Meeting of the Parliament 21 February 2023
I remind members of my entry in the register of members’ interests: I am married to a teacher who is a member of the Educational Institute of Scotland trade union.
Throughout the budget process, we have been straight with the Deputy First Minister. I am grateful, as Liz Smith was, for the access that he has given us. We approached those discussions in good faith: I deployed the legendary good will of Willie Rennie during the stage 1 debate. If the budget package was right, we would support it. We stood by that principle. We have voted for previous budgets and we voted for this year’s income tax resolution.
During our meetings, I was very clear with the Deputy First Minister about the different choices that Liberal Democrats would make. I talked constructively about the issues that we care about. It is only right to give credit regarding the one issue on which the Government seems to have heeded us, but it is only one issue. There is a commitment to funding ferries for our island communities. When I met members of Shetland Islands Council a couple of weeks ago, they pointed out that the cost of running their ageing ferry fleet has gone up by £5 million. I do not doubt the magnitude of their ask and I hope that the Government will not cut that quantum.
The Government has not budgeted to the degree required to win our full support: the budget is just not good enough. There are decisions that we cannot overlook and that is a cause of some regret. It is essential to step up efforts to resolve the crisis in our social care sector. That would reduce delayed discharges and relieve some of the pressure, disruption and cost that is being heaped on the national health service.
Despite the evidence in reports from many committees of the Parliament and from local government, trade unions, charities and front-line workers, the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill has still not been abandoned. This budget was an opportunity to make progress with national bargaining and to deliver fair work years ahead of the SNP and Greens’ current schedule. The budget was an opportunity to put money into front-line services and staff, instead of putting down a significant deposit on a vast and unnecessary £1 billion bureaucracy. I was pleased to see that at least one of the SNP leadership contenders—as we have heard already—has recognised that the bill must be halted. I suspect that others in the SNP quietly agree.
When the NHS recovery plan was launched, one in five children were waiting too long for mental health treatment. The figure is now one in three. Young people are still battling with the long shadow of lockdown, and the rising cost of living is but adding to the pressure. To freeze the mental health budget on top of the £38 million cut this year is a recipe for more missed targets and scandalously long waits. This is the Government that promised to clear mental health waiting lists for children by March. That is next week, and we are nowhere.
I am still disappointed that, throughout the 158 pages of the draft budget, there is not one word on long Covid, nor was there anything on it in the Deputy First Minister’s remarks. Almost 200,000 people are suffering that debilitating condition, and the country is suffering, too. We have a downturn, low productivity and labour shortages. Scotland needs the talents of everyone to grow the economy and to make our country fairer, but we have uncovered that the Government is turning down requests from health boards for more money to help with long Covid—cash that could have helped people to get well and get on with life.
I turn to education. There can be few more pressing issues than that of the school gates being locked because of strike action. It is the last thing that our teachers want, but the Government has left them no other choice. School pupils have already lost 2.1 million days of education during this dispute alone. That is on top of the huge disruption that was caused to them in two years of pandemic lockdowns, and it will double if an agreement is not reached. All the while, life-qualifying exams come over the horizon.
I mentioned in my intervention on Mr Johnson that the Deputy First Minister announced with some fanfare the increase in budget to allow for an 11.3 per cent increase over two years. However, I need not remind you, Deputy First Minister, that inflation is a year-on-year event, and if it is 14 per cent this year and 14 per cent next year, the provision of 11.3 per cent over two years is asking our teachers to take a significant pay cut last year and a much bigger one next year. It just will not wash.
To get Scottish education back on track, we need to get the basics right. That means boosting pay and conditions for staff, permanent contracts, more time for lesson planning, and cuts to class sizes so that pupils get the support that they deserve. Instead, we still have a Government spending £17 million every year on national testing for children as young as four and five. We have a budget that School Leaders Scotland says will lead to class sizes increasing and subjects being removed from the curriculum.
The announcement a fortnight ago of a fresh regime of penalties further undermines local government. The education secretary is treating councils like an enemy that is determined to cut teacher numbers. That is nobody’s wish. The way to protect teacher numbers is to properly resource our local government and education departments.
The IFS said that, even if council tax is increased by 5 per cent, local authorities will still face significant real-terms cuts to their budgets, even with the extra £100 million that has been announced today. My colleague Willie Rennie was exactly right when he intervened on the Deputy First Minister to say that the maths that the Government is using to underpin all this is disputed by COSLA, which is still staring down the barrel of some pretty significant cuts.
The fresh ring-fencing regime means even deeper cuts to housing, libraries, leisure centres, roads and waste. To be frank, I am surprised that the Green Party has gone along with this. It is a party that shared our belief in the European Charter of Local Self-Government, which says that the political and financial independence of local authorities must always be upheld. We agreed with the Greens that priorities and policies must be developed and delivered in partnership, and we were told that this Government would value the unique role of local government.
Finally, I want to say a word about capital spending. There is nothing in the budget that is moving the debate on when it comes to the urgent programme of public works that we need to insulate every home in Scotland. An extra £10 million a year is not going to cut the mustard. In the face of the climate emergency and surging costs of living, we need to insulate our homes in Scotland to help our people.