Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 09 March 2021
Daniel Johnson is right that no one wants to see squabbling during a global pandemic. Our quiet work has secured a reprioritisation of £300 million towards mental health support, the education bounce-back plan, the economy and jobs, support for the north-east on the just transition, and the environment.
The public expect us to work together because these are exceptional times. We are in the middle of a global pandemic in which thousands of people have lost their lives, thousands more have lost their jobs and people live with restrictions every day. We need to put recovery first and have a needle-sharp focus on it, which we have sought to do. We have done that over the past year by working with the Government whenever we could. Members know me—I am Mr Consensual. The only thing that makes me have doubts is Jackie Baillie silently giving me the scolding look across the chamber that I know many others have experienced recently, too.
We have tried to make a difference in the budget. It is not perfect, but we are pleased and proud that we have increased the mental health budget by £120 million to £1.2 billion. We got steps in the right direction on the Princess Alexandra eye pavilion, which we will watch closely. There is £60 million for the bounce-back plan in education, plus £20 million for the pupil equity fund premium. There is £5 million for agri-environment schemes. We were pleased that the finance secretary accepted the Conservatives’ proposal on 100 per cent rates relief for businesses, which is a step in the right direction. The support for bed and breakfasts and self-catering accommodation is another step in the right direction. For councils, there is £90 million next year to protect services in future years and avoid massive council tax increases.
All those things are good. I am particularly pleased about the support fund for skills and retraining in the north-east, which I might call the Mike Rumbles fund. That will help with the just transition from oil and gas and represents another important set of proposals. We argued for all those things.
Another thing that I agree with Daniel Johnson on is social care workers’ pay. We need to make a substantial change; we cannot accept simply superficial changes to change the name to national care service and expect everything to be resolved. We need to pay such workers more.
The past year has shown that the social care sector is not robust and strong enough. The sector’s high staff turnover alone should tell us that we need substantial changes. We must all work together to re-engineer the budget substantially so that we can pay those people more. They have sacrificed their lives in the past year. We must make a difference in the next parliamentary session to get a decent rate of pay for them.
I thank the finance secretary for her co-operative approach. She is no-nonsense—she likes to be straight, honest and up front on her proposals, and I appreciated her approach. As a result, we have a better budget. We have avoided the squabbling, got the budget going through and put money in people’s pockets when they need it. The last thing that people wanted from the Parliament was for us to continue to argue while people struggle in their daily lives.
There is £300 million extra for priorities that Liberal Democrats set out. We can support that.
18:04