Chamber
Meeting of the Parliament 22 January 2014
22 Jan 2014 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament
Item of business
Budget (Scotland) (No 3) Bill: Stage 1
The Government has made absolutely clear its commitment to expanding the availability of childcare. In “Scotland’s Future”, we set out an ambition that it is essential to realise for Scotland, but only when we have the resources available to us. We believe that the type of transformational resources we need to take forward these issues will come when we have the normal powers of an independent country.
Alongside increasing childcare provision, we are continuing to place the delivery of better outcomes at the heart of the budget through our social contract with the people of Scotland. As I set out in September, the budget continues our work with our partners in local government to deliver a council tax freeze that will save the average household £1,200 by the end of this parliamentary session. It provides support to our students through our commitment to free higher education and a minimum income; maintains free personal care and support for concessionary travel and free prescriptions; and embeds the Scottish living wage in our public sector pay policy.
Moreover, earlier this month, we confirmed our intention to fund free school meals for all schoolchildren in primaries 1 to 3 from next January, which will be worth £330 a year for each child to families throughout the country. That investment, which will help to tackle poverty amongst our youngest children and ensure that every child has access to a hot meal every day, has been included in today’s budget bill and I hope that members will show their support for it in this evening’s vote.
This Government is delivering real support to deliver better outcomes for our people and to tackle some of the difficult issues that have arisen from the cuts to welfare provision. Alongside local government, we are again investing £40 million in the council tax reduction scheme, which has helped some 550,000 people who would otherwise have seen their bills increase and would have faced the risk of falling into arrears. We have allocated £33 million to the Scottish welfare fund and in September I confirmed £20 million of funding to help reduce the impact of the disastrous bedroom tax on the most vulnerable in our communities. As figures published yesterday show, more and more people affected by the bedroom tax are turning to local authorities for discretionary housing payments and our £20 million funding ensures that local authorities can pay the maximum allowable within the law to protect some of the most vulnerable in our society. This budget confirms that we will make that support available in 2014-15.
Although welfare policy and its funding are reserved to Westminster and although it is not an area in which we have legislative competence or for which we receive consequentials, I point out that, in order to mitigate the worst of Westminster’s cuts, our spending plans will take our investment in dealing with the implications of welfare reform to more than £244 million during the period 2013-14 to 2015-16.
Although there have been challenges in setting this year’s budget as a consequence of the macroeconomic failures of the UK Government and the budget cuts that it has imposed, it comes at a particularly exciting time for our nation, when the eyes of the world will be on Scotland. We will welcome visitors from across the globe to enjoy the Commonwealth games and the Ryder cup; we will have an opportunity to showcase Scotland to the world in the second year of homecoming; and, of course, on 18 September, the people of Scotland will have the opportunity to vote on our country’s future.
I have set out the principles of the Budget (Scotland) (No 3) Bill. The budget is based on the Government’s vision of a nation that is founded on the principles of fairness and prosperity and which demonstrates the benefits to it of decisions being taken in Scotland by those who care most about it: the people who live and work here.
I move,
That the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the Budget (Scotland) (No.3) Bill.
14:55
Alongside increasing childcare provision, we are continuing to place the delivery of better outcomes at the heart of the budget through our social contract with the people of Scotland. As I set out in September, the budget continues our work with our partners in local government to deliver a council tax freeze that will save the average household £1,200 by the end of this parliamentary session. It provides support to our students through our commitment to free higher education and a minimum income; maintains free personal care and support for concessionary travel and free prescriptions; and embeds the Scottish living wage in our public sector pay policy.
Moreover, earlier this month, we confirmed our intention to fund free school meals for all schoolchildren in primaries 1 to 3 from next January, which will be worth £330 a year for each child to families throughout the country. That investment, which will help to tackle poverty amongst our youngest children and ensure that every child has access to a hot meal every day, has been included in today’s budget bill and I hope that members will show their support for it in this evening’s vote.
This Government is delivering real support to deliver better outcomes for our people and to tackle some of the difficult issues that have arisen from the cuts to welfare provision. Alongside local government, we are again investing £40 million in the council tax reduction scheme, which has helped some 550,000 people who would otherwise have seen their bills increase and would have faced the risk of falling into arrears. We have allocated £33 million to the Scottish welfare fund and in September I confirmed £20 million of funding to help reduce the impact of the disastrous bedroom tax on the most vulnerable in our communities. As figures published yesterday show, more and more people affected by the bedroom tax are turning to local authorities for discretionary housing payments and our £20 million funding ensures that local authorities can pay the maximum allowable within the law to protect some of the most vulnerable in our society. This budget confirms that we will make that support available in 2014-15.
Although welfare policy and its funding are reserved to Westminster and although it is not an area in which we have legislative competence or for which we receive consequentials, I point out that, in order to mitigate the worst of Westminster’s cuts, our spending plans will take our investment in dealing with the implications of welfare reform to more than £244 million during the period 2013-14 to 2015-16.
Although there have been challenges in setting this year’s budget as a consequence of the macroeconomic failures of the UK Government and the budget cuts that it has imposed, it comes at a particularly exciting time for our nation, when the eyes of the world will be on Scotland. We will welcome visitors from across the globe to enjoy the Commonwealth games and the Ryder cup; we will have an opportunity to showcase Scotland to the world in the second year of homecoming; and, of course, on 18 September, the people of Scotland will have the opportunity to vote on our country’s future.
I have set out the principles of the Budget (Scotland) (No 3) Bill. The budget is based on the Government’s vision of a nation that is founded on the principles of fairness and prosperity and which demonstrates the benefits to it of decisions being taken in Scotland by those who care most about it: the people who live and work here.
I move,
That the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the Budget (Scotland) (No.3) Bill.
14:55
In the same item of business
The Deputy Presiding Officer (John Scott)
Con
The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-08794, in the name of John Swinney, on the Budget (Scotland) (No 3) Bill. 14:40
The Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth (John Swinney)
SNP
Last week, I introduced the Budget (Scotland) (No 3) Bill for 2014-15, which will give effect to the draft budget that I set out in September last year and t...
Gavin Brown (Lothian) (Con)
Con
In cash terms, has total Scottish Government spend ever been higher?
John Swinney
SNP
We have been through such questions before with Mr Brown. He fails to take into account the fact that there is natural inflation in all the costs that we wre...
Willie Rennie (Mid Scotland and Fife) (LD)
LD
As the cabinet secretary knows, we welcome the investment in two-year-olds as well as three and four-year-olds. I know that he has plans for the following fi...
John Swinney
SNP
The Government has made absolutely clear its commitment to expanding the availability of childcare. In “Scotland’s Future”, we set out an ambition that it is...
Iain Gray (East Lothian) (Lab)
Lab
Our criticism of the budget that is before us, ever since it was published in draft, has been consistently less about what can be seen in it and more about w...
John Swinney
SNP
Would Iain Gray accept that if I had followed the approach that he is talking about, I would have had to allow business rates in Scotland to increase and fre...
Iain Gray
Lab
We certainly argued that, given the choice between two good things—the free school meals and the increase in childcare—we would have preferred to prioritise ...
John Swinney
SNP
I agree with Mr Gray about the iniquity of the bedroom tax, but why is he in cahoots with the Conservatives and the Liberals in the better together campaign,...
Iain Gray
Lab
Let me come to agreement and disagreement across the chamber on that.Protecting tenants would be a start, which is why Jackie Baillie has a bill before the P...
Jamie Hepburn (Cumbernauld and Kilsyth) (SNP)
SNP
Will the member give way?
Iain Gray
Lab
No, I am sorry.Local authorities have seen rent arrears soar, which means cuts elsewhere in already stretched services. The consequences for housing associat...
Kevin Stewart (Aberdeen Central) (SNP)
SNP
Will Mr Gray give way?
Iain Gray
Lab
No, I am sorry. I need to get on to the point that Mr Swinney raised. I will get to it.However, at least half of the households affected are getting no help ...
John Swinney
SNP
Can Mr Gray take this opportunity to explain to the Parliament the mechanism that would allow us to pay that additional resource to the individuals to remove...
Iain Gray
Lab
I will come to that.We believe that Mr Swinney could do more. In December and again today Mr Swinney argued that he has gone as far as he can under UK legisl...
Kevin Stewart
SNP
Will the member give way?
Iain Gray
Lab
No, I am sorry.We even have the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland assuring us publicly that the Scottish Government can fully mitigate the impact of the ...
John Swinney
SNP
Oh, well. There we are, then.
The Deputy Presiding Officer
Con
Order, please. Interventions are best not made from a sedentary position.
Iain Gray
Lab
We should do that, because the truth is that the Labour benches and the Government benches agree on the matter. We agree that the bedroom tax is iniquitous. ...
Gavin Brown (Lothian) (Con)
Con
It is often worth looking at what happened in the equivalent debate a year ago, so yesterday I looked at the stage 1 debate on last year’s budget bill. The S...
John Swinney
SNP
What Mr Brown has to do to complete his explanation of what happened is to refer to the fact that the amount of borrowing that the UK Government is having to...
Gavin Brown
Con
I am not sure that Mr Swinney added much to the Scottish Government’s case with that particular speech. On the point about borrowing, he completely ignores t...
The First Minister (Alex Salmond)
SNP
Will the member take an intervention?
Gavin Brown
Con
I will in a minute.In 2008-09, according to the Scottish Government’s own budget—I say to Mr Swinney that it is on page 189—it had £31.9 billion to spend. In...
The First Minister
SNP
I admire Mr Brown for wishing away inflation, which he constantly does to try to make his point. I will pursue Mr Swinney’s point about whether the UK Govern...
Gavin Brown
Con
I know that the First Minister likes to filibuster during First Minister’s question time, but now he is filibustering during Opposition speeches—good grief. ...
The Deputy Presiding Officer
Con
Could we have a little bit of order, please?