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I concede that it is presently hard to do so, but we could start to compete if we made ourselves competitive. That is why the Scottish Conservatives argued to lower tax in Scotland, so that we would have a competitive advantage over south-east England.

Due to the uncertainty over which heating technologies will prevail in the decarbonisation process, colleges, employers and the private sector say that there is a reluctance to invest in large-scale training for young people in new skills such as the installation and maintenance of heat pumps. Has the Government explored the possibility of redirecting ScotWind moneys towards decarbonising the public estate rather than committing them to the crowded renewables investment market? That would surely create the surety of demand to pump prime skills and college places for those who would be needed in a large-scale roll-out of renewable heating in Scotland.

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions the net zero secretary has had with ministerial colleagues on how to ensure the delivery of the workforce required to deliver its net zero targets, including through discussions with Skills Development Scotland and colleges. (S6O-04115)

The minister needs to learn a lesson. Yesterday, we found out that there are fewer teachers and doctors, but I know that, under the SNP, there are more spin doctors.

In its budget response, the Scottish Fiscal Commission points to a clear set of public pay risks in this year’s budget. We welcome the fact that, unlike last year, the Scottish Government has published a public sector pay policy, but the Government is proposing a 9 per cent package over three years, which is two points higher than the inflation estimate. That is, in itself, a risk, given that the Government says that its revenue budget position remains very tight.

However, although the budget makes provision for pay awards, it makes no provision for pay progress—in other words, for people who are moving up pay scales. According to the Scottish Fiscal Commission, that leaves a 1.5 per cent black hole in the SNP’s pay plans. The question for the cabinet secretary, when she speaks, is how she intends to pay for it, because the Government plans make no reference to reducing the head count. The Scottish Parliament information centre briefing that was given to the Finance and Public Administration Committee makes it clear that the budget constraint is compounded by staff costs. In other words, public sector pay is simply not sustainable under this SNP Administration.

We give a cautious welcome to the £30 million for a programme of public sector reform, but we do not necessarily need to spend money in order to save money. We will look closely at the plans when the Minister for Public Finance brings them forward next year.

In reality, how committed is the SNP Government to delivering meaningful public sector reform? Will it now remove quangos that duplicate work? Will it reduce core civil service head count, which has risen significantly since Covid? Will it wage a war on waste? If so, that £30 million will be well spent.

Let us look at what SNP waste looks like in this budget alone. There is £60 million for the woke equalities and human rights portfolio. There is £50 million for Ferguson Marine (Port Glasgow) Ltd this year, even though the ferries were meant to be completed two years ago.

For the record, can the cabinet secretary state how much she is receiving from the UK Government to extend rates relief to the Scottish retail, leisure and hospitality sectors and how much of that she is spending in the budget?

No. I do not have time.

In the budget, there is up to £50 million for a national care service that even SNP councils no longer support, and there is £8 million for baby boxes that many new parents do not want, need or use.

There is £5.5 million for fake foreign embassies and £12.8 million for a foreign aid budget, although foreign aid is a reserved matter. There is £5.5 million for external affairs policy and advice and £2 million for a Scottish Land Commission that is crammed full of SNP cronies.

Presiding Officer, unpicking the budget reveals that, under the SNP, the benefits bill is now unsustainable, with the Scottish Fiscal Commission warning that it will reach £9 billion within five years. Even before the Scottish Government removes the two-child benefit cap, nearly £1.5 billion more is being spent on benefits than the Scottish Government is receiving in the block grant.

In evidence to the Finance and Public Administration Committee yesterday, the Scottish Fiscal Commission revealed that the adult disability benefits bill is to surge by hundreds of millions of pounds because of the “soft touch” system that underpins it. Professor David Ulph said that sick Scots are staying on benefits longer than people in the rest of the UK, with the DWP removing claimants on review in England at a rate of 18 per cent, compared with just 2 per cent coming off disability benefit in Scotland. That poses what Professor Ulph described as a significant risk in terms of the sustainability of benefits in Scotland.

As the SNP benefits bill soars, the budget continues to be cut in core areas. The enterprise budget is down £33 million; £110 million has been taken from rail services in cash terms; there have been reductions in cash terms to drug and alcohol services; and there has been a council settlement that fails to make up for last year’s council tax freeze and a decade of cuts, which will force many councils to increase council tax next year.

It is clear that the Government has more money than ever before, but what the Government is going to do with it is less clear, as the Fraser of Allander Institute has recognised.

We welcome the increased funding for health, but more money alone will not solve the crisis in our national health service. It needs leadership and it needs a delivery plan. That is something that is evident from today’s headlines. The Herald has “Number of NHS GPs in Scotland drops again”. The Daily Mail says that accident and emergency delays are evidence of NHS collapse, and The Scotsman headline says, “Bed blocking high nine years since SNP pledged to end it”.

Therefore, whether this budget cuts funding or increases it, we know that, under the SNP, our public services are only getting worse.

The budget is bad for business, it is bad for taxpayers and it is bad for Scotland. That is why the SNP urgently needs to change course to back our pro-growth tax cuts, to reform public services and to restore sustainability to Scotland’s public finances.

I move,

That the Parliament believes that the draft Scottish Budget 2025-26 will not deliver good value for taxpayers; notes its continuation of the Scottish National Party administration’s high-tax agenda, which has damaged economic growth in Scotland; condemns funding for free bus travel for asylum seekers, which could have instead been used to provide 6,600 pensioners in Scotland with a full Winter Heating Payment, and calls on the Scottish Government to cut income tax to 19% for those earning up to £43,662, introduce full business rates relief for pubs and restaurants across Scotland for 2025-26, and raise the threshold at which house buyers pay residential Land and Buildings Transaction Tax to £250,000.

Will the minister give way?

We are getting the cheap insults in early. What I heard yesterday was the Scottish Fiscal Commission issuing to the Scottish Government a series of warnings on tax and spending.

Our plans do not only set out tax cuts for workers. We also set out tax cuts for home buyers, many of whom Scottish estate agency Galbraith Group say are “shocked” when the Scottish National Party’s property tax bill lands on their doorsteps. Our fully costed move would save Scottish house buyers an average of £800, and would take 70 per cent of transactions out of the tax regime altogether.

I will make some progress, then give way shortly.

That policy would mean more money for young families who are getting their homes together and less for the SNP to waste on pet projects and fringe obsessions.

We did not just set out plans that would cut taxes for workers: our plans would also cut tax for many pensioner households, too—households that are forgotten by Labour and which were cynically dropped from the SNP’s budget this year. As winter approaches, I agree with the SNP that it was Labour that originally scrapped the winter fuel payment, but despite its attempt to grab headlines, the SNP then scrapped it, too, and has not restored it. Many pensioners this winter will get nothing at all, and will get only £100 next year.

As the mercury dips, what is different about the temperatures this winter compared with those next winter? Is it that the SNP calculated that by next year, the election campaign will be well under way? Does the SNP really think that it is okay for pensioners to freeze at home this winter, but that somehow they do not need to do so in an election year? Yes—we should be looking to save £2 million from free bus travel for asylum seekers this year if, at the same time, the SNP is taking the winter fuel payment off our pensioners.

We need to look to business to drive growth in Scotland, so that is why we do not just propose cutting taxes for average Scots—we also want to undo the damage that the SNP has done to many Scottish businesses. Across Scotland, retail, hospitality and leisure businesses are struggling because footfall is down, costs are up and the SNP is clobbering them with more red tape.

Now, Scottish Labour has dealt business another blow—a national insurance tax on jobs in sectors in which the wages bill is often by far the biggest cost. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed out, that national insurance tax will also fall on workers through lower wage growth.

That is why we want to mitigate the cost of Labour and the SNP with a tax cut for many businesses next year, by passing on the 40 per cent rates relief to shops and leisure businesses. We also want a game-changing, uncapped 100 per cent all-in relief for our pubs and restaurants. That would benefit nearly 3,500 pubs and 3,300 restaurants in Scotland. Instead, the Scottish Government’s budget offers relief only to small businesses with a rateable value of £51,000 and less, and only at the 40 per cent rate. Surely what the industry deserves now is a shot in the arm, so I hope that ministers might think again about extending relief during the coming budget negotiations.

Let us turn to some of the key areas in the budget. The SNP is right to press the United Kingdom Government for an uplift to cover the costs of the national insurance contributions increase. Whether the UK Government will do that is still unclear, but it is clear that the Scottish Government pays civil servants higher wages than they are paid elsewhere in the UK, and that there are more of them per capita. The national insurance increase bites harder into the public finances as a result of the SNP’s policy decisions on the shape and size of its civil service.

Last week’s budget continues on a path that has been well trodden by the Scottish National Party—more tax, more excuses, poorer public services and an abundance of smoke and mirrors to mask the absence of economic growth.

The SNP has form: it repeatedly seeks to evade responsibility for its actions. Our motion sets out the choices that the SNP could make—decisions that would be in Scotland’s national interests, not in the SNP’s interests.

However, as always, SNP ministers never learn. They focus on inputs, not on outcomes. The Scottish Government’s high-tax agenda repeatedly fails to deliver value for money for ordinary Scots. It fails to deliver better public services, and it fails to deliver public service reform.

Despite Scotland’s record-high taxes, the tax take continues to be weak. The SNP has imposed £1.7 billion more in income tax, but the net tax position is expected to be only £800 million. The Scottish Fiscal Commission says that that is an “economic performance gap” under the SNP.

In contrast, we set out plans to improve our economic performance through fully costed tax cuts for ordinary Scots, including for bus drivers, nurses and teachers. The average Scottish worker would be £222 a year better off. Nearly 2.7 million people would get a real cut in their income tax bill. Compare that with the SNP’s cynical move to freeze the lower tax threshold last week, which saves most taxpayers just £1 a month. It is a pound-shop budget from a pound-shop Government.