Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 25 February 2021
If that is Bruce Crawford’s final speech, he will be a huge loss to the Parliament. He has made an immense contribution to political life in Scotland. [Applause.] I have always admired his persistent, polite and respectful approach to politics, despite the strain that he has faced on some occasions. I wish him well in the future.
The Liberal Democrats will vote for the budget at stage 1. We will support it because of the gains that we secured from the finance secretary and which she announced in her statement to the Parliament last week: £120 million for mental health to make spending up to £1.2 billion, which was a goal that we set to address the mental health crisis; additional funds for education to help pupils bounce back from the loss of schooling in the pandemic; and more support for businesses that are on their knees in lockdown.
Those are the priorities that we set out to Kate Forbes in our discussions. She followed through in her statement last week and we are grateful for that; that is sufficient to secure our support at stage 1. The finance secretary knows however, because I have told her, that we are on the hunt for more from the next stages of the budget. We suspect that more funds will come from the Chancellor in his budget in March, and we know the finance secretary is wise and will have kept funds back for future negotiations. We know that more money will be available.
We will be looking for support for local government, which stepped up during the pandemic when it mattered most but which continues to be at the rough end of the Government’s priorities. Local government has faced a cut to its capital budget just when investment is required. It has been compensated for the council tax freeze, but the support is not enough and is not built into the budgets for future years.
We will be looking to address the unfairness of the funding for the north-east of Scotland. We want more support for businesses and people who have been left behind, especially those in the tourism sector.