Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]

Meeting date: Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Official Report 1027KB pdf

Budget (Scotland) (No 3) Bill: Stage 3

The next item of business is stage 3 proceedings of the Budget (Scotland) (No 3) Bill. In dealing with the amendments, members should have the bill as introduced, which is Scottish Parliament bill 41, the marshalled list and the groupings of amendments. The division bell will sound and proceedings will be suspended for around five minutes for the first division of stage 3. The period of voting for the first division will be 45 seconds and, thereafter, I will allow a voting period of one minute for the first division after a debate.

Members who wish to speak in the debate on any group of amendments should press their request-to-speak button or enter RTS in the chat as soon as possible after I call the group. Members should now refer to the marshalled list of amendments.

Schedule 1—The Scottish Administration

The single group of amendments is entitled “The Scottish Administration: reallocation of portfolio responsibilities and associated reallocation of resources”. Amendment 1, in the name of the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance, is grouped with amendments 2 to 7.

The seven amendments that we have proposed today simply update the bill to reflect the Cabinet changes that were announced by the First Minister on 8 February. Specifically, they amend two of the authorised purposes for which the Scottish Administration may use resources. Those are purposes 3 and 6 in schedule 1 to the bill. However, the amendments do not change the overall total of the 2024-25 Scottish budget.

Taken together, amendments 1 to 3 reflect the formation of the new wellbeing economy, net zero and energy portfolio, which replaces the previous wellbeing economy, fair work and energy portfolio. The authorised spend purposes are updated to include the non-transport spend from what was the transport, net zero and just transition portfolio. As a result, the authorised budget for the new portfolio is increased by £732,755,000 to £1,985,171,000.

Similarly, amendments 4 to 7 reflect the formation of the new transport portfolio, which replaces the previous transport, net zero and just transition portfolio. The authorised spend purposes are updated to remove the non-transport spend, which is now included in the new wellbeing economy, net zero and energy portfolio. The authorised budget for the new transport portfolio is reduced by £732,755,000 to £3,705,617,000 to take account of that.

I urge members to support the amendments in the group.

I move amendment 1.

Thank you, cabinet secretary. There are no requests to speak at this point. Would you like to wind up?

I do not think that there is any need.

Amendment 1 agreed to.

Amendments 2 to 7 moved—[Shona Robison]—and agreed to.

That ends consideration of amendments. As members will be aware, at this point in the proceedings, I am required under standing orders to decide whether, in my view, any provision of the bill relates to a protected subject matter—that is, whether it modifies the electoral system and franchise for Scottish parliamentary elections. It is my view that no provision of the Budget (Scotland) (No 3) Bill relates to a protected subject matter. Therefore, the bill does not require a supermajority to be passed at stage 3.