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The independent Accounts Commission has confirmed that the Scottish Government provided a real-terms funding increase to local government this year and in 2023-24 and 2022-23.

The 2025-26 Scottish budget will provide local government in Scotland with record funding of more than £15 billion. If Opposition parties support the budget, the local government settlement will increase by more than £1 billion, which represents a real-terms increase of 4.7 per cent compared with 2024-25.

As I said earlier, if the budget is supported, the local government settlement will increase by more than £1 billion—a real-terms increase of 4.7 per cent compared with 2024-25. For South Lanarkshire Council, that would deliver an increase of £63.2 million to support vital day-to-day services, which is an additional 8.5 per cent compared with the 2024-25 budget.

—about any reforms and changes that they want to make, and I would be happy to have that discussion with Aberdeenshire Council.

The independent Accounts Commission would disagree with Pam Gosal’s assessment; it showed that we provided a real-terms funding increase to local government last year, which was 2023-24, and the year before that, which was 2022-23.

Pam Gosal has the same problem as Meghan Gallacher, in coming to the chamber to ask, apparently, for more money for local government—which, I have to add, was not raised by her party’s finance spokesperson in our meetings—when the leader of her party in this place wants there to be £1 billion less in the budget. She cannot have more money for local government—or anything else, for that matter—if her party is proposing £1 billion less in the budget because it wants to provide unaffordable and uncosted tax cuts. Tory back benchers have to address that problem before they come here asking for more money.

In 2025-26, local authorities in the north-east of Scotland will receive £1.79 billion, as part of our record £15 billion settlement to fund local services and meet local needs. That equates to an extra £125.5 million, which is an additional 7.5 per cent compared with the funding that was provided in 2024-25.

First, the funding formula is agreed with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the 32 organisations that compose local government. Therein lies the rather big challenge in relation to changes to any funding formula.

I would note, however, that the funding floor provides an opportunity to address and recognise changes to census data, for example. I took the decision to amend the funding floor for 2025-26 in recognition of that.

In 2025-26, Aberdeenshire Council will receive £615.3 million to fund local services, which is an extra £42.5 million, or an additional 7.4 per cent, compared with 2024-25. All councils are also getting additional capital funding. I am always keen to talk to local authorities—

The draft budget includes investment of £768 million for the affordable housing supply programme in 2025-26. That will help to tackle the housing emergency while contributing to our target of 110,000 affordable homes by 2032.

The budget prioritised capital spending to eliminate child poverty, grasp the opportunities of net zero, boost economic growth and maintain high-quality public services and infrastructure. Therefore, delivering more affordable homes for families with children living below the poverty line was very much a priority.

I certainly agree that any additional employer national insurance contribution costs that are not fully funded by the United Kingdom Government will deprive front-line services of vital funding, to the detriment of local communities. I confirm that the First Minister and the president of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, supported by a range of organisations, wrote jointly to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 3 January.

On the issue of PPP repayments, the Scottish Futures Trust continues to work with authorities to assist them in making savings and improving performance across private finance initiative and PPP contracts, while ensuring that contractual obligations are delivered and that contracts are affordable and provide best value for money for the taxpayer. However, that is a legacy from the previous Labour Administration that we could well have done without.

I agree with every word of that. A decade of Conservative Party austerity measures left public services with very little resilience, and the facts about what has happened to English local authorities speak for themselves. The Scottish Government had to take very difficult decisions to protect local services and ensure that communities across Scotland continued to receive high-quality public front-line services. Although those were difficult decisions, the independent Accounts Commission confirmed, as I said in my previous answer to Pam Gosal, that the Scottish Government has provided a real-terms funding increase to local government in the past three years. Tory members might not like facts, but those are the facts.

He was referring primarily to income tax rates and bands in order to give certainty.