Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 25 February 2021
I assumed that we would hear from Bruce Crawford in the stage 3 debate on the budget but, if that was his last contribution as the convener of the Finance and Constitution Committee, I thank him for his work in that role. I think that those thanks will be echoed by members of all parties, including everyone who has served on the committee.
The Green approach to budgets has always focused on putting forward positive, workable proposals that seek to make improvements. Our work is the reason why there have not been the cuts to local government that the SNP has proposed since 2016. It is why Scotland has a fairer tax system, which the Greens alone proposed at the last election. It is why there has been progress on issues from marine protected areas to local rail, and from teachers’ pay to energy efficiency. It is also why free bus travel for under-19s will be introduced this year.
While others often seem to think that defeating the budget and throwing public services into crisis should be their objective, we know that winning improvement is the real objective. Although voting down a budget can be a necessary step, it should be a last resort.
This year, we have set out clear challenges for the Government, one of which is supporting household incomes—especially targeting those who are most in need. For goodness’ sake—if the Government can afford a council tax freeze, which will give the biggest savings to the wealthy, it must be able to take more progressive steps, too. Such steps might be taken via social security, by cutting other costs such as energy bills and public transport or, indeed, by ensuring fair public sector pay. It is not for any political party to undermine the role of unions by determining what they should accept, but it is clear that the Government will need to go further to meet reasonable demands.
We have also set out proposals to take forward a truly green recovery. All political parties talk a good game on that, but they then keep backing oil and gas, aviation, road building and all the failed priorities of the past. Those need to be replaced with investment in a sustainable future.
We have put those priorities to the Government. We do not yet have agreement, therefore we cannot yet support the budget bill and will abstain to allow it to proceed to stage 2. Such a situation was probably inevitable given that, yet again, the UK Government has delayed its own budget until after the Scottish budget has been published. It seems committed to wrecking its own fiscal framework.
I turn to the amendments. The Tory amendment refers to the “draft Budget”, which of course does not even exist. It also casts judgment on the settlement for local government before we know what the final position on that will be. As for the Labour amendment, I strongly support the call for fair pay for social care workers. However, Labour members know that no possible amendment to the budget could achieve that. The Scottish Government is not the employer of social care workers and cannot directly change their pay rate. As the campaign by Unite the union makes clear, if we are to achieve that we need national and sectoral bargaining that covers all care workers, which the Greens proposed in our green new deal for workers paper last year.
Scottish Greens will therefore abstain on the motion and on both amendments. We will continue to work toward budget amendments to achieve improvement for Scotland’s people, both in the immediate crisis in household incomes and in the long-term drive for a green recovery.