget will harm our public services. We are simply asking for that recognition, because the language that is being used is implying that this is a fair settlement for local government, and it clearly isn't. Patrick Harvie. I certainly agree that what is in the draft budget is not a fair settlement for local government, but the draft budget does nothing. The real budget does something, and we need to seek changes to that. The green approach has been very clear all along. Up front, early engagement, being clear about our principles, which we took to our party conference to seek their democratic mandate for an approach that prioritised progressive changes to income tax, protection of public services, including at a local level, a fair public pay settlement and investment in low carbon infrastructure. The local government impact is very clear. Of the increases and decreases in the draft budget compared with the previous year, local government gets the third biggest cut of any of the 30-odd areas in this. If we look at the SPICE analysis, depending on which pots of money you include and consider as part of the core settlement, a £187 million cut or a £135 million cut or a £157 million cut. That last one is the closest to the comparison figure that we used last year, as well as that we need to ensure that local government has the resources that it needs for a fair pay settlement. The case below carbon investment is also extremely urgent. The Liberal Democrat amendment mentions ferries. I think that their wording is perhaps premature, given that we haven't yet seen the relevant committee's recommendation. I'm aware that the committee has discussed it, but that's not been published yet. I expect the cabinet secretary to respond very clearly during the budget process to whatever the committee recommends on that issue. We want to see progress as well on fuel poverty. He says that there's more money for fuel poverty. The fuel poverty and energy efficiency of the budget line goes from £114.1 million to an incredibly impressive £114.3 million. Hardly the kind of increase that would reflect the national infrastructure priority that has apparently been placed in it. We have put forward specific proposals to the Government. They can choose either to work with us or to work with any one of those other extremely constructive political parties, but they're going to have to make that choice soon and I'll move the amendment in my name. The general approach to budgets has been constructive and engaging. Since I've been leader, we've voted for the Scottish Government on two occasions. As the finance secretary will know, we've always engaged in a constructive manner. We've voted for the budget before because what we received was not perfect, but it was good enough. We secured more investment for nursery education, for free school meals and for colleges. However, the approach this year has changed and we deeply regret it because we have engaged positively and constructively with Derek Mackay in previous years. However, this year the approach is different because in order to try and strong arm us into supporting the budget, he is using the significant issue for the northern isles of the ferries in order to secure our support for the whole budget, threatening to withdraw a clear commitment that he made to the northern isles, to provide financial support for the internal ferries for those islands and he's threatening to take away that commitment and that promise in order to try and secure our support. We deeply regret that approach, certainly if he's going to change his position. No, it's not a change in position because I was in attendance of all those meetings. The position is that we enter into meaningful negotiations with lots of local authorities. It is a deep misunderstanding to suggest that it was an automatic allocation of summer monies, but if I can answer Willie Rennie's point on that, Patrick Harvie's right that I understand that the issue of the ferries in the northern isles has been discussed at the rec committee. I haven't seen the report either, but I will look at its recommendations and respond in due course. Willie Rennie? There are two Government documents here that are very clear about the Government's promises. It's talking about a negotiation now to conclude this issue. This was back in 2014 that this commitment was made and nothing has changed since. If the discussions are happening, I can't see any commitment to making them real and delivering on the promise. The ferry services plan from 2012 was equally clear about resolving the injustice for the internal ferries. The result is that public services will be cut or ferries will be cut. That is the responsibility of Derek Mackay to come to terms with. That is why we hope that when the final budget is published that we see a clear commitment to deliver on the promise that he made. I hope that there will be a change of tack because I would like to get back to the constructive and engaging process that we have had in previous years. Liberal Democrats have been very clear, open and honest about our costed manifesto commitments. We said, unlike the Government at the election, that we prepared to put a penny on income tax to invest in a transformational investment in education for nurseries, for schools and for colleges. We were frank with people so that when they went to vote in the ballot box, they knew what they were voting when they voted for us. They weren't clear with the SNP because they said one thing and have done another. Nevertheless, I welcome the fact that they now recognise that we need to use the powers that we have now gained in this Parliament to make that transformational change. We urge the Scottish Government to go the full length of making a proper investment of £500 million. We think that it is £500 million is necessary in order to boost education because that benefits the economy. In the face of Brexit, I agreed with much of what the First Minister was saying in her European paper on Monday when she set out the concerns about the economic impact of Brexit. However, when it comes to the budget, we do not see any action to try to deal with that. We need to invest in the skills and talents of people in order to supply the skills for businesses to grow the wealth and opportunity in this country. That is why we think that in nurseries we should have a proper investment programme for the expansion of nursery education for two, three and four-year-olds to make sure that we invest properly in school budgets and the pupil premium or the pupil equity fund. To reverse the damaging cuts to colleges of recent years, there are 150,000 places that were cut and deprived opportunities for mature students and part-time students. That is the investment that we think is necessary to try to get the Scottish education system back up to being the best in the world again. However, we also need, secondly, to invest in mental health. In the last time round, in the last budget, we recommended that mental health spending should go up to £1.2 billion. We need that significant extra investment in mental health because we have seen the large numbers of people who have not to wait to get essential mental health treatment. The young people who just cannot get the support that they need, some are waiting up to a year to get just the basic treatment and support that they need. We need, and we have seen it with one of the commanders for the police in Dundee who has said that mental health is one of the major issues that they now deal with in the police force in Dundee. We need therefore to get investment into mental health to take the pressure off the police and the front-line services. Monica Lennon very quickly. Does Willie Rennie agree that the Scottish Government properly invested in public services that it could come round to agreeing with other parties who want to see school-based counselling and ask that Sam H have been reiterating this week? Willie Rennie was very interested in a report this morning about first aid mental health for schools and I thought that it was a good move in the right direction. That is the kind of thing that we could invest in. Finally, on ferries, we need to see the commitment that the Government has made on ferries full-filled. That is the best way of securing constructive engagement across the chamber so that we can agree a budget for Scotland. We now move to the open debate. Speeches of five minutes please. All the opening speeches went a wee bit over so we are quite tight. James Dornan followed by Ian Gray. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Given your last comment then, unfortunately, I am not going to be able to take any interventions, which, take it from me, I am very upset about. I heard that I got reported there that Mr Kelly and his soon-to-be-famous, I suspect, opening comments said something about me selling the jerseys when I came here on a regular basis. Can I assure you that the position that I find myself in is that I can only see one Arthur Daly party in this chamber? That is a Labour party, where they promise you something and every single time they are in a position to give you it, they sell you a dud instead. One of the downsides of growing old is seeing people and institutions who hold dear, deteriorate, family and loved ones who become ill and frail, film stars who end up on made for TV afternoon films and football players who think they still have it but don't. Old theatres and cinemas go into Iraq and ruin when you remember them in better days. Unfortunately, that is what we are witnessing here today. A once great institution, once held dear by me and many of my generation, shows itself to be a perfect summary of the party whose name they dare to still use. While our budget has been cut in real terms from Westminster, the Labour Party would rather spend its time indulging in a stunt that uses our public service workers as a political football than work with the Scottish Government to ensure Scotland gets a fairer deal. That was not the Labour way. They used to defend the workers when they were in office, not use them when they were out of it. Hypocrisy is now a byword for Scottish Labour, I'm afraid. It's clear that the Scottish Government recognises in this draft budget that public sector workers form an integral part of Scottish life. It also recognises their need for improved pay, especially in light of the increasing austerity measures coming out of Westminster. Social security cuts alongside rising inflation are causing real hardship to many of our lowest paid public sector workers. That budget shows the Government's commitment to those hard-working staff members and to their families. I'm sorry Jackie, I don't have time for one of your stories. That Government recognises that, even in the toughest of financial times, public services must be maintained and staff should be paid fairly in order for us to provide the people of Scotland with some of the best public services throughout the UK. What is Labour's position outside of a press release? I know Anas Sarwar is going to go up and he is going to speak about the NHS shortly, but before he does, just let me say three words to him. Labour controlled Wales, a very poorly run health service and a Labour Party which refuses to increase public sector pay unless they receive extra funding from Westminster. Let's get back to the hypocrisy again. There's no secret about pressures on the Scottish NHS that they've been vast over this winter period. In fact, both the cabinet secretary and First Minister apologised unjustly for any delays that patients may have had to face. However, at no point was any blame a portion to the hard-working staff of our NHS. That, Presiding Officer, is because this Government genuinely supports and cares for our front-line staff. Let's just compare that attitude to the new leader of the Scottish Labour Party. I'll quote a tweet that he put out just last week. I'd like to hear your stories—probably he is the acting leader because I doubt it will be there that long—good, bad or indifferent of the experience you or a loved one have had with the NHS over winter. I call me cynical, but I highly doubt that Mr Leonard will be coming to the chamber tomorrow to ask the First Minister how the Scottish NHS has managed to generate so many good news stories at such a difficult time across the UK. I would suggest that Mr Leonard was using his political platform to fish for stories that he could use to beat the Scottish Government with. Can you imagine the audacity of a party that would bring a motion to this chamber claiming to stand up for public service workers, while at the same time fishing for ways in which to criticise and complain about the brilliant work being done under the most difficult of circumstances? It is beyond contempt. Maybe they should remind themselves of their own failings in the creation of the ruinous PFI system of local government finance. 93 PFI projects— Mr Dornan, what is the point of order, Jenny Marra? I did not catch that, Mr Dornan, but please be quiet until we have heard the point of order. Can you advise the chamber to what extent the member has to stick to the motion up for debate and not simply use his time to attack another party who has brought a serious motion to debate this afternoon? That is the decision of whoever is presiding in the chair, Mr Marra. Maybe the party should not have brought a motion that was solely to attack the Government in the first place, instead of taking part in the process. As I said before, they should remind themselves of their own failings in the creation of the ruinous PFI system of finance. 93 PFI projects, adding up to a staggering £30.2 billion, with contracts being repaid up to over 35 years. Over five times the initial cost of projects. I wonder how much a pair of eyes that could have funded. In conclusion, I suggest that, if the Labour Party thinks that it can balance the books better, it would be best providing an amendment or an alternative motion, one that does balance the books. You must close, please, Mr Dornan. Going in previous performances, it seems much more likely to continue with a break. Mr Dornan, would you please close? What about the point of order? Mr Dornan, as I said already, that is entirely my decision that I have asked you to close. Maybe we now have Ian Gray to be followed by Tom Arthur. Of all public services underpinned or perhaps undermined by the budget, arguably the most important is education. If there is a silver bullet in the fight against poverty, the struggle against inequality or indeed the drive to grow the economy, then it is education. Across the years, so many have told us just that. From Mandela, who called it the most powerful weapon to change the world, to Malala, who said one child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world and risk her life to learn. Education is not just a public service, it is a public good, an investment in opportunity for our children and grandchildren and the future for us all. Our obligation then is to make the necessary public investment in it and to reject a budget that fails that test of principle, not just of detail. After all, the First Minister has told us so often that this is her number one priority. She asks to be judged on it, but the evidence says that she cannot be trusted on it. Over the years, the SNP has cut spending per annum per secondary school pupil by £1,000 by £500 for pupils across our schools. Since 2010, £1.2 billion less has been spent in our schools than it would have been had spending been simply maintained. Colleges, too, years of cuts and flat cash settlements amount to real-term cuts, while university students have seen grants slashed and their debt burden for living support double. The effect in our schools is real. Three and a half thousand fewer teachers, four thousand from the core budget, a thousand fewer support staff, average class sizes in primary schools are bigger than they have ever been. We cannot recruit even these reduced teacher numbers. Hundreds of posts lie vacant, while every week we hear of unacceptable measures schools are taking to cope, whether it is begging parents to help out in the classroom or unqualified students teaching a critical subject like maths right here in our capital city, in a school trinity academy with a proud record stretching back over 120 years. The reason for that is not hard to find. Teachers pay has eroded every year under this Government, and another below inflation pay deal has just been awarded, another real terms cut. Teachers have gone from among the best-paid teachers in the developed world to well below average in that international league table. Of course, the most worrying effect of the cuts to this public service has been the decline in achievement in core skills such as numeracy and literacy falling behind other nations and a continuing gap between children from the richest families and the rest. The question then for this budget is does it reverse these trends in education and does it begin to undo ten years of cuts? To do so, it would have to demonstrate adequate resources for local councils who fund our schools, not just to avoid further cuts but to begin to rebuild core teaching and support staff numbers, to reverse the increase in class sizes and to provide a pay increase sufficient to make teaching an attractive profession once again. Stewart Stevenson absolutely respected the member's experience as a teacher. He will remember of course that in providing answers pupils have to provide their workings as well as an answer. Has he provided neither yet? Will he use his last minute to produce one or the other for us? Iain Gray With regard to the teachers pay, the table from the OECD report can be found in the Times Educational Supplement, which I am happy to supply. With regard to the erosion of teachers pay, a teacher today is earning around just under £6,000 less. I would be had their pay kept pace with inflation and I am more than happy to provide the working to Mr Stevenson as would the EIS, I am absolutely sure. This budget to protect education would have to restore cuts to grant support for students so that those who cannot ask their families to subsidise their living at university can afford to go without being put off by the scale of debt they face. The budget does none of that. It leaves a shortfall, effectively, of £700 million for councils so that they will not even be able to stand still on schools. Never mind restore teacher numbers and teachers pay. Mr Gray The tax measures that the cabinet secretary has referred to raise only an additional £28 million. They are so progressive that someone who earns £40,000 will pay less tax but someone who will pay more. It provides no additional support for students and we see the consequences clear as councils prepare their budgets. What confidence can we have with the budget and personal education? None, none at all. That is why we should support the motion today. We have Tom Arthur, followed by Alexander Stewart. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate. Before highlighting a few of the ways in which I believe the draft budget supports our public services, I would like to take a moment to remind Parliament of the economic and fiscal backdrop to the current situation. The UK Government is cutting the Scottish Government's resource budget by £500 million over the next two years. That is the budget that pays for the day-to-day running of our public services. That includes paying the salaries of public sector employees such as nurses, firefighters and police officers. That £500 million budget reduction in itself should be understood in the broader context of almost a decade of austerity that is implemented by the UK Government, which in itself represented a failure to effectively respond to the wake of the financial crash in 2008. As a consequence of misguided and dogmatic UK Government policy, we have endured a prolonged period of wage stagnation with real income growth suppressed and inequality rising. All of that wage stagnation, the rise of insecure work and welfare cuts has been exacerbated by the huge economic imbalance between the south-east and the rest of the UK. All of those systemic distortions and inequalities within the wider UK economy combined with the anticipated headwinds resulting from Brexit on top of the £500 million reduction in the resource element of the block grant creates an extremely challenging environment in which to set a budget. That is a challenge not only to the Government but to all of us in this place, which is, after all, a Parliament of minorities. The draft budget that was laid before the Parliament, in my view, represents a bold and innovative response to that challenge. In committing an additional £400 million to the NHS, it supports our most treasured public service. By increasing spending on educational attainment, it demonstrates the Scottish Government's commitment to reducing attainment gap. Significant increases in the economy portfolio budget and continued support for small businesses show a Government that is determined to support economic growth. The allocation of additional funds to Creative Scotland, in light of reductions from the national lottery, has been welcomed from across Scotland's cultural sector. That represents a handful of the provisions in the draft budget that will contribute towards protecting public services. Patrick Harvie I am grateful to the member for giving way. The cabinet secretary has made the case that the tax policy changes that he is proposing bring the overall Scottish Government budget back into real terms growth. Does the member have any idea why it is therefore impossible to provide real terms growth in the funding from Scottish Government to local government to protect those services? Tom Arthur I thank Patrick Harvie for that intervention. Ultimately, that is a point that I am going to come on to later on in my remarks. It comes fundamentally down to choices. I am sure that he will continue to engage constructively with the cabinet secretary to make that case. Ultimately, funds have been allocated to one area of spending, meaning less funds for another area. That is something that he will have to advocate and it is the position that he will have to put forward. Today was an opportunity for Labour to table a motion setting out its priorities and visions for public services and for it to be subjected to the trial of parliamentary scrutiny. It is therefore disappointing that James Kelly has chosen instead to frame this debate as a vote of no confidence in the draft budget. Just as with its unwillingness to engage constructively with the Government ahead of the draft budget, the Labour front bench would rather chase, unfortunately, the easy headline and spare themselves the border of the deep thinking and heavy lifting but making a meaningful contribution that would require. As is sadly now the norm for that once great institution, it will choose easy gimmicks over hard graft. I have to say that the Tories seem to have something of an identity crisis. Instinctively, they wish to slash taxes on high earners and shrink the state, but they are a devious lot of the Tories. They know that such a view is a minority position in Scotland. We see them punished at the ballot box, so we end up with the unsustainable absurdity of the Tories simultaneously calling for tax cuts for the wealthy and increased public spending for a party that prides itself on straight-talking common sense politics. I say to the Tories, have the courage of your convictions. If the Tories believe that high earners such as MSPs should receive a tax cut, they should set out from waiving the draft budget that will take the money to pay for it. Will we take it from the £400 million of the NHS? Will it be from £179 million to raise attainment in our schools? Will it be from the £600 million committed to the roll-out of 100 per cent access to superfast broadband, or will it be the £100 million that the Scottish Government spends every year mitigating Tory welfare cuts? I know that this is a budget that works for all of Scotland and I am looking forward to backing it in the coming weeks. Alexander Stewart followed by Clare Adamson. The sole purpose of taxation is to ensure that the public services are adequately funded. However, it would seem that some people in the chamber need reminding that raising taxation also has consequences for individuals, families, businesses and our economy as a whole. When we are making decisions about the level of tax, we have to balance the need to deliver excellent schools, effective hospitals with impact on our constituents' pay packets and on the nation's economy to grow. We in the Scottish Conservatives take the view that no one in Scotland should pay more in income tax than someone who is doing the same job in the United Kingdom. It is incredibly important that the levels of taxation remain competitive—time is tight, I would like to continue—so that both remain competitive and we retain talented individuals, already ensuring that they are contributing to the work and life in business that we have here, putting up a sign at the border saying, that the higher taxes here send completely the wrong message. However, it is not just the Scottish Conservatives that are challenging the red, the orange, the yellow and the green. I thank you very much for Alexander Stewart for taking my intervention. Is it therefore not the case that you would welcome, particularly because it is in a progressive fashion that, for a majority of taxpayers in Scotland, they will be paying less tax than they would if they lived south of the border? Alexander Stewart, you are taking more out of people's pay packets, and that is what we know as well. As I said, the Conservatives are challenging, but also the organisations that represent the country's business are also saying that this is wrong. The CBI in Scotland has warned that the tax rise and the budget will make harder for it to attract talent. The Chamber of Commerce has indicated that outside investors will perceive an increase on the cost of doing business here in Scotland. The retail consortium has said that tax increases will likely result in lower consumer spending. Those are some stark warnings from those in business who understand and know the priorities that we face. Other parties in the chamber would be wise to give them careful consideration. The block grant to the Scottish Government from Westminster will be protected in real terms this financial year and will increase the following year. Even without the SNP's tax rise, the entire Scottish Government budget has therefore been protected, so any decisions that it is making are of its own making. The real-terms reduction in central government funding for local authorities is a prime example of decisions taken by the Scottish Government that it has chosen to make. To govern is to choose, but those nationalists choose badly and they govern badly. Some of the recent proposals put forward by the Scottish Labour Party are even worse. Not only are they, as the leader indicated, that he is happy to hit every single taxpayer in Scotland, he is also proposing the support of a £50 rate of income tax. Even the SNP has dropped that ridiculous policy following the Scottish Government's analysis that it would come to result in reduction to tax revenues of around £24 million. That is a classic example of ideological policy making that is very likely to undermine the stated objectives and funding that we go forward. At the same time as we are proposing policies that will lose money and waste money, the Labour Party is also wanting to spend even more finances. The leader has said that he wants to back all existing PFI contracts. That would cost £29 billion. He also wants to immediately, if he gets an opportunity, renationalise Scotland. Labour can take no opportunities here and tell us what it wants to do, because in reality they are not going to protect anybody, they are just going to attack everybody they can. In conclusion, and on the same theme as being honest with the electorate, decisions about taxation must be made on the basis of economics rather than ideology. Our priority at the same time should be growing our economy. Growing our economy is the important issue that we have here. Our tax base is not making more money away from, taking more money away from, hardworking families, from individuals and threatening our economic stability. I firmly believe that, ladies and gentlemen. It is important that we discuss the opportunities that we have here today, and that is not taking place within the chamber. Labour, I am afraid, you have got no opportunities to give us only problems to deliver. Thank you. Speeches are no more than five minutes. I call Clare Adamson and I remind Jenny Marra to press her request to speak but now your intervention would put it off. Clare Adamson, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I had hoped this afternoon that we might have some constructive debate and some constructive ideas coming forward, and that this was not just an opportunity for grievance politics. I have been sorely disappointed. Murdo Fraser had a little tease at members from a different party about a recent opinion poll. I think that the Labour Party would do well to consider that it was the Scottish electorate that dumped them on the sideline of politics. If they want to get back on the pitch, they severely have to improve their game, because today has given us nothing, no new ideas. Are they seriously going to be voting against increasing health by more than £400 million? Are they going to be against £120 million above core education funding, direct-to-head teachers, to help to ensure that all young people can fulfil their potential? The Scottish Attainment Challenge is providing £750 million during the course of this Parliament to tackle the poverty-related attainment gap. Priority is improvement in literacy, numeracy, health and wellbeing, and children are adversely affected by poverty in Scotland. I understand Mr Gray's concerns about education, and I understand a lot of what he said today. However, he mentioned the EIS. In a tweet on the day of the budget, he welcomed the increase in the attainment front, saying that it would provide desperate funding for schools mitigating it against the impact of poverty in education. Lani Fanaghan of the EIS welcomed the fact that the finance secretary had confirmed that the damaging 1 per cent public sector pay cap would be lifted in 2018. It says, for far too long, teachers and other public sector workers have been financially punished for an economic situation that was not of their making. The lifting of the pay cap is a long overdue recognition that public sector workers deserve to be paid fairly for the vital work that they do. That was the EIS response. We have lifted the pay cap for NHS staff, police, teachers and others, and yet Labour will criticise when they fail to do the same where they are in power in Wales. In 2018-19, councils received funding through local government finance settlement of more than £10.5 billion. They have also been given the flexibility to raise an additional £77 million by increasing the council tax by up to 3 per cent. I will talk about Scotland. In fact, I will talk about North Lanarkshire, where I live, where Labour failed to use that 3 per cent council tax increase last year, denying £3.98 million of additional funding to North Lanarkshire. That is a compounded miss. That is not something that you can get back in years to come. It is something that will be missed for now and forever forward and compounded if they continue not to use that flexibility. In their argument, it is not enough, so we will not take it. It is absolutely ridiculous attitude to take at the same time. It was mentioned about Clackmannan. North Lanarkshire has already cut classroom assistants 198 posts last year, removed by North Lanarkshire Labour Administration. We have to consider that we are facing that toxic legacy of PFI. Labour will cut from the sidelines, but it is increasingly clear that we are still paying for the mess of Labour's leftover a decade ago. 426.8 million across our council areas, and North Lanarkshire itself is facing a PFI bill of £22.5 million, and yet it turned down the possibility of additional funding. Voting against this Scottish budget will be a vote in investing in childcare, our schools, our hospitals and vital public services, giving them the funds that they need to deliver better services for Scotland. I, like all my colleagues here, look forward to the positive proposals coming forward that would allow Labour to deliver some of the demands that they have come to this chamber with today, because we need ideas in here. We just don't need grievance politics. I call Jenny Marra to be followed by John Mason. Dundee City Council has had to make cuts of £12.5 million last year and £23 million the year before. This year, the proposed settlement is so bad that the SNP leader of the council, John Alexander, has written to the cabinet secretary to try to secure a better deal for our city. That comes shortly after announcing that, based on the draft budget, Dundee will be facing cuts of up to £15.7 million this year. Extremely worrying cabinet secretary are indicators from the council that workers' terms and conditions could be affected and continual references by the council and chief executive to flexibility from staff. Coupled with different shift patterns for care workers, it is very clear to me and to the Scottish Labour Party who will bear the brunt of the latest rounds of cuts. In Angus 2, they have had millions cut from their budget, now have 500 fewer staff than they did in 2010 and there are no signs of this letting up. They plan to shed another 800 jobs over the coming three years. Even the independent leader of the council said that he cannot deliver the current range and volume of services and that they will have to prioritise. The cabinet secretary has tried to divert our attention by declaring that councils can raise their tax by up to 3 per cent. However, that ignores the fact that the current crisis in local government finance has been crippled by his Government's decade-long freeze of the council tax. It ignores that even a full 3 per cent rise will barely scratch the surface of the cuts that are required as a result of his budget. In Dundee, the SNP council estimates that the full 3 per cent rise will raise £1.5 million in additional revenue and that is not even one-tenth of the savings that are required. The problems in NHS Tayside are well known. It is the clearest example in Scotland of mismanagement leading to financial crisis in our public services. The board owes the Scottish Government £35 million and is facing cuts of more than £200 million in the next few years. That is coupled with the local council services cuts that I have just outlined. Amongst all that, no, I will not give away. The board still struggles to move away from agency nursing and rising prescription costs. But what do we get? A meager 1.3 per cent rise in real terms for spending for the NHS, not even close to enough to meet the ever-increasing demands of an ageing population and ill health and not enough to get NHS Tayside anywhere near financial health. Let me make this one point, Cabinet Secretary, because what of his promised pay rise for public sector workers? He announced in this chamber with great fanfare that he himself would give public sector workers a long-awaited pay rise, with those on £30,000 or less getting a 3 per cent rise. On Monday, though, he admitted, under questioning from the finance committee, that he has not allocated any extra money to councils to pay for that promise. So, Cabinet Secretary, I am happy to take your intervention. How does Dundee City Council pay its workers the pay rise that you promised while making cuts of £15.7 million? If you can give council workers in Dundee that answer to date, that would be very welcome. Cabinet Secretary, before you respond, the only person new in the chamber is myself as the chair, so please do not use that term with other members. I thank Jenny Marra for allowing me to make this intervention and just to ask the question at the point of time I wanted to make the intervention. Jenny Marra was speaking about expenditure items. It was my understanding that the Labour Party was proposing to give all additional revenues. On Monday, it raised through taxation to local government, so why not a penny more for the national health service? First of all, I apologise, I am still getting back into my stride after a short absence and I heed what you are saying. The cabinet secretary forgets that it is he who has the budget in front of him. It is he who is responsible for these decisions and these are his cuts that he is asking people in my city to make and people right across this country. It is surely impossible for this Parliament to have confidence in a budget and a finance secretary who refuses to seriously address these issues. I ask the Scottish Government today, what do they say to those workers in Dundee City Council who do not know yet if they will get the pay rise that he promised them and they so desperately need? What does he say to the patients, nurses and doctors in NHS Tayside, whose health board is in financial dire straits and management seem to not be able to get them out of this situation? In Dundee and Angus, like the rest of the country, we are facing increasing demand in our public services, but we are governed by ministers who are not prepared to rise to this challenge. You must conclude now. I call John Mason, followed by Tom Mason. I take that as a clap for my forthcoming speech. I have to say that I am more than happy to speak in this debate on public services, especially as clearly the SNP has a very good record in government in its funding of public services. Health expenditure has been prioritised since 2007, but at the same time local government has been funded for the council fund. We have invested in road and rail infrastructure, unlike with previous Administrations. Major capital projects have tended to be within time and budget, meaning that we have been able to do more with the same amount of money. Of course, we have been through difficult times and we have not been able to spend as much on public services as most of us would have wanted. One question that we have to consider today is what Labour means by protecting public services. Do they mean keeping the same service delivered in the same way with the same number of staff for the same amount of money? That technically might mean protecting public services, but I would suggest that that is not what the public want or what the public need. If we mean that there should be the same input in money or labour terms, that would leave no room for modernisation. A council investing in a modern bin lorry which required fewer workers while using any savings to increase recycling provision. If we take health, the SNP certainly has protected spending, but as demand increases, inevitably there are challenges. Should we be protecting the A&E services as it has been, even if that means more and more and more money as more and more and more people go to A&E, or should we be investing more in community health care and so reduce the need for A&E and potentially reduce the need for hospital beds in the longer term? Is the member aware that demand is also rising significantly on local government services, not to take anything away from the point that he is making about the NHS, but surely we have a responsibility to fund those services rather than threaten councils with an even deeper cut if they do not accept arbitrary rate capping? John Mason. I have already said that I think that local government has been pretty fairly treated over the years, but I am happy to accept that both local government and national government are in a very difficult position financially. We do not have endless resources and clearly neither is local government, and we all have to find a balance between how we can raise our income and how we can control our expenditure. I feel that Labour's approach to protecting public services is far too simplistic. Are we looking here at inputs, outputs or outcomes? Does Labour want to protect the inputs, for example accident emergency costs and staff, or does Labour want to protect outputs, such as waiting times or the number of patients treated, or does Labour want to protect and hopefully improve outcomes such as proportion of population living healthily at home? When we sit in committee, Labour MSPs can often be quite sensible, they would agree that we should emphasise preventative spend and that for whoever is in power just now, budgets are tight. But it seems when we come into this chamber, reasonable discussion tends to go out the window, and it is all about easy sound bites and unreasonable expectations. I want to see some public services expanded, for example the number of hours of childcare provision or the level of support for elderly people in their own home. Those are forms of preventative spend and hopefully should mean less need for reactive services in schools and hospitals later on. If we are suggesting that we must protect reactive services, I would say no. We should be increasing preventative services and, at that right time, reducing the reactive ones. The motion focuses on the budget, so it is worth thinking a bit about what the budget options are. Broadly speaking, if we are to spend more in one area then either we spend less elsewhere or we raise taxes. I think we are in danger of repeating ourselves in these debates, but I am happy to say again that I support a sensible increase in taxes, but we would urge that we proceed cautiously because we do not know what the behavioural change there might be, especially if richer taxpayers were to leave Scotland. I am comfortable with raising bands of income tax by one or two pence, but I would be very wary of raising them at five pence or more in one go. The other option is cutting another area of expenditure, but Labour has been reluctant to say if it would do that, so I am left wondering what other services it might cut. Just to touch on the Conservative amendment that focuses on growing the economy, but if the benefits of the growth only go to the top 10 per cent or 1 per cent, as we heard at yesterday's economy committee has been the case, who would want that kind of growth? Presiding Officer, in conclusion, we have before us today a motion that is probably well-meaning but is not particularly realistic and which does not sit well in the real world of income and expenditure. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr Mason. Tom Mason, to be followed by Kate Forbes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am pleased to take part today in this debate as it concerns many of the issues that affect our constituents across Scotland. It is important that we have a public services that are fit for purpose, and in doing so we must be mindful of how we raise the money to make it so happen. The SNP draft budget proposes to pay for public services an increase in income tax, and they are regrettably not the only party to support such a principle. It has certainly been interesting to listen to the Scottish Labour recently, if only in the fact that we are able to see what the real priorities lie. Funding anewatering programme of nationalisation by hiking taxis for basic rate payers. The idea of progressives is making the lowest paid in our society pay more. I believe that asking those earning £12,000 a year to pay for an uncosted rail nationalisation or £29 billion buyback of existing PFI contracts, for example, as supported by a leader in September, is not progressive, it is just wrong. Labour increasingly labour, increasingly the burden on those who need our help, and most is not required. It is senseless and needless. At higher tax buckets, their plans run into yet more difficulty. Even the SNP accepts the 50p rate and actually lose money, and yet for Labour Party it remains a wonderful idea. I'm geologically ahead of common sense, little wonder in Labour in such a mess. For SNP members, this might be quite a complicated subject to speak about. For almost the entire length of this Parliament so far, they have been told to believe that tax rises were not the answer. Now, of course, they have been instructed to believe the opposite, principled government indeed, I guess. That is made more complicated by the finance setting last week, except in the Fraser Anders Institute's point that the Scottish Government's total block grant, excluding financial transactions, will increase by around 1% in real terms. The Scottish Chamber of Commerce, the Scottish Retail Consortium, the Federation of Small Business, and also breaking their own manifesto of commitment. The SNP misled those who voted to fill them into office, but there is still time to change direction and I hope they will do so. We in the Conservative Party, however, keep our promises. We said that taxes would be no higher than any elsewhere in the United Kingdom and will justify the trust of those that voted us by sticking to this position. We here are proud of the action taken to relieve the pressure on our country's lowest pay, such as the UK Government continually raising personal allowances since 2010. This entire issue essentially boils down to the rationale and method by which the Government raises money. Taxation is not a tool to reorder society, it is to raise money for public services. The answer is not to increase the burden on those who already contribute. It is to create more jobs and boost wages. Those who are not active in our economy at the moment can participate and can do so at a much higher level. The SNP has failed to increase the tax base for the 11 years in office. We would make it a priority. I have said previously that this administration has accepted the block grant that is going up in real terms. This makes a proposal to cut local authority budgets even less sensible. It is unacceptable for the SNP to tell local government that the only way for them to break even is to put up council tax. In addition to the tax rises last year due to the rebounding of the council tax system, it wants powers to get rid of the council tax and now it recommends a 3 per cent rise, yet another U turn. If other parties are serious about the better funding settlement for public services, I encourage them to ensure that it is provided by an increase in tax base rather than an increase on burden upon those who need our help the most. I call Kate Forbes. As some speakers have already said, this debate falls right in the middle of the budget process. I have just noticed a tweet that suggests that this debate could be better engaged with MSPs going outside and having a big snowball fight. Is that a point of order to suspend proceedings? It is courtesy of—should pay credit where it is due—Philip Sim of the BBC. The point that I was going to make was that, as some speakers have already said, this debate falls right in the middle of the budget process. It is a budget process that, as members across the chamber know, each of them could help shape and contribute to at a time of minority government. The real test for all of us, including the Labour Party, is the extent to which we want to see change by just verbalising it in the chamber or see change by actively engaging with the Scottish Government to try to shape the budget. I pay tribute to a lot of the speeches that have been made today already, because you can hear the real concern that many members have for the impact that the budget will have on their constituents. The budget will make a difference to every resident in Scotland, from the youngest to the oldest. Last year, if memory serves, Labour's sole contribution to shaping the budget was a whole lot of noise in a debate that is very similar to this. It does not look like this year is going to be any different. There is a budget process. The member says that the budget will have a noticeable effect on people across Scotland. Does she accept that there are genuine cuts to services that councils across the country are proposing right now that they will have to make if the budget goes through? I recognise that the budget will ensure that £500 million worth of tax cuts will not be passed on to those that we are talking about in terms of deeper cuts. As John Mason has said earlier, we are all operating within financial constraints in terms of the Scottish Government's budget and in terms of budget decisions that are made. However, what I see in this budget is a budget that will increase spending on health by more than £400 million. I see a budget that will lift the 1 per cent public sector pay cap and provide for a 3 per cent pay rise for NHS staff, for police, for teachers, for those earning up to £30,000, which incidentally, as has been referenced already, the Labour Party has not done where they are in power elsewhere. Labour talks about education. In fact, we are all talking about education, but there are people in here that will not back a budget that will provide an extra £120 million over and above core education funding direct to head teachers. A budget that will invest nearly £2.4 billion in our colleges, universities, enterprise and skills bodies, including a real terms increase for both college and higher education budgets. We talk about local government spending, but there are people in here that will not back a budget that will protect local government spending in terms of day-to-day spending for local services in cash terms and deliver an increase in capital spending of almost £90 million, which will contribute £756 million towards the whopping £3 billion of investment to deliver 50,000 affordable homes, which are desperately needed in my constituency in rural and remote places such as Scala. That is why, where lack of affordable housing is having a knock-on impact on being able to recruit staff. It is a budget that talks about rural communities, an issue that is very close to my heart, because it is a budget that will support the procurement of £600 million towards the R100 programme to deliver superfast broadband to 100 per cent of business and residential premises across Scotland. Mr Greene's intervention, the reason that I back this budget is because it is a budget that will have a positive impact on every resident in Scotland. It is a budget that does not pass on tax cuts and ensures a secure source of funding for our public services across Scotland. If any party in this chamber wants to include something in that budget, then the cabinet secretary is ready and waiting to listen to your suggestions. In the budget, the Scottish Government had a choice. It could have chosen to stop the cuts and protect public services, or it could have chosen to endorse austerity and afflict yet more cuts on Scotland's vital public services. Sadly, it comes as little surprise that it chose the latter. More cuts to council budgets, more cuts to Scotland's classrooms, more cuts to Scotland's NHS services and no real plan to invest in and protect our public services. If only Scotland had a Government that was prepared to stand up to Tory austerity, if only we had a Scottish Government and a finance secretary who was prepared to be bold with the powers that he had at his disposal. I'll take a quick intervention from the cabinet secretary. If only the Labour Party had a leader that would present tax plans in advance of the budget being considered by the Scottish Parliament, could Anna Sarwar advise me what the shape of Labour's tax plan might look like so that it can help inform this debate? The cabinet secretary knows that I published detailed tax plans and sent them to the cabinet secretary to which he did not respond. He has already seen largely about what we want our tax plans to be. That is to stop cuts because we have up to £700 million of a black hole to council budgets. What does that mean? It means cuts to social care packages across the country. It means cuts to individual joint boards who commission care packages for vulnerable Scots. He talks about the £400 million for the NHS, but FOIs that I did to health boards right across the country have shown that they are planning to make £1.5 billion in cuts over the next four years. As a result, public service in Scotland faced a deepening crisis despite the best efforts of staff. We have heard about the pay cap. We should remind the SNP that they voted against breaking the pay cap in April last year. I want to ask the cabinet secretary. He has talked about ending the pay cap, but can he guarantee a fully funded real-terms pay increase to NHS staff and other public sector staff? If he cannot provide a fully funded pay increase, what does that mean as a result? It means either more cuts to services or further job losses. That is not acceptable across the country. It is certainly not acceptable in our health service. We have a health service that is in crisis, yet not one utterance from a health secretary who every week appears breaks the record for the worst-performing Scottish health secretary ever. Last week, the worst-ever accident and emergency performance figures, this week even worse. One in four Scots now waiting longer in A&E than the Scottish Government say they should. 40,000 bed days lost in the Scottish NHS last November, despite a promise from the SNP health secretary, Shona Robinson, to eradicate delayed discharge. 500 operations cancelled in the first week of January alone, almost the same number as the whole of January last year. Seven out of eight of the Scottish Government's own key performance indicators not met. Patient care has been put at risk because of a lack of resource, yet it is never the fault of the cabinet secretary or the SNP or the responsibility of the Scottish Government. It is always somebody else's fault. A record-breaking cabinet secretary who herself sounds like a broken record. It does not have to be like this. Derek Mackay has the powers and his fingertips to stop the cuts. He could big-forward budget plans that would stop the cuts but only if he wanted to. He could use the powers of the Parliament that he campaigned for to invest in public services but only if he really wanted to. What we have is a Derek Mackay budget that, in the face of Tory austerity, raises a mere £28 million extra for public services. It is actually just a Tory light budget. SNP backbenchers have the chance to join the Labour today and say no to austerity. I stood shoulder to shoulder with every single Glasgow SNP, MP and MSP in the face of job-centre closures. Why won't they stand shoulder to shoulder with us on police station closures? Why aren't they standing shoulder to shoulder with us to the cuts to the REH or the cuts to the Vale of Leven or the cuts to the Inverclyde Royal hospital? Because it's easy to protest about cuts made by Westminster and say silent when there's cuts made by your own Government here in Scotland, cuts to Scotland made in Scotland for Scotland by the Scottish National Party and the SNP. I think that Scotland deserves much better than this. Thank you. I call Donald Cameron to be followed by Kenneth Gibson. Kenneth Gibson will be the last speaker in the open debate. Mr Cameron, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'd like to begin by thanking those workers in our public services for the job that they are doing, particularly today, in keeping our country moving with extreme winter weather affecting people across Scotland. Offering thanks is never enough, because public sector workers need to see genuine commitment to the services that they work in. In terms of Labour, that once great institution, Labour has called us to debate today. While I agree that we all need to hold this Government to account— Excuse me a minute. I'm sure that you want to hear the rest of the compliment. I agree that we all need to hold this Government to account. Cabinet Secretary. Just out of curiosity, are the Tony Party proposing to vote with the Labour Party on the motion this evening? I think that that would be quite telling. Donald Cameron will have to wait and see. It's equally appropriate to point out that Labour's plans to hike taxes will damage our economy and, in turn, damage our public services. In relation to the SNP, I fear that this debate, like many others, has seen a very familiar pattern emerge. We've seen the SNP boasting about their record in delivering public services in Scotland, but they have essentially peddled a false economy. They regularly say that the only way that you can promise to increase spending is by taxing people more. Anyone with an ounce of sense will know that you can only have strong public services if you have a strong economy. A strong economy means supporting businesses so that they can grow and employ more people and thus widen the tax base, not hiking up the taxes of existing taxpayers. A strong economy means a competitive tax regime on a par with the rest of the UK so that people have more say over how they spend their money, not creating a slew of new tax bans that will see 1.16 million Scots facing a tax rise—I'm sorry, I don't have time. That is our message and we will continue to stand by it. We have focused on investment in the NHS and in schools and in transport, but we should not forget one area that has taken a battering, namely local government. Local councils have been hit time after time, and they are all too often the scapegoat for this SNP Government. Those cuts lie at the door of the SNP and no one else. As Murdo Fraser has said, there have been real-term cuts in total central government funding for local authorities from this year to the next of £81 million and a distributable revenue grant has been cut by more than £200 million. Local councillors across my region, the Highlands and Islands that I have spoken to, some of whom have no party alignment, have real and genuine fears for the future of services like never before. The effects of those cuts are felt by the very people who have put us here. Let me give one example. On Monday, I met constituents on Islay. Islay is an island that is a thriving tourist industry, driven in part by its large number of whisky deciliries. In many ways, it is a microcosm of Scotland. It already contributes a huge amount in tax receipts from the whisky sector alone and has huge economic potential. What issues did every person I met talk about but decaying infrastructure, the state of the crumbling roads that they are unable to repair? Donald Cameron then liked to quantify the extra resource that should go to local government and where that should come from. Donald Cameron has a choice. His budget is protected. The block grant is up in real terms. He does not need to make those cuts, especially when that budget is protected. It is his choice. Those cuts are particularly pertinent when thousands of tourists visit places such as Islay and the havoc that they wreak not only on the local industry but on the locals who live there. There are just a few examples of the reality on the ground for people living in my region. That is the reality of the SNP's mismanagement of the economy. That is the reality of the SNP's cuts to local authority funding and the knock-on effect on public services and the people who deliver them. Under this SNP Government, people will pay more in tax but are getting less in services. Ultimately, that comes down to a political choice for the SNP. The SNP has chosen to make these cuts, and as they sow the wind, they will reap the whirlwind. They have the benefit of a real-terms increase of the block grant from the UK Government. They have more powers than ever before, thanks to the UK Government's commitment to empowering this Parliament. They can deliver strong public services that fit for the present and the future, but they will only do that if they focus on the issues that the people of Scotland actually care about. It is extraordinarily telling that a Labour Party is presenting a motion to the chamber today that is as brief as its contribution to constructive discussing this year's budget. It made absolutely no effort to do so. Labour has had countless opportunities to bring valuable recommendations and suggestions to the table, instead moving weeks of empty rhetoric. It is all too easy to moan about the draft budget, but it is clearly far more difficult to outline what Labour would offer in its place in terms of taxation and spending. Although we had today Mr Kelly telling us that he is taking, and I quote, adequate time over his tax proposals, I am sure that we are all waiting with bated breath for those. In stark contrast to the vacuum of policies from Labour, the finance secretary has constructed a balanced budget in the face of a real terms cut to this Parliament's resource budget of over £200 million, thanks to the Tories at Westminster. Figures that Labour MSPs and Tories such as Donald Cameron quote, bear no relation to reality today. Last week's local government and communities committee, we unanimously agreed that the real terms reduction to local government resource grant, as informed by SPICE, would be £58.1 million, or 0.6 per cent. That is before council tax increases are added or negotiations on the budget concluded. Capital, meanwhile, will go up in real terms by £77.1 million or 9.8 per cent in real terms. Some 20 years ago this week, I, as a Glasgow city councillor, the only one for the SNP in Glasgow in those days—we've got 39 now—stood megaphone in hand to address a crowd of angry council workers in George Square. The reason, the decision of the UK Labour Government to cut £500 million—figures that are here from SPICE—in real terms, some 6 per cent of Scottish local government funding at a time of no recession. A third of that cut fell on Glasgow, which suffered a real terms cut of 7 per cent in a single year, leading to the sacking of 3,000 Glasgow council workers in a single year. There wasn't a ban on compulsory redundancies, as under this enlightened SNP administration. No Labour just told folk to go. There was such unrest that the council almost didn't deliver its budget with Labour councils, ignominiously being sneaked into and out of the building. Now this party, the architects of austerity, come here to criticise a policy. Their own party has so much greater experience of. In 2007, when the SNP came to power, Wendy Alexander gave the famous Henry Caterpillar speech in which she denounced the Scottish Government for not having 3 per cent year-on-year real terms cuts to local government budgets, top-sliced. Labour MSPs were so disgusted by Wendy that they unanimously voted her in as their leader a few weeks later. In 2015, Labour MPs, including Anna Sarwar, the man who suddenly decides his opposed to austerity, walked into the lobbies at Westminster and voted for £30 billion of cuts across the UK, including £3,000 million to this Parliament. So don't come here with your hypocrisy. If not, I tried to intervene in you twice. You wouldn't need to take an intervention. You need to understand how the rules work in this Parliament. What a bunch of hypocrites— Point of order. Is it a real order? Thank you, Presiding Officer, for the point of order. On a point of factual correctness— That's not a point of order. Sit down, please. It's not a point of order. Try to intervene in you twice. He ignored me. Mr Gibson. On taxation, Labour squealed because the SNP wanted to operate a tax of £46 for 13 consecutive years by the last four weeks of the 1970-2010 UK Labour Government. It had a top tax rate of £40, but it criticised us for going up to £48. The reality is that the Labour Party is the party of austerity. Tuition fees tried to PFI the House of Lords and the Iraq War. Importantly, a party without any ideas. Mark Drakeford of the Labour Party in Wales has said that the reason they have to make cuts— Yes, you applaud, but we know that it's sarcastic because you're embarrassed at what you're doing in power down there. You're actually embarrassed. He has said that he's having to make cuts to local government because of the UK Government settlement on Wales. If he actually watched a leader, Jeremy Corbyn, which I'm sure a few of you do, every week he denounces the UK Government for its settlement in Wales every single week when Prime Minister may respond to any question. It's all, well, the reason why the NHS is the worst in Wales is because of UK Government cuts. So if you want to attack us for what we're doing here, you have to take responsibility for power. The Labour Party is a party without ideas. A party that can account and a party that's got nothing going on with the people of Scotland, which is why he went from 53 constituency NSPs to three under devolution. Can I also remind members not to use the term you? I was kind enough not to intervene in your speech, but I've said it already. Do not use that term unless addressing the chair. We now move to closing speeches. I hope that this is a little more sedate, perhaps not. I call on Willie Rennie. Six minutes, please, Mr Rennie. What a billing I can get for this speech. I had thought that I couldn't get any worse, but then Kenny Gibson got to his feet. This debate hasn't been particularly edifying, but let me focus on a positive. I thought that Kate Forbes' contribution to this debate was very good. I thought that the calm, rational advocacy of what she believed were the budget benefits is the way that perhaps other backbenchers on the SNP benches could follow. She put her points forward. I didn't necessarily agree with a lot of them, but she was respectful to the other parties in the way that she put forward her case. I thought that it was a decent attempt to have a decent debate. I looked for other positive contributions in the chamber, but let me move on, because there were not many. Kate Forbes did make a good contribution. My officers and staff come into contact with people in times of crisis, day in, day out. It caters for a huge amount of our demand. That is Paul Anderson from the Police in Dundee. He is talking about mental health services and the considerable pressure that it is putting on the resources of the police. That is why I think that this budget therefore needs to try to address, I believe, one of the biggest pressures that our NHS faces, but also public services in the broader context face as well. That is mental health services. It is a great disappointment to me that, despite many, many warm words and high rhetoric on mental health, we still lag way behind on the provision of actual mental health services. The figures that were published last year showed that about 3,000 people were waiting for mental health treatment way beyond what they should have been waiting. We have also seen that CAMH services for young people and adolescents are falling way behind as well. That is why I was particularly pleased to hear the report from Sam H this morning about training teachers in mental health first aid. Some of the things that we should be doing to try and give the support to children at the very early stages before the problems become more substantial in later life. That kind of early intervention is what is required. That is why we have advocated a substantial increase in funding for mental health services. We believe that the spend that we believe is around £1 billion just now on mental health should increase to £1.2 billion. I think that it is a reasonable, quite modest increase in investment that we believe should be forthcoming to deal with something that is having an impact on a variety of services across the public sector. We also think that the budget should address another major problem. We have heard just today about the latest GDP figures for Scotland that show that 0.2 per cent is bumping along the bottom in terms of growth. We need a big change. Tom Arthur was right to talk about the massive challenges that the country faces. He talked about Brexit. That is why it is quite disappointing that for a number of years, including this year, the Government has been so timid with its response. I think that there should be a transformational investment in education. I have talked already about investing in nursery education, the best investment that it can make at the very early years, something that we advocated for years, and eventually the Government came on board, particularly for two-year-olds. We should also be investing in a pupil premium. Again, the Government is five years behind where England was at, where it has managed to close the attainment gap by five percentage points. It is a big investment to make a transformational change, to invest in children to give them the skills for the future of the economy. Finally, to invest in colleges as well, which have, I think, borne the brunt of much of the Government's cuts and expenditure, and I think unfairly so. That is why I think that this budget should address that too. Two big areas are mental health and education to have that transformational effect, but not just for education's own purpose, but to invest in the economy to deal with a massive challenge that we have coming down the road with Brexit. I was intrigued by Alexander Stewart's question. I think that he is right to talk about the balance between tax and spend, but it is not all just one way. Public expenditure can be a force for good by investing in mental health and education to boost the economy, which helps us all. I think that to just portray it as somehow cutting taxes is the only way to boost the economy, I think, is wrong. If I can gently remind him that it is his Government in the United Kingdom that is proposing a social care tax in local government and a police tax in local government in England, there are stealth taxes that you might describe them as being implemented by the Conservatives. I am reading a book just now by Ken Clark. It is his autobiography called Turning Blue, and he takes great pride in saying how he managed to get a whole of the stealthy taxes through the Parliament without anybody noticing. He is bragging about it now. I would just gently remind the Conservatives about that time in Government that they are in favour of tax put perhaps not being upfront about it. Finally, I want to show a chink of light that I thought perhaps was forthcoming from the finance secretary about a report that we do not quite know yet that has been produced by a committee that I cannot report on, but it is indicating that perhaps there might be support for the ferries for the northern Isles. I would urge the finance secretary to follow through on that, to make sure that the finance is forthcoming for those vital services in the north, because if they are not, we will see cuts to ferries or to public services, and that is my final message to the finance secretary. Thank you very much, Mr Rennie. I now call Patrick Harvie to close with the green six minutes, Mr Harvie, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I began my opening speech by saying that additional time in the chamber to debate the budget before we get into the formal process of voting and committee scrutiny is worthwhile if we use it properly. I am entirely convinced that we have used this opportunity as constructively as we could have done, I say that collectively. Your suggestion that we should all try to be more sedate than Kenny Gibson, Presiding Officer, might have been irrelevant. I am not sure that any of us would be capable of being less sedate than Kenny Gibson during this debate. I would like to urge all political parties in closing today and in the continuing scrutiny over the next two weeks to try every time to be constructive, to put forward solutions rather than only problems. I am very focused on doing that, on making sure that we can reverse the cuts to local services, not just rant about them, not just complain about them. I share the anger of many people who have spoken today about the cuts to local services, and I want to see that budget line changed rather than just angry speeches from those of us who are concerned. I also want to make the case that local government needs its own autonomy to be respected. Parliament and Government have missed many opportunities over the years to reform local taxation and rate capping, the current approach that the Scottish Government has of rate capping, especially with the threats of even deeper cuts to councils that do not accept this arbitrary unlegislated rate cap on council tax is not a principled approach. Derek Mackay also told the finance committee earlier this week that he wanted to emphasise the fact that local government keeps non-domestic rate revenue. However, he is deciding, centrally, to offer a big package of non-domestic rates cuts, a package that amounts to more than half of the additional revenue that he intends to raise from his income tax policies. I will also be focused over the next two weeks on continuing to make the case for low-carbon infrastructure investment right around the country. In probably every member's constituency or region, there are opportunities to invest in better public transport and to give councils and local communities the opportunity to put the ideas on to the agenda for public transport, whether that is opening new or reopened railway stations, whether it is investing in better buses, and we have put forward ideas to the cabinet secretary to ensure that that can be made a reality. On public sector pay, I will take one brief intervention. Jamie Greene. It really gives us some thought as to the budget process of the next few weeks, but does he really think that hard-working families across Scotland can afford an inflation-busting rise in their council tax while seeing income tax increases at the same time? Does he really believe that? Patrick Harvie. I believe that council tax should be decided by local government. I think that that is a point of principle. As for what people can afford, we need a tax system including property taxes, reformed modernised property taxes and progressive income tax, so that those who can afford to pay more do so and I count himself and myself in that. We can do that while protecting low and middle earners. On public sector pay, I want to reinforce the comments made by Ian Gray, particularly in relation to the teaching profession. If we are concerned about the problems of teacher recruitment and retention and our wider public services as well, a below-inflation pay settlement deserves to be challenged. I agree with Kate Forbes on that, not sadly what she said in the chamber today, but what she said on national television very recently that the pay settlement ought to be above inflation. There is a case for restoration in the lost value of public sector pay and we also need to recognise the further impact that that will have on local government. I think that the cabinet secretary has not yet made the case for what he proposed a few weeks ago. On tax debate, I think that the Greens have made a serious contribution to shifting the debate on income tax away from just whether we increase the basic rate or not. Do we have to raise revenue from those on below-average incomes? We are the party that was first to show that you do not have to do that. We can raise revenue progressively with a larger number of rates and bans in a way that makes sure that we protect people on low and average incomes. I am still committed to seeing that happen. I am pleased that the Government has moved in that direction, but I challenge the scale of what they are proposing as well as what they are describing as an anomaly on the basic rate. It is not an anomaly. It is clearly the only effect of that higher rate threshold. The only effect of it is to give a tax cut to those high earners and there is no justification for that. We will continue to make the case for a more assertive and more ambitious approach on taxation. Sadly, in closing, I have to say that Labour and the Conservatives seem not to be grasping the new process. Tax proposals need to be put forward early enough that they can go through government scrutiny, parliamentary scrutiny and the Scottish Fiscal Commission. For the Conservatives, who still seem to be the only party believing in the magic money tree, future growth, even if they think that that will in future raise more taxation, it will reduce tax revenues in the coming year if they cut the tax rates and they have a responsibility to show where that would come from. If they end up supporting the unamended motion, if that is what we end up voting on, I am afraid that that will leave this debate looking like something of a farce for a motion talking about public services to be supported by the party that wants to cut them by half a billion. Thank you. I call Jamie Greene, close to the Conservatives. Six minutes, Mr Greene, please. Labour's short motion today says that the draft budget does not protect public services and that is a fact. James Kelly opened the debate today with some insight and was quite sparse in detail into how Labour will address that very issue, namely demanding tax rises. I have, thankfully, quite a distant memory of Labour in government, mostly from my teenage years dancing along to D-Ream. I thought that things can only get better was a futuristic reference to the 2010 general election when the UK would have to pick itself up from 13 years of Labour in government. Let us never forget that by the time Labour left government in 2010, manufacturing in the UK had declined by 9 per cent. Britain had the longest recession in the G20 with six consecutive quarters of negative growth and the UK had the largest deficit of any major economy. Youth unemployment was at a record high. One in five were out of work. I was perhaps one of the lucky ones. Let us never forget that when it comes to tax, we all know Labour's track record on this. In their 13 years of government, they doubled the tax rate for the poorest in this country. They scrapped the 10p tax rate and they doubled it instead to 20. So it comes as no surprise to anyone that when Labour say they want to increase your taxes, you can be forgiven for suspicion over their ability to spend it wisely. Scottish Labour's current uncosted spending plans would undoubtedly see further tax rises across all rates, including those on the lowest incomes. Their plans to renationalise everything that moves, including our railways, would shift millions of pounds, of liability and cost on to the shoulders of the Scottish taxpayer. Labour would kickstart their term in government by spending nearly the entire Scottish budget just on buying back PFI contracts alone. That is on top of the billions of pounds required for their very lengthening list of freebies and giveaways. New leader, same old Labour. It would be remiss of me to use my six minutes just to point out misgivings in Labour's financial credibility and let Mr Mackay off Scot-free, especially off the back of today's figures, the Scottish Government's own figures which show that the Scottish economy continues to lag behind that of the rest of the UK. Instead of fighting for the top spot in the UK economy, we are fighting to avoid recession. Since I was elected to this place, we have averaged just 0.1 per cent growth. GDP remains flat in real terms in Scotland and year on year the Scottish economy has grown at a third the rate of the rest of the UK. Today's findings must make for some very grave and uncomfortable reading for the SNP Government. Last year, Derek Honey-Eyes shrunk the economy of Mackay had to endure the embarrassment of financially overseeing the only part of the UK with a shrinking economy. However, let us give the financial secretary credit where it is due, because in the face of criticism from the CBI and the FSB and the Scottish Chambers of Commerce and basically anyone with a grasp of economics, he stands up and says enough of your facts and figures, we are doing things my way. At least you know where you are with Derek Mackay. The sad reality is that if the Scottish economy grows at the rate that it is currently growing at, we will be nearly £17 billion worse off by 2022 than if we had matched the growth rates across the rest of the UK. Can the cabinet secretary explain why? The budget process requires the Scottish Fiscal Commission to set out their forecast following policy analysis. What do the Tories propose to do to ensure that there are more resources for public services, which seems to be what they are arguing for today? How far do we go in the £501 million tax cut that the Tories would like to see us deliver? Jamie Greene. The Scottish National Party talks about tax cuts for the rich. It is the Scottish National Party that thinks that anyone earning over £33,000 in Scotland is somehow rich and should see their taxes go up. We disagree with that immensely. This is what you can do. You can stop wasting money, you can grow the tax base and you can grow the economy. That is what we think you should do. If the finance secretary wants to find more cash, there it is right there. We are not asking for anything magical or mystical. We are asking you to grow the Scottish economy at the same rate as the rest of the UK. Eleven years of sluggish growth and its local authorities are now paying the price for it. In Inverclyde and North Ayrshire councils, they are actively consulting on which public services to cut, reducing grants to voluntary organisations, reducing employability contracts, increasing burial charges and parking charges, removing breakfast clubs, closing public toilets, libraries and youth centres. The draft budget will see councils up and down Scotland making cuts like this. Yes, they can increase council tax, but even as, in the case of Inverclyde, this would raise no more than £3 million. It does not even scratch the surface of the cuts that they are having to make. Responsibility for failing to grow the Scottish economy lies fairly and squarely at the door of this Government. Nicola Sturgeon and Derek Mackay simply cannot tax their way out of the funding black hole that they have created and nor should Scottish taxpayers be expected to be like their failure to grow the Scottish economy this past decade. I am afraid, Presiding Officer, that it is squeaky bum time for the middle benches right now and I urge members across this chamber to support our amendment this afternoon. Thank you. I am not happy about that. I am not happy. I am sure that you can do better. I call on Derek Mackay to close with the Government. Cabinet Secretary, seven minutes please. Presiding Officer, I am sure that we are all left within. I made sure that we would soon wish to move on from. I think that Kate Forbes made a helpful point. It reflects some of the contributions from some members in the chamber today around what has been seen to be a bun fight in the chamber. That is a very sad reflection on the quality of debate. I am not saying that in a partisan way, but a very sad reflection on the quality of debate on, frankly, for me, as finance secretary, the most important matter, the budget. It is fair to ask questions of Government, of course, but Opposition members equally can't abdicate their responsibility and bring forward a constructive approach so that in a Parliament of minorities we can reach a majority view that reflects the position of Scotland in relation to the budget, tax and expenditure. In that sense, I appreciate Willie Rennie bringing some calm and rational levelling of the debate. Equally, I have to say that the party that has, frankly, engaged the most constructively so far has been the Greens. Now, there are... Well, you know, even when the Labour Party simply attacks the Greens for daring to even negotiate, negotiate their position with the Government, seemed to be an attack from the Labour Party. And I simply say this, that if the Tories and the Labour Party want to be in the same boat of opportunism and oppositionalism for its own sake, I don't think that's fitting of a Parliament whose powers have matured and in response, surely all parliamentarians should engage in a constructive fashion when it comes to issues such as income tax and expenditure and the choices that we make. And one of the substantial choices that this Government has made is to invest in the national health service. Yes, there are huge demands in the national health service. We can see that right now, and that's why there's a proposal to have an above-inflation increase for the national health service. But there's many other positives in the budget as well. Not an extra allocation of just £28 million for public services, but hundreds of millions of pounds more for our public services right across the board. And of course, if you look at the GDP statistic today, we should do more to help grow our economy. One of the reasons we are allocating an uplift to the economy brief of some 64 per cent uplift for that particular portfolio. But since we're debating and discussing the budget, I would want to re-emphasise some of the key investment proposals. Incidentally, the amount raised from the Government's tax policies is £362 million from our tax policy decisions. That's a matter of fact, and some members don't seem to appreciate that it can't be mythical growth that we would like to have had. It must be the SFC forecast that underpin our budget process. Within that, when investing more in the NHS, as I said, an above-inflation increase more in total for health and sport, now reaching over £13.6 billion, listen very closely to Willie Rennie, more for mental health services as well, of course. James Kelly. Thank you, cabinet secretary, for taking the intervention. In terms of where the money has been allocated, you didn't ask answer Jenny Marra's point. In terms of the uplift on public sector pay, how do you expect councils to fund that when in actual fact their budgets, as Ms Marra outlined in relation to the need, has been cut by £15.9 million? Cabinet secretary. Scottish Government, this seems to be a misunderstanding, doesn't set local government pay. Our public sector pay policy is for those under our control, and yes becomes a benchmark, for example the NHS. I explained very clearly on the 14 December what our position was in relation to pay. In terms of resources to local government, broadly speaking, with protected cash and resource, with increased resource and capital spending, we're doubling the funding for city and region deals. We're taking housing support to over £700 million. We're expanding early learning in childcare and funding local authorities to do that, protecting culture and sport, responding positively to the Barclay review and the services that local government delivers, and on social care we are delivering £66 million more. This is a government that puts its mouth is when it comes to our priorities, protecting the national health service. Protecting the national health service, investing £4 billion in infrastructure, expanding our economy with a huge uplift in that particular brief, and investing more in key areas. I was coming to mental health as well, because it's important that there are also new resources for mental health to take us to that level of 800 additional mental health workers over the next five years. In terms of police and fire, more in real terms for those services, more for the attainment gap to tackle that, inequality and supporting education directly, more for culture that I've touched upon and supporting the big events in Scotland as well, as well as mitigating the cuts from the UK Government. It was a different Tory party that we were hearing from today, one that suggests that they want to spend more on our public services, but in fact doesn't want divergence from the rest of the United Kingdom on tax position. The Tory tax policy, in fact, in addition to a £211 million cut for next year in fiscal resource, would expect us to cut public services by £501 million. We, as a Government, are not willing to make that reduction to fund Tory tax cut policies that they appear to be running away from now. It looks as if the Labour Party and the Tory Party are in the same boat this evening to vote together on the Labour Party's motion. It tells you quite a lot about the position of the Labour Party that the Tories can now support that particular position. However, there is a range of areas that we are investing more for our public services and doing, as we said we would do, lift the public sector pay cap of 1 per cent, unprecedented, anywhere in the United Kingdom. So this budget, I will take the intervention from Jenny Marra. Jenny Marra. Well, as a matter of fact, if the Labour Party wants to talk about how we treat the workforce, let's just look at Glasgow today and what Susan Ake and the leader of Glasgow City Council has done around equal pay, we have been putting resources into local authorities and we will deliver fairness. I do not set local government pay policy, but I believe that if it did a fair settlement from the draft budget. The Tories want to raise less and spend more, but ultimately for both opposition parties there will come a choice. As we embark on this process and I have pledged to have an open door engaging, listening to constructive suggestions from any opposition party, I have tried to embark in that fashion in advance of the budget and how I conducted the income tax policy, but there will come a moment, a choice when Parliament has to choose stage 3 of the budget, the Scottish rate resolution, yes, the statutory instrument around non-domestic rates as well. What the Labour Party is clearly doing, unlike other opposition parties, I have no hope for the Tories, by the way, because of their tax position, but I would have thought that other progressive parties would recognise the hundreds of millions of pounds more we are proposing to put into our public services, and the choice that come will be this. Do progressive parties want to reject a more progressive tax system, reject support for our economy, reject a pay policy that delivers for our front-line workers and reject hundreds of millions of pounds more in our front-line services, because ultimately that will be the choice, more for our public services or against, and to shape that final budget, to shape it, the opportunity is now. Engage with me constructively, don't play games with the people of Scotland, and I will deliver for those people in a constructive and consensual fashion. Thank you, I call on Monica Lennon to wind up the debate. Thank you, Presiding Officer. This has been a passionate debate, as it should be. We all depend on public services, on our budget process. All of our constituents are depending on us. They are depending on us to make a stand and to protect public services. That is why Scottish Labour has called this debate today, and we make no apologies for that. MSPs have a chance to call out this cuts budget and its impact on public services. When the votes are counted at decision time we will find out whose side they are on. Will they rally round Derek Mackay on the failure of a budget that only raises an additional £28 million for public services? When COSLA warns that local government services alone need an additional £545 million just to stand still, or will they vote on principle, vote for Scottish Labour's motion and confront Derek Mackay with the reality of his plan? The bottom line is that the draft budget does not contain public services. SNP MSPs looking at their whip sheet in front of them must know this is true. Our constituents know it. Workers know it and trade unionists know it. However, it is abundantly clear that this budget will not deliver enough resources to sustain the vital public services that we rely on to keep us safe, healthy, educated and to build strong and resilient communities where businesses can thrive and our environment is safeguarded for future generations. The facts speak for themselves. I will take the intervention. Patrick Harvie. I am grateful to Monica Lennon for giving way. If I understand the Labour position properly, we would like to achieve many of the same things that we have different approaches to trying to do that. Does Monica Lennon really ask us to vote in principle for a motion, the Labour motion that I can support, that she can support, with Tory support, the people who want to take half a billion pounds out of public services? If the Labour motion passes with conservative support, will that not leave us looking like a bit of a farce? Monica Lennon. If I can remind Patrick Harvie what we have done, James Kelly has exposed the flaws in this budget and the tax plans. Will it is true? I recognise that there needs to be substantial tax changes in this budget. That is why we have said, we will set that out ahead of the stage 1 of this film. I am not interested in getting Tory support. I am interested in what we have heard about our public services and how we are going to pay for them. That is a matter of principle, Patrick Harvie. The facts speak for themselves. As it stands, this budget will cut a further £135 million from local government services this year. Figure confirmed by SPICE on top of the £500 million identified by COSLA is a £700 million gap in local budget services for this year. Derek Mackay. Lennon, give me a clue as to when the people of Scotland, Nevermind Parliament, will get any site of Labour's tax plans to fund the so-called £700 million extra investment. Just a little bit, £700 million extra investment just for councils, not for the national health service. Mark Lennon. James Kelly has already clarified it. If I can make some progress, how can some members in this chamber who have proclaimed an anti-austerity platform think that this budget is anywhere near an acceptable deal for local services? I do not really think that it is funny at all. Local government has already sustained huge and disproportionate cuts, £1.5 billion in totals in 2011, inflicting irreparable damage to our communities, but SNP members do not want to hear about that, because the SNP have taken Tory austerity and more than doubled it, passing it on to local government. They are no friends of ours, we have taken it on and passed it on to local government. The figures show that the local government revenue budget is cut more than three times faster than the government revenue budget between 2013-14 and 2016-17. At the heart of our motion today is the underlying reasons for why any of this actually matters, why these cuts matter, and that is the human cost of austerity, because £135 million from local councils this year and £1.5 billion in total from the coffers in 2011 are not just meaningless numbers on a page. I do not think that it is that funny to Mr Ffist's party, we have heard enough of a lot about the impact in Dundee and the North East from Jenny Marra, an example of a tenacious MSP of Abergusawyn. Those cuts have an impact on the lives of people across Scotland in our communities every day, all year round not just in the winter crisis. As Anna Sarwar has stated, cuts to integrated joint boards and health boards facing cuts totaling more than £1.5 billion. It is by listening to communities, well if you would listen the way we listen, not you, sorry, but Fiona Hyslop sitting here, if members listen to communities across Scotland, listen to exhausted nurses and carers, listening to the local government workers, wait for it, no wait for it, wait for it, no wait for it, those who have raised 28,000 of their colleagues who have disappeared over the past seven years, leaving them to deliver more and with less. We have heard loud and clear that public services are undergoing pressure and I'll take the intervention. Der Macai. I was listening very clearly to the list of demands that we've had this afternoon yn bwysig i ddigonion gyda'r cyfnodol. Why don't you support the Scottish Government's support for the national health service and above inflation increase for the NHS? Monica Lennon. That is simply not true, but I thought that the Cabinet Secretary was coming to his feet to talk about the fact that 28,000 jobs have been lost from local government. Where is the Government's task force for local government? When local government workers hear Derek Mackay claim that councils are fairly funded. They cannot believe their ears. Nine out of ten public sector job losses in Scotland have been in local government. How is that a fair deal, cabinet secretary? We cannot continue to go on starving public services of resources. During the time that we have been in this debate, teachers and school support staff have been looking after our learners, preparing the next generation of nurses, engineers and entrepreneurs. Careers are trudging through the snow to deliver personal care or an evening meal to older people in their own homes. It is councils who are responsible for many of the vital public services that are too often taken for granted. Social care for the elderly, responsibility for looked after young people, delivery of education, responsibility for our local roads, which are at a standstill, and leisure facilities and so much more. Cuts to our councils mean that vital public servants have less resources to do their jobs and we all suffer as a result. That is less money for gritting the road during icy weather. Older people are more likely to fall and end up in hospital. I have noticed that the SNP heads went down at that point, including the education convener James Dornan. When Ian Gray was on his street to remind the chamber that under this Government-spending plan there have been £1.2 billion taken out of education since 2010, how is that going to close the attainment gap or reduce inequality? In my region in central Scotland, just some of the proposals for saving duty budget cuts for the coming years include increasing primary 1 class sizes in the SNP-led South Lanarkshire council, increasing the charges for day centres for older people and increasing burial and cremation charges. If they are determined to continue with their unfair funding, my question to the cabinet secretary is which of those vital services will the Scottish Government consider to be dispensable? The cabinet secretary told the finance committee that government is about choice and priorities, and I absolutely agree. Just as I agree that austerity itself is a political choice, I think that I have been a bit too generous with my intervention. In closing, Presiding Officer, this draft budget is timid, it is weak and it fails to protect Scotland's vital public services. We have no confidence that the cabinet secretary for finance intends to bring forward proposals that will deliver the investment that our services need. It is for that reason that Labour cannot support the draft budget as it stands. A strong economy cabinet secretary needs strong public services. Scotland needs real change to deliver that, and a Government that is willing to stand up for public sector. Thank you very much, and that concludes our debate on public services. The next item of business is consideration of business motion 9925, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, on behalf of the bureau setting out a business programme. I would ask anyone who objects to say so now, and I call on Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion 9925. No member has asked to speak against the motion, therefore the question is that motion 9925 be agreed. Are we agreed? We are agreed. The next item of business is consideration of parliamentary bureau motion 9926, on sub-committee membership. I could ask Joe Fitzpatrick again to move the motion on behalf of the bureau. We come to decision time. I remind members that if the amendment in the name of Derek Mackay is agreed, then the amendment in the name of Murdo Fraser and Patrick Harvie would fall. The first question is in the name of Derek Mackay, who seeks to amend motion 9886, in the name of James Kelly on protecting public services, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. We will move to a vote, and members may cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment 9888.1 in the name of Derek Mackay is that, if the amendment in the name of Murdo Fraser is agreed, then the amendment in the name of Patrick Harvie will fall. The next question is that amendment 9888.4, in the name of Murdo Fraser, who seeks to amend the motion in the name of James Kelly, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. We move to a vote, and members may cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment 9888.4, in the name of Murdo Fraser, is yes, 29, no, 94. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed. The next question is the amendment 9888.3, in the name of Patrick Harvie, who seeks to amend the motion in the name of James Kelly, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. We will move to a division, and members may cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment 9888.3, in the name of Patrick Harvie, is yes, 67, no, 56. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore agreed. The next question is the amendment 9888.2, in the name of Willie Rennie, who seeks to amend the motion in the name of James Kelly, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. We will move to a vote, and members may cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment 9888.2, in the name of Willie Rennie, is yes, 27, no, 61. There were 35 abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed. The next question is that motion 9888, in the name of James Kelly, as amended, on protecting public services, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. We will move to a vote, and members may cast their votes now. The result of the vote on motion 9888, in the name of James Kelly, as amended, is yes, 67, no, 56. There were no abstentions. The motion, as amended, is therefore agreed. The final question is that motion 9926, in the name of Joseph Patrick, on sub-committee membership, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are all agreed, and that concludes decision time. We will move now to members' business, in the name of Joan McAlpine, on Robert Burns. We will just take a few moments for members to change seats.