Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 24 February 2021
My colleague, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Kate Forbes, engages thoroughly and regularly with local government to take account of the pressures on councils. That is why we have responded in the way that we have done, by ensuring that we can route money and support to local government in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
I will set out a number of other ways in which we have endeavoured to provide some further flexibility. The settlement not only gives local authorities the resources and flexibility to respond to the new challenges that the pandemic has created, but provides a continued fiscal certainty that does not exist in England, through our policy of guaranteeing the combined general revenue grant plus non-domestic rates revenues. We are the only devolved Government to have committed to extend Covid-19 business rates reliefs into 2021-22, replacing £719 million of non-domestic rates income with additional revenue grant of the same amount to effectively underwrite that critically important revenue stream for councils.
We have jointly agreed a lost income stream with councils, and, taken together with the additional fiscal flexibilities that were announced on 8 October, the total value of the Covid-19 support package for councils is up to almost £1.8 billion in this year and next. While Scottish local authorities have enjoyed a cash-terms revenue budget increase of 3.6 per cent in the period from 2013 to 2020, English local authority counterparts have, by contrast, faced a cash-terms revenue budget reduction of 14.7 per cent in the same period. The Tories have a brass neck, therefore, to come to the chamber arguing for one thing while their counterparts and colleagues in London are doing quite another. However, they have form on that—they turn a blind eye to poverty while local and national Government here have to mitigate and mop up the mess of the austerity that the Tories pursue with political rigour.
It is a pity, therefore, that the Tories do not pursue with the same rigour the flexibilities, and the fiscal framework review, for which this Government has asked the UK Government many times, in order to ensure that we can put in place the correct and adequate response to what we are going through now with Covid and beyond.
The Scottish Government will continue in our shared endeavour with local government to work hard for the communities of Scotland. We will continue to treat local government fairly and to empower councils as best we can. We will continue to reject the negative narrative from the Tories, who do one thing here and quite another in London, and we will continue to proceed on a path of fairness and equality for all.
I move amendment S5M-24206.3, to leave out from “will automatically” to end and insert:
“is developed in partnership with local government and that reflects the ambition of the Local Governance Review to devolve more power to a more local level.”
16:18Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.