Meeting of the Parliament 15 December 2022
Rather unusually, Presiding Officer, I begin by thanking you for taking the matter of the leaking of the budget to the press very seriously. There is no doubt that it was a very considerable discourtesy to Parliament, and one that I have never come across before in my time in this place. As a result of that, it has been extremely difficult for Opposition members to view the budget. I am sure that there are members across the chamber who will want you to fully investigate why that was allowed to happen.
I again acknowledge the very tight fiscal circumstances confronting the cabinet secretary as he has embarked upon making the tough decisions that he has outlined, but it is about time that John Swinney stopped blaming the UK Government for every single predicament in which he finds himself. He has had more money at his disposal than he has been prepared to admit and, as the Fraser of Allander Institute reminded us at the weekend, the block grant money from the UK Government more or less covered the inflationary pressures on him.
Mr Swinney also knows that—discounting all the additional Covid spend from the UK Government in the previous two years—he has had record block grant funding from the UK Government for the current financial year and that the Scottish Government will receive an additional £1.6 billion of resource spending in the next two financial years, which will give direct support to our schools and hospitals.
Mr Swinney tells us today that the Scottish Government has been forced into using its own powers to the greatest extent. Those powers have been there throughout the whole time that the SNP has been in government, but it has not been using them to deliver on the clear priorities of the Scottish people: supporting household incomes and jobs; sustained and consistent support for our business and high streets; and the delivery of our public services. Many of those services are delivered by local government, which we know recently wrote a very strong letter to John Swinney outlining the extent of the huge pressures that it is under as a result of the SNP cutting funding over several years.
If Mr Swinney raises taxes, the public will want to know why they see only cuts and a deterioration in the delivery of public services. If he widens the tax gap for middle and higher earners in Scotland in comparison with their UK counterparts, he risks undermining the potential for economic growth that this country so desperately needs.
The Scottish Conservatives very much look forward to the forthcoming stage 1 process, in which we will set out where Mr Swinney can further reprioritise money to front-line services, including local government, policing and net zero. That is a re-prioritisation that means withdrawing the huge spending commitment to the national care service, which very few stakeholders want at all, and removing the commitment to a bogus referendum.
In the meantime, what analysis has Mr Swinney undertaken of the likely impact on tax revenues and on economic growth in Scotland that will result from middle and higher-income earners paying more tax per head than their counterparts in the rest of the UK, given that we know from the Scottish Fiscal Commission that the devolved tax powers used so far by the Scottish Government have not delivered any more tax revenue than would have been the case had taxes been set by Westminster?
Secondly, I note that the total budget for education and skills has been increased for the coming year by just under £100 million. As I understand it, that is not the full extent of the Barnett consequentials delivered to the Scottish Government for education. Will Mr Swinney confirm where the rest of that money is? It may be in local government budgets, but it is important that that is spent on education.
It is obviously very good news indeed that the Scottish Government has finally withdrawn the £20 million that was to be spent on an independence referendum. As well as reprioritising that money, has Mr Swinney also reprioritised the activities of the 25 civil servants who were working on it?