SNP PULL RABBIT OUT OF HAT AT LAST WITH BUDGET TO BENEFIT POOR FAMILIES

By Bill Heaney

The SNP turned water into wine with the Budget proposals they put before the Scottish Parliament yesterday.

Few people believed they could get themselves off the hook of 17 years of stagnation and scandal, but they did with their proposals to abolish the child allowance benefit cap, to freeze taxes and to pour £billions into the NHS in a bid to save Scotland’s failing hospitals.

The report of the SNP’s “rabbit out of a hat” proposals is in the previous item to this one in The Dumbarton Democrat and what follows here is what made the nation (well, most people) smile and sent the other parties home to think again.

Only begrudgers will remember what is being forecast as a small increase in council tax.

First Minister John Swinney, Finance Secretary Shona Robison, Conservative Craig Hoy, Scottish Labour’s Michael Marra MSP, Green Party MSP Ross Greer and Alba Party MSP Ash Regan.

The Scottish Budget will come before the Holyrood parliament to be voted on again early in the New Year and it will be carried into 2025 despite the criticism of the opposition parties.

Craig Hoy, finance spokesperson for the Scottish Conservatives, told MSPs that today’s budget was a chance for the SNP to set a new direction on tax and spending. It was an opportunity for John Swinney to undo some of the damage that he has done to Scotland over the past 17 years.

His face resembled a footballer whose team had just lost the match to a last minute goal – “The budget is just more of the same—inputs, not outputs, and half-hearted attempts to fix the problems that the SNP has created.

“The era of high tax and free spending is far from over. Once again, people in Scotland will pay more and get less.Thanks to the SNP, workers and businesses will pay more in tax, only for that money to be wasted by SNP ministers who let public services decline. What a boast it was today to say that, under a new policy, people will have a 12-month wait for an in-patient or out-patient appointment in our NHS. That is a scandal, and John Swinney’s fingerprints are all over it.”

He was dead right with that remark since most MSPs and observers of the dirty game that is politics knows that the Finance Secretary Shona Robison doesn’t have the political nous to pull off a coup of such magnitude.

Craig Hoy added: “The SNP’s economic mismanagement has held Scotland back. Is it not the reality that the only growth in the economy is in the size of the SNP Government and the scale of the black hole at the heart of its finances? The reality is that we are paying a heavy price for years of SNP waste on ferries, gender reforms, failed independence bids and a national care service that has already cost the nation £30 million [for the SNP’s national care plan which bombed].

“The benefits bill, which will rise by a further £800 million, is out of control because the Government cannot get people back into work. NHS waiting lists are so long that sick people are staying sick. The budget confirms that the SNP has wrecked public services. John Swinney is out of ideas, and his Government is running out of time.

“The NHS is on its knees and needs urgent reform, so we welcome today’s budget increase for healthcare, but our NHS needs more than money; it needs leadership and a serious plan from the Government. We have set out proposals to reduce bureaucracy so that more can be invested in accelerating treatment on the front line.

“Will the SNP make those necessary changes, or is its only solution more money, which has not reduced waiting lists one bit to date? Was the Auditor General for Scotland [Stephen Boyle] not right when he said that the Government has no vision for the NHS? The Government now has record levels of revenue and tax receipts, but it has no vision for Scotland, for our NHS or for economic growth. In fact, a £33 million cut to the enterprise budget was announced today.”

Scottish Labour’s Michael Marra was next on his feet – “The budget benefits from an additional £5.2 billion from the UK Labour Government. In July, the people of Scotland turned the page so that Labour could end austerity and take the tough decisions to deliver urgently needed investment in our public services.

“That means that today we have the opportunity to take a new direction in Scotland. It is not just a question of how we spend £5 billion; it is a question of how we spend an unprecedented £60 billion budget. It is an opportunity to deal with the country’s challenges and deliver better outcomes, rather than trumpeting a shopping list of inputs. If only the Scottish Government had the imagination to take that new direction.

“Instead, in recent days, the SNP has invited us to stretch our imaginations, to suspend disbelief and to accept that this is John Swinney’s first budget. The First Minister is supposedly now the fresh-faced ingénu of Scottish politics—a break from the past that he would like the country to forget. In reality, John Swinney has personally delivered 11 SNP budgets from that very spot, and for all that time they have hidden behind grievance and blaming a dreadful Tory Government.

“However, today must finally be the day when the excuses end, because today’s budget lands in the midst of a rapidly escalating crisis in our NHS, from Aberdeen to Glasgow and everywhere in between. The frost has barely bitten, but the predictable—indeed, predicted—crisis is unfolding.

“The Auditor General has set out in the starkest terms possible that that is a failure of this Government. He is repeating his warnings of 12 months ago with added feeling, and that feeling is that he is banging his head against a brick wall. It is abundantly clear that nothing of any effect has been done—no reform, no vision, no plan.”

Green Party finance spokesperson Ross Greer said: “The £4.9 billion for climate and nature sounds positive and I will read with interest what it contains, but it cannot be padded out with greenwashing.

“I am glad to see free bus travel for asylum seekers and free ferry travel for young islanders. Both those commitments were secured by the Greens when we were in government but were cut by the SNP this year, so I am glad that those cuts have been undone. I am also glad that the Government has agreed to the Green proposal to increase tax on the purchase of second and holiday homes.

“Despite the cabinet secretary’s claims, the budget contains a huge cut to core council services such as schools and social care. It fails to expand free school meals to pupils in primary 6 and P7. It cuts the nature restoration fund and the cycling, walking and safe routes funding, and the efforts to make homes warmer and greener fall short by £250 million.”

He added: “I will not dismiss the positive steps that have been taken, but does the Scottish Government accept that, if it wants Green support, significant further changes will be required? The budget will need to do much more for people and planet.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton accepted that there were some wothwhile initiatives in what Mr Swinney had proposed.

He said: “After 17 years, this country is badly off course and, if we are honest, we know that the only thing that will truly bring about the change that Scotland needs is a change of Government.

“In the meantime, Liberal Democrats will work hard to unpick some of the damage that has been done. It is right that the Government has listened to us and included spending on social care, affordable homes, insulation, winter fuel payments for pensioners, additional support needs, ferries and tunnels, GPs, dentists, long Covid, mental health, Edinburgh’s eye pavilion, the Belford hospital and business rate relief for hospitality. Liberal Democrats demanded spending for all those areas, and that is in the budget.

“However, let me be clear: that does not guarantee our support. As with all budgets, the devil will be in the detail, and we will look closely at that.

“In previous years, the SNP has done this dance many times. At the start of the process, it says that it has spent all the money, only to find huge amounts of cash down the back of the sofa as we move forward. Will the cabinet secretary dispense with that charade, be clear with Parliament now and tell us how much she has kept in reserve and what she is willing to do with it?”

Ash Regan, of the late Alex Salmond’s Alba Party, said: “I will start by sounding a cautious note of consensus with the Government. I believe that this budget is a step in the right direction. However, many Scottish households are under immense pressure, which is why, in my budget dealings, I sought to protect children and pensioners via winter fuel payments and extending free school meals. I welcome the progress that the Government has made on those two issues.

“However, the Government promised in 2021 to provide free school meals for all primary school children, and this budget does not deliver on that commitment. Why not?”

Ms Regan may well get her wish on free school meals since they would be a vote winner, and 2026 is an election year.

She opened the door then for Shona Robison to tell the chamber: “I welcome Ash Regan’s welcome of the substantial contents of the budget in relation to winter fuel payments and the two-child cap. We have decisions to make about where we think the investment can make the biggest impact on eradicating child poverty.

“That is why the Government has concluded that the biggest impact is to lift 15,000 of our most vulnerable children out of poverty through the scrapping of the two-child cap.”

artwork by jane heaney

One comment

Billie says:

December 5, 2024 at 10:11 pm

High spend, wasteful, inefficient councils with a large measure of procurement weigh-ins is what is destroying public service.

Look at procurement contracts and how they go over budget and time.

Look at sick time. Another star statistic. But who gets six months sick pay and then another six months on half pay before a phasedc return to work?

Or what about super generous employee pension contributions? A certain council was recently advertising for a solicitor crowing about a minimum 18% employer contribution. Who gets that these days? The average employer contribution is 4.5% per employee across the entire UK work force. Or the enhanced 36 days annual holidays after 5 years service? That’s seven weeks a year and of course teachers get more.

Now I’m not saying it should be a race to the bottom in pay, pensions, holidays and sick time allowances everyone should get the council deal but they don’t.

And so the question is how councils can pay and provide benefits that other workers can only dream of getting.

These councils, as the put up the council tax need to let us know their secret.

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