Meeting of the Parliament 11 December 2024
Not at the moment, sir.
It is not easy. It is as a result of the dreadful inheritance that was left to us by the party opposite—the previous Conservative UK Government—that difficult decisions have had to be made to rebalance the public finances and deliver investment. The record investment is possible only because of those revenue-raising measures, including increasing employer national insurance contributions, ending VAT exemption on private school fees, and placing a proper windfall tax on oil and gas giants.
In the process of that UK budget, the SNP demanded £70 billion of additional spending, but, at every turn, it has opposed the means by which that money was raised. The SNP opposed £45 billion of revenue-raising measures, which meant that it demanded a net fiscal turnaround of £115 billion. Frankly, that is incredible.
Last week, the SNP came to the chamber and told us what it would spend the money on. This week, the Conservatives are calling for what they want the money to be spent on. However, neither party is prepared to accept any of the means by which the money was raised in the first place.
The draft budget was a missed opportunity—but certainly not in the way that Craig Hoy thinks. It is clear that Scotland is going in the wrong direction. Just this week, the figures show that teacher numbers fell by 621, that one in three children is routinely missing school, that A and E performance is at its worst point since January, and that GP numbers are falling.
Two weeks ago, Aberdeen royal infirmary was forced to declare a critical incident and divert ambulances. The Queen Elizabeth university hospital in Glasgow is in a similar situation. All that is before the worst of winter bites. However, the First Minister insists that there is no need for a new direction.
Authoritative voices such as the Auditor General for Scotland, the Scottish Fiscal Commission and the Fraser of Allander Institute tell us again and again about the looming risks to Scotland’s public finances that challenges such as an ageing population and the climate crisis pose. Those challenges mean that change is needed. It is not just a case of spending more money but spending the money differently and doing things differently.
Last month, the Auditor General was excoriating in his criticism of the Scottish Government’s failure to deliver the necessary leadership to deliver a programme of reform. On the NHS, he said that
“fundamental change in how NHS services are provided is now urgently needed.”
The budget was a wasted opportunity to set a new direction—to signal that the Scottish Government was listening to the Auditor General’s increasingly exasperated warnings. However, responses to the budget were clear that it does nothing to address those challenges. David Phillips of the Institute for Fiscal Studies said:
“It does not inspire confidence that much-needed reform will actually happen.”
Roz Foyer, the general secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress, said that the budget
“fails to tackle the big, transformative challenges Scotland faces and dodged the critical decisions we needed to see”,
and that it is
“designed to set up the government for victory rather than set up Scotland for transformational change.”
The Fraser of Allander Institute concluded that
“difficult decisions have been kicked into the future rather than planned for.”
This budget will not deliver the new direction that our public services so obviously need. While the Tories, frankly, have lost the plot, the SNP has lost its way.
I move, as an amendment to motion S6M-15792, to leave out from “believes” to end and insert:
“rejects wholly any attempt to pit vulnerable groups in Scottish society against one another for political ends; welcomes an additional £5 billion of investment in Scotland as a result of the UK Labour administration’s Budget; regrets that the Scottish National Party (SNP) administration has had to use its draft Budget for 2025-26 to correct many of the mistakes that it made in its Budget for 2024-25; notes that the Auditor General, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Fraser of Allander Institute have variously criticised the SNP administration’s failure to reform public services, and further notes with concern the SNP administration’s failure to address the challenges to long-term fiscal sustainability and its absence of a vision to improve outcomes for people across Scotland.”
15:14Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.