Meeting of the Parliament 28 January 2025
Scotland’s public services are the foundation of our society. Through our public services, we ensure that all individuals, regardless of their background or circumstances, have access to essential resources and support. Our front-line services play a vital role in all our lives, providing quality education to our children and young people, supporting our most vulnerable people through social care services, and improving the wellbeing of the people of Scotland.
We saw a key example of that this past weekend. Our public services were critical in responding to the challenges that were posed by storm Éowyn. The role that they played in protecting the wellbeing of our communities cannot be overstated. From emergency services to health and social care teams, their dedication and co-ordination ensured that individuals were supported and that essential services continued to operate. I extend our deepest thanks to all those who worked relentlessly to keep us safe during the storm.
That is exactly why, in June last year, the Parliament recognised the importance of maintaining high-quality services and the need for public service investment. I am proud that the 2025-26 Scottish budget does exactly that, including investing £21.7 billion for health and social care and more than £15 billion for local government.
The Government committed to listening to the priorities of Opposition parties as we shaped the 2025-26 budget, to offer a budget by Scotland for Scotland. Our approach ensured that the budget that was presented on 4 December not only delivers on those requests but, above all, fulfils the expectations of the people of Scotland.
Since the draft budget was presented in December, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government and the Minister for Public Finance have continued to engage constructively with all parties.
I am pleased to say that, as confirmed in the finance secretary’s letter to the Finance and Public Administration Committee this morning, the Scottish Greens and the Scottish Liberal Democrats have indicated their intention to support the Budget (Scotland) (No 4) Bill throughout its parliamentary passage.
This Government is proud of the successes in Scotland’s public services, including the best-performing core accident and emergency departments in the United Kingdom, record levels of young people progressing to positive destinations, and police-recorded crimes at one of the lowest levels since 1974, to name but a few.
This Government is also clear about the challenges that our public services face. In recent times, our nation has faced an unprecedented range of challenges, including the Covid pandemic, prolonged Westminster austerity, Brexit, the war in Ukraine and high inflation. Those difficult challenges have all put our hard-working public services staff under significant and prolonged pressure.
Although the increase in funding from the new UK Government’s autumn budget is welcome, after inflation, it equates to only around 1 per cent growth in our resource budget—the budget that is used to pay for our public services. Therefore, significant financial pressures and challenges remain.
At the same time, the chancellor has announced an increase in employer national insurance contributions, which will increase the cost of delivering public services. We estimate that this change could add over £500 million in costs for directly employed public sector staff in Scotland and, if we include the costs of wider staff who are delivering public services, such as general practitioners, dentists and those working in hospices, that figure increases to over £700 million.