Budget (Scotland) (No 3) Bill
The next item of business is a debate on motion S2M-3909, in the name of Tom McCabe, that the Parliament agrees that the Budget (Scotland) (No 3) Bill be passed.
This debate marks the final stage of this year's budget process. I know that sometimes the process can be repetitive and something of an endurance test, particularly for our colleagues on the Opposition benches, as they hear the Executive produce yet another successful budget. Perhaps that is not the case for our colleagues in the Scottish National Party—they enjoy talking Scotland down, and they enjoy talking down success. However, none of that should detract from the importance of the process and of the work that we do.
In recent years, we have done our best to establish a more open and transparent process that allows us to consult as many people as possible. The success of that process is due by no means solely to the Executive; it is also due to the diligence of the Finance Committee and other committees of the Parliament. Once again, I record our genuine thanks to the Parliament's committees for their diligence and for the constructive way in which they have approached the budget process. That is genuinely appreciated. In the past, I have mentioned that I think that the process can be further improved. We will work with the Parliament's committees to do that in the interests of transparency and greater understanding on the part of the people of Scotland.
Much of the debate around the budget has already taken place and I will do my best to be as concise as possible. Members have already heard more than 30 minutes of contributions from me and the Deputy Minister for Finance, Public Service Reform and Parliamentary Business—some members may view that as a benefit; I am sure that others do not. Nevertheless, it is worth summarising what the Budget (Scotland) (No 3) Bill will achieve for Scotland.
The budget continues to tackle the years of underinvestment and neglect that left our school buildings in decline, damaged our public transport service and held back our economic competitiveness. The plans set out how we will continue to meet our four linked objectives, which contribute to our partnership goal of a better Scotland. They set out how we plan to encourage economic growth, to deliver high-quality public services, to build stronger, safer communities and to create a confident democratic Scotland.
The budget will increase our spending from £25.7 billion this year to £28.8 billion next year. That equates to an increase of 9.3 per cent after adjustment for inflation. The budget plans will help us to create the conditions for improved economic growth. As all members are aware, growing the economy is our top priority for the current spending review period. Growing the economy is about education at all levels, transport infrastructure and enterprise. It is not simply about growing business, but about providing people with the necessary up-to-date skills to take up the job opportunities that are available.
We are committing record funds—£1.56 billion—to support higher and further education. That will give the next generation the opportunity to continue to grow our economy. Next year's budget includes an increase of £172 million to upgrade and modernise our colleges and universities throughout Scotland. That will provide better facilities that are more able to meet the demands for more flexible accommodation and for efficient and effective teaching practices.
Our investment in transport will also help to grow the economy, by providing the infrastructure and transport networks that are needed for business and for the public. We will increase our spending on transport from £1.5 billion this year to almost £2.2 billion next year. That is a rise of about 47 per cent to deliver our 10-year transport plan.
The budget is for all Scotland. For children and young people, we are investing in education by increasing the number of teachers, reducing class sizes and modernising schools. For older people, we are continuing our commitment to a national concessionary travel fares scheme. For everyone, we are striving to achieve health improvements and stronger, safer communities that will lead to a better quality of life.
The budget is careful in its approach but ambitious in its aims. It will improve the quality of life of the people of Scotland. The budget takes the next steps to building a better Scotland. It is a budget for more enterprise, more opportunity and more fairness. It will ensure that no one is held back in modern Scotland. It is a budget for the long term, a brave budget and a budget for the next generation and for Scotland's future.
I move,
That the Parliament agrees that the Budget (Scotland) (No.3) Bill be passed.
Here we are at another stage 3 debate. We have evidence of the winner's curse, because the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform must finalise his expenditure-only budget, which underpins his true role as the annual allocator of cash, largely to the same beneficiaries. He passes cash to many worthwhile projects that invest in people and in infrastructure, which we applaud. However, in many cases, he reinforces dependence, conflict and contention, as we have seen recently. He leaves Scotland with the same exacerbating problems—and don't you just know it?
The minister repeats many mistakes of the past, because the system fails the test of any effective system, which is that it should have quantifiable and worthy overarching goals that everyone accepts and cohesion and buy-in from all stakeholders. The process should be completed with statistical and accounting control. The best evidence of the system's failure is the debacle of the efficient government initiative. Savings have not been properly netted off against attributable costs and we have no baseline on outcomes, so we have no evidence that the people of Scotland will receive anything extra for the money that is supposedly being reallocated to front-line services.
In essence, the budget process shows great parallels with the Shirley McKie case. Because of that case, the Scottish Executive and the Scottish Criminal Record Office are becoming worldwide laughing stocks and have brought fingerprint evidence into disrepute. On its own, the Scottish Executive is bringing its brand of national financial management and Scotland into disrepute. It is letting Scotland down by not having the necessary powers to attain the economic growth that it tells us it wants.
Our role is to tell the world and the people of Scotland that there are people here who aspire to a better way—who aspire to what works and to a prosperous and generous nation that moves forward at a proper rate. We are the ones who talk Scotland up.
There is plenty of light at the end of the tunnel. Week by week, plenty of evidence confirms that we are right. This week, there was the Federation of Small Businesses' index of success which, although it is based on really dodgy data with which we have great difficulty, shows that Scotland is in a parlous state. Further corroboration was provided by Jeremy Peat, the former chief economist at the Royal Bank of Scotland, who called for an objective assessment of more powers. In that call he joined people such as Lord Vallance and Sir Iain Noble, who has even written to the First Minister about that proposition but has not received a reply. Plenty is happening.
Then of course there is the oil. I say to Mr Purvis that I mention it this time because his colleague Tavish Scott raised it in the stage 3 debate on last year's Budget (Scotland) (No 2) Bill. We owe him a vote of thanks, because he triggered our freedom of information activity, which has given us absolute proof of the value, importance and ownership of oil and its long-term implications for Scotland.
Will the member give way?
I cannot take an intervention in the tiny amount of time that is left.
I look forward to an era in which a real finance minister stalks the land and manages our national wealth properly, with quantified overarching targets, such as a genuine number for economic growth, a genuine number for the population and a genuine number for closing the gap between our life expectancy and that elsewhere. Those targets should have buy-in from everyone and should allow us to ask our health service, our local government and our education services what they are doing to achieve economic growth and to receive proper answers.
In the meantime, we sit out of control with no baseline data on efficient government, which is yet another badge of shame—along with "Government Expenditure and Revenue in Scotland" et al—and Scotland is repeatedly talked down. For goodness' sake, minister—we need to remove the wooden stake from the heart and have a proper budget that allows us to manage Scotland as a complete entity that is the equivalent of any member of the FSB that controls its entire profit-and-loss account—not just its expenditure, but its revenue—and the balance sheet. Scotland should be run as a cohesive entity, which would make everyone here genuinely better off. We look at the debate, shake our heads and move on.
This is the first budget process in which I have been involved—
It is all the better for that.
Thank you. I thank all those who have guided me through the process, which has sometimes been tortuous.
The minister said that the process was like an endurance test, but I am not sure that I agree. The budget is a very important matter for the Parliament and I think that all of us agree that scrutinising it is one of our most important functions.
We know that public spending in Scotland is increasing significantly, as the minister said. We are heading rapidly towards a budget of £30 billion per year. I make no comment on the absolute amount, but we are certainly experiencing a period of rapid growth in public spending, so we need detailed scrutiny.
I suspect that whatever we say in the chamber today will be reported and noticed much less than the council tax rises that are to be announced. That is the problem in a nutshell: although the budget is important, it attracts less public attention than it deserves.
Precisely how do the Conservatives propose to address that shortcoming of the budget process?
The minister said that he and his deputy had spoken for 30 minutes on the budget process. Perhaps ministers and civil servants could spend more time being scrutinised as part of the process. I admit that we consider the budget for a significant time already, but extending that time would be all to the good. Perhaps the nationalists will agree with me.
I did not necessarily agree with Jim Mather when he talked about having a finance minister who stalked the land. I admit that his comment rather went over my head—I could not grasp what erudite point he was trying to make. However, he made a serious point about economic growth. The minister has rightly said that economic growth is the Executive's top priority and has talked about spending additional money to contribute to it, but if there is no target or benchmark against which to measure it, how on earth is anyone supposed to know whether Executive spending is contributing meaningfully to it? In recent weeks, Unison has said that public spending contributes to economic growth, but the Reform think tank has said that it does not. There is disagreement out there, so a target or baseline that enables us to measure the Executive's progress would be helpful.
Is not part of the Executive's problem its not having any levers with which to influence economic growth significantly, which is why it does not want to set precise targets? Will Mr Brownlee campaign for more levers to be given to the Scottish Parliament?
The Executive may not have as many levers as Mr Morgan would like it to have, but that does not mean that it has no influence over economic growth or that it should be let off the hook by not having targets against which to measure its success. The debate on whether other levers might properly come to the Parliament—
Will the member give way?
I do not think that I have enough time to do so.
You may have time if you want it.
Thank you, but I will move on and not take an intervention from Mr Swinburne.
There are ways in which the Executive can influence economic growth. It could put much greater pressure on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to reduce the burden of business taxation, for example. According to a parliamentary answer, the Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning has done so, but we have not seen evidence of that. The supplementary corporate tax charge on oil companies has been doubled, which I presume the Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning did not advocate.
We hear a lot in the Parliament about how good the budget scrutiny process is. Perhaps it has improved in recent years, and I am grateful for the minister's assurances that if the process can be improved further, the Executive will help to do so. However, I wonder how robust it is. In last year's budget debate, Des McNulty said that part of the explanation for why there was less interest in the budget process was that spending had expanded rapidly and so difficult spending decisions were not as prevalent as they might have been. I wonder how sustainable the current process is and whether it can survive a change of Administration in Scotland or at Westminster if we move towards a lower rate of growth in funding. To some extent, the process is predicated on a reasonably good understanding between the two tiers of Government. I invite the Executive to reflect on whether the process is as robust as we sometimes hear that it is.
As Jim Mather said, all members can agree that money is being well spent in parts of the budget, but we might take a different view on other parts of it. We cannot pick and mix in the process to the extent that other Opposition members might like to.
Will the member enlighten us about which part of the Conservatives' flip-flop policy he is in favour of? Is he for or against fiscal autonomy being transferred to Scotland?
I am not entirely sure that the Conservative party has flip-flopped at all, or that what the member has said is relevant to the debate.
We can reflect on the process and whether it can be better and we can agree that some of the budget is worth while and some is not. If the Executive is going to keep to its stated objective and push for improvements in the process, we will support it. However, I hope that during the rest of the day and next year, when we may move into a more overtly party-political mode—
Surely not.
That may happen, although it might disappoint the member.
I hope that we will cling to the better parts of the process.
We are content to accept parts of the budget, but we do not support all of it. The minister would be well advised to address the point that Mr Mather made about economic growth.
I say to Mr Mather that we do not need a fingerprint reader to see the SNP's alternative budget; in the context of this debate, a palm reader would be more appropriate. I agree with Mr Brownlee that, in our constituents' minds, the debate will largely be overshadowed by the setting of council tax rates. In my constituency in the Borders, the Tory-led administration has proposed a 4.4 per cent council tax increase. That is not all—it has proposed cutting 10 secondary teacher posts, cutting classroom assistants and eating into most other public service areas. It is also tapping into the handsome reserves that it has stashed away over the past 18 months. There is an underspend across the administration of nearly £5 million this year. If we want to see an example of bad administration and financial mismanagement, we need look no further than at what the Conservatives have done in the Borders.
I assume that Mr Purvis has received the same briefing from the same finance officers at Scottish Borders Council as I have received. Does he dispute the council's claim that the additional funding from the Scottish Executive is around £10 million short of the additional spending requirements that have been imposed on it? Will he clarify how much of Scottish Borders Council's reserves should be retained for any equal pay settlement?
It was remiss of the administration not to have planned for an equal pay settlement for my constituents in the Borders who deserve one. The administration in the Borders should pay a settlement in full and the reserves should be brought back down to a reasonable level of between 2 per cent and 3 per cent, rather than nearly 5 per cent. I have received briefings from the administration in the Borders, but not from either finance portfolio holder, both of whom are Conservative councillors. The council will penalise my constituents with a whopping council tax increase and stash away their money in almost £18 million-worth of reserves.
Why are such a council tax increase and such levels of reserves bad management for my constituents? There are high proportions of older people on low fixed incomes in Penicuik, which is under Labour local government control, and the Borders, which is under Conservative and independent control. The tax rise will bite them much harder than it will bite me. It is regrettable that last year the Conservatives defeated a motion in the council to make a submission to the independent review of local government finance in support of a system of local taxation that is based on the ability to pay. I hope that the independent commission will conclude that a fairer system is required.
When are we going to move on from a debate on Scottish Borders Council to a debate on the national budget?
The budget that we are debating is delivering real benefits for Scotland and my constituents. The Executive's investment is unprecedented and, by and large, is funded from progressive and proportionate national taxation. However, there is little breakdown of the level at which services are delivered, which I will speak about in a moment. The revenue that pays for the vast majority of services that are delivered by local government is national revenue, and so local accountability is reduced. I will return to the argument for better local democratic and fiscal accountability—Mr Mather and I frequently debate that issue.
The Executive is spending record amounts on transport investment in the Borders. There are proposals to introduce new rail services in the Borders and Midlothian and there is record investment of £1.2 million from the Executive in Borders bus services—I was at the launch of a new bus service in Galashiels on Monday. The Executive has made available funding for three new high schools in the Borders. That is only a snapshot of the restorative investment that is being made available as a result of Liberal Democrat influence on the Labour-led Executive.
Will the member take an intervention?
No. I want to make progress.
Certain parties have espoused untruths in the chamber in the past three weeks. First, I refer to the Scottish Socialist Party's siren calls for a national income tax to shape the budget in Scotland. I connect Mr Sheridan's speech last week, in which he said that there must be a national tax, with the speech that he gave yesterday, in which he called for more funding for Glasgow. His service tax would raise money in the affluent areas of Scotland, such as Glasgow and the cities, and keep it there, because he proposes to use a discredited population and deprivation index-based formula that skews grant-aid funding to such areas. That is an issue for the Scottish Executive budget. My area, which has lower wages than those in Glasgow, a more fragile economy and a higher proportion of pensioners, would have a considerably lower revenue yield per capita unless there is fair distribution from the cities to rural areas such as the Borders.
I would give the SSP more credit for its proposals if it were more honest and said that they would herald considerable cuts in public services in the Borders.
Does the member accept that the low-paid workers and pensioners whom he just mentioned would be the biggest beneficiaries of the Scottish service tax that the Scottish Socialist Party proposed last week? Will he explain why the Liberal Democrats are in favour of scrapping the council tax yet voted against our proposals last week?
Mr Fox did not deny that the revenue yield for my constituents would mean that there would be less money to pay for public services. If he acknowledged that, his party's proposals would gain more credit in the rural and poorer areas of Scotland, such as the area that I represent.
The second untruth that is relevant to today's budget debate comes from the Conservatives. They repeatedly call for public spending in Scotland to be reduced as a proportion of all spending—the bloated public sector, they call it.
Yes.
Mr Johnstone says yes. Over the past two weeks, I have asked the Conservatives' two finance spokespeople, Mr Brownlee and Mr Davidson, to be a bit more precise. Mr Brownlee said to me in the chamber recently that we would have to wait until the election to hear the Conservatives' view. Mr Davidson said yesterday that the issue was semantic. It is simply wrong for them to keep saying that they want to reduce public expenditure and the scope of the budget and then get all coy when they are asked to give more detail on the consequences for public services.
Our budget is not sufficient for the SNP. Yesterday, it repeated its calls for more funding for local government—it claims that the funding gap in respect of efficiency savings is £93.2 million. The SNP says that the money should be given to local government on condition that it is spent to keep council tax bills down. How does the official Opposition seek to ensure that that happens? When I asked Mr Morgan yesterday, he said that there was only one way of distributing money to local government—
You should finish now, Mr Purvis.
It would be through the existing grant-aided expenditure mechanism. That mechanism, which uses the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities formula, has no correlation to the efficiency of local authorities or to the tax rate that the SNP proposes to set. So, there would be no ability—
No, you must finish now, Mr Purvis.
The SNP policy could not keep council tax down. A bit more honesty from SNP front benchers would be welcome, but that is a vain hope.
In this debate on the Scottish Parliament's £28.9 billion budget for next year, it is important to examine how much the Scottish Executive does to combat the scourge of poverty in Scotland today.
Lest we be in any doubt about the extent of the problem, I have some facts and figures to remind members. One in three children in Scotland continues to live in poverty; according to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry down south, this week's gas price rises might endanger the ability of as many as 100,000 Scots to pay for their heating this winter; and the chronic poor health and diet of the people of Scotland continues to blight us. Those features are all poverty related, yet they are reflected far too little in the Executive's top financial and budgetary priorities. Indeed, the minister offered us once again the Executive's top four priorities of economic growth, better public services, safer communities and a confident Scotland. He made no reference to the scourge of poverty in Scotland today and the need to eradicate it
What is brought into sharp relief by a debate on the budget is not the lack of resources with which poverty and inequality could be eradicated, since the budget figures that were presented by the minister amply showed that, if the will exists, there is enough money—£28.9 billion next year. There is also the money that the Scottish Executive has not spent in previous years. In the 2000 budget, the underspend was £435 million; in 2001, the figure was £718 million; in 2002, it was £643 million; in 2003, it was £441 million; and in the following year, it was £600 million. On top of that, we learn that the Treasury down south is keeping accounts for the Scottish Executive of £1.5 billion, of which £500 million is as yet unallocated.
The Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform could easily have come to the Parliament to make his budget presentation and said, "Yes, the money exists to abolish national health service prescription charges"—the cost would be £45 million—but he did not. He could have come to the Parliament and said, "Yes, the money exists to introduce free, healthy school meals for all Scotland's pupils"—at a cost of £188 million—but he did not.
The money exists to abolish fuel poverty in Scotland, which, according to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry—and to our eternal shame—will result in tens of thousands of senior citizens in Scotland dying of cold-related illnesses, but the minister did not mention that either.
The minister could have said that he intends to fund equal pay settlements to allow working-class women the dignity of knowing that they are paid the same rate as men for doing jobs of equal value in our public services, but he did not do that.
Does the member agree that it is ludicrous that councils should try to bring about equal pay now, when the relevant legislation has been on the statute book since the early 1970s? The burden of paying for the proposed change will fall on senior citizens through increases in council tax. The situation is ludicrous.
I agree that the burden of the settlement will be passed on to council tax payers. That is indeed iniquitous and the Government should have faced up to its responsibilities towards working-class women a long time ago.
The money exists to undertake all the initiatives that I mentioned, but the point for the Parliament to consider is that the Executive appears not to consider them priorities. That is not just a missed opportunity; it exposes the fact that although the Scottish Executive likes to talk a lot about poverty and social exclusion to ease its conscience, when it comes to action and resources its record is poor, its excuses are many and its future commitments are nowhere to be seen.
We reach the final stage of the budget process, which the minister has described as a repetitive endurance process. The chamber has already heard my concerns about the substance of the efficiency savings; the local government settlement; the lack of clarity about the meaning of the cross-cutting themes, including sustainable development, that are laid out in the budget; and, in particular, how those cross-cutting themes impact on real spending decisions.
In the stage 1 debate, I expressed my concerns about what we heard in the autumn budget revisions for this year's budget and I wondered whether the funds that had been transferred from rail to road would be switched back again next year. I also wondered whether the funding that went unclaimed from the strategic waste fund would be claimed and reintroduced into the budget next year.
I will not reiterate those concerns. Instead, I make the point that Derek Brownlee seemed to circle around: when we have a budget that deals with taxing and spending, like a local authority has, there will be genuine interest in the budget process. That is what local authorities do and that is why so much attention will be paid to their council tax decisions. I look forward to the day when this Parliament takes decisions on taxing and spending.
I started with the point about the budget process being repetitive. Will the Minister for Parliamentary Business and the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform think about how the process can be improved? We treat budget bills very differently from all other bills. As we saw this morning, nobody but a minister can lodge an amendment to the budget bill. Rule 9.16.3 of standing orders states that the budget bill will be
"referred immediately to the Parliament for consideration of its general principles"
and that no committee report will be required. In that situation, stage 1 of the budget bill process, in which the Parliament discusses the bill's general principles, becomes a debate on whether we want Scotland and the Scottish Executive to have a budget at all. Given that we obviously want the Executive to have a budget, there is little point in having a stage 1 debate of that kind.
However, given that we also debate the Finance Committee's report on the budget, I propose that the Minister for Parliamentary Business, the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform and the Parliamentary Bureau think seriously about combining the two aspects in a full afternoon's debate on the Finance Committee's report. That would allow us to examine all the issues that the Finance Committee and the other parliamentary committees have raised about the budget process. At the end of that debate, the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform could move the motion that the Parliament agrees the general principles of the budget bill and that there should be a budget process. I doubt that anyone would argue over whether we should have a budget.
That much clearer process would give us more time to debate the Finance Committee's report properly. John Swinburne and others have expressed concern that they did not have the chance to participate in the debate. The motion to agree the budget bill's general principles should be moved formally, but we should not try to stretch out a debate about whether we want the Scottish Executive to have a budget at all. Such an approach would assist the parliamentary process and would perhaps free up a bit more time in which the Minister for Parliamentary Business could schedule debates on these and other matters.
As this is the final stage of the budget process, I thank the clerks to and members of the Finance Committee, our adviser and the members and staff of the other subject committees that contributed to this year's budget scrutiny. I believe that we all did a thorough job. I also thank the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform and the staff in the Scottish Executive Finance and Central Services Department for responding to our questions and addressing the issues that we have raised. The process is improving year by year. That said, we could consider proposals that Mark Ballard and others have made to streamline the process, because there is an overlap between our scrutiny of the budget and the budget bill process itself.
However, I want to focus not on that matter but on the substance of the budget. Tom McCabe was absolutely right to point out that the budget contains very substantial increases in expenditure in areas such as education, health and transport. Those increases are the product of manifesto commitments that were agreed at the very start of the process by the two parties in the partnership Government and which have been rolled out and implemented. No matter whether the money is being targeted at children, at transport users or at hospitals and primary care services, it will have a significant impact on everyone in Scotland. Indeed, people in every community throughout the country are benefiting from that investment.
People should stand back and remember how, in 1996 and 1997, the schools and hospitals were dilapidated and services were poor. That situation has been transformed.
I am sure that Des McNulty is well aware that his friends in the Executive have traded handsomely on the hospital building programme that the terrible Conservative Government introduced.
I think that the Conservatives are still pretty terrible. I remember being told in Strathclyde Regional Council that every school building had an expected life of 400 years, such was the rate of replacement. The situation has been transformed since then by the significant investment in schools.
The programme of additional investment in hospitals is also being rolled out. For example, I am very much looking forward to the investment that will be made in Glasgow hospitals; indeed, the process has begun with new builds at Stobhill hospital and Victoria hospital. Throughout every community in Scotland, service delivery is being transformed and the services themselves are improving. We need think only of this week's announcement of improvements in social work services. The current situation is predicated on the United Kingdom Government's prudence and the way in which the Executive has been able to channel resources usefully.
Of course, we acknowledge that tensions and contradictions exist; that choices have to be made; and that, to be honest, the speed at which resources are increasing is slowing rapidly. That means that, in the future, the budget process will have to take on a new intensity. However, that will happen only if people are prepared to engage with the real choices that are before us and to make practical proposals. Jim Mather speaks in a very rarefied way about growth, benchmarking and so on. I respect his point of view but I know, as someone who has been involved in practical politics for a long time now, that in making budgetary choices one often has to choose between two different goods, each of which has a valid argument against it. The art of politics rests in having the ability to make a better choice in such circumstances. Of course, that choice will not necessarily be the optimum one, because such a choice might not exist.
Will the member give way?
The member is just finishing.
We should all follow the minister's lead in trying to turn people's attention in that direction and forcing them to recognise that hard choices have to be made. We might disagree with what the minister says or different political parties might disagree with this or that approach, but no one in the Parliament should avoid the reality of the choices that have to be made. Tom McCabe is doing an excellent job in that respect.
We might reasonably describe the local government settlement as tight, but the additional £1.1 billion on top of the £8.3 billion core settlement will give councils more flexibility. After all, more cash always gives more flexibility—as long as it is not hypothecated.
For the first time in many years, I do not know exactly what will happen in Glasgow City Chambers in George Square today. However, Glasgow City Council knows more than most how to manage on a tight settlement. For the past seven years, the council has achieved annual efficiency savings averaging £15 million, which have in turn helped to stabilise seven successive council tax rises at the level of inflation. I hope that, today, Glasgow's council can sustain that level of efficiency and council tax stability. However, despite the council's proven efficiency, too tight a settlement might well punish Glasgow.
Despite what COSLA says, structural financial reform is needed. It cannot be right that, with 25 per cent of Scotland's special needs children, Glasgow gets 12 per cent of the grant; it cannot be right that, with 25 per cent of Scotland's drug addicts, Glasgow gets 12 per cent of the grant; and it cannot be right that a lightly trafficked rural road gets the same pound for pound in grant as Glasgow's Union Street, which is pounded daily by 14,000 cars and 3,000 buses.
The reform that Glasgow seeks has been opposed by the SNP and has been stalled by COSLA. The Burt committee must give Glasgow a level financial playing field.
I did not think that this morning's debate would generate a great deal of light. I have been blinded by the sun, but I do not think that any great new insight into the budget process or the content of the budget document has emerged in the foregoing hour.
I very much hope that Des McNulty is right to say that the budget process will take on a new intensity, and I would welcome greater engagement within and outwith the Parliament on how we can make the budget process more effective and ensure that public spending is better managed throughout Scotland.
Mark Ballard made an interesting point about the scheduling of debates. I have no doubt that that will be considered in time.
There has been a lot of talk about issues that are not covered directly in the budget document. Given what else is happening today, members' focus on local government is understandable, but we are talking about £30 billion of public spending and the scrutiny that is being applied to local government is not necessarily being applied across the piece to the rest of Government spending.
We hear the ritual calls for alternative budgets to be produced by everyone and their dog every year. If civil servants were made available every year to all the Opposition parties, we would be delighted to produce our own budget. However, I suspect that the minister might have a view about whether that would be the most effective use of public money.
We do not even have a Liberal Democrat or a Labour budget; we have an Executive budget, which is—presumably—a compromise between the two. It is interesting to note that Des McNulty was fulsome in his praise of the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform; I forget just how fulsome, but he was very fulsome indeed. Jeremy Purvis almost forgot that he was a member of an Executive party, apart from some closing remarks.
It must be because the whips are here.
I am glad to see that Margaret Smith is here.
It was interesting to hear that everything good in the Borders comes from the Executive and that everything bad comes from the council. What a change that is from two or three years ago, when the situation might have been rather different.
The debate could have been more constructive and useful. I suspect that the timing of the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election has not helped us to add much clarity to the process. I hope that the next budget that we embark on will involve greater scrutiny and I hope that the minister will stick firmly to his commitment to make process improvements where possible. Despite remarks that have been made this morning, we should be in no doubt that setting the budget is probably the most fundamental task that the Parliament undertakes. We should not undertake it lightly.
The debate has been interesting, even if we have not got down to the nitty-gritty and detail. My colleague Mr Mather painted a picture of a finance minister stalking the land. I could not help but picture the normally extremely elegantly dressed Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform in his deerstalker and plus fours, seeking efficiency savings here, there and everywhere. In the light of his recent comments on the local government settlement, perhaps the minister might also be harking back to the days in South Lanarkshire when he was a little more publicly accountable for what he did, because he also set the tax rate. Perhaps the comments of both the First Minister and the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform hark back to their days in local government, when they were responsible for both sides of the budget.
That lack of public accountability is an important weakness in our budget process. It is time for us to move on: the Parliament has been in existence for close on seven years. It is time for us to look seriously at where we want to go with the budget process so that we can use more than the minor levers that are available to us. When Mr Kerr sat where Mr McCabe is sitting now, he pointed out, rightly, that the Scottish Parliament does not have the major levers; perhaps, in his view, those levers are better trusted to Gordon Brown. However, even he has been frustrated by the changes; he has made statements in the past few days about what should happen here, but he does not have the power to make those things happen.
I am delighted that the Conservatives are thinking about making changes to their position on the budget process. However, despite being invited by Mr Morgan, Mr Swinburne—I see that he is no longer with us—and me to clarify their position on additional financial powers, the Tories have not done so. I see that Mr Swinburne has returned.
This year, there has been considerable focus—rightly so—on the local government settlement. However, when it comes to extracting savings, I am not sure that the same scrutiny has been applied to Government quangos and departments, whose budgets have not been put under the same pressure. We will always have a dichotomy of local government having its own franchise—rightly, it defends its independence. However, it would be helpful for us to make progress on how settlements are arrived at. The mysterious processes of negotiation with COSLA do not shed much light on the subject.
Mr Purvis made the usual special pleading on behalf of Scottish Borders Council, while attacking his political opponents; Mr Gordon did the same on behalf of Glasgow City Council, while also attacking his political opponents. Those gentlemen are entitled to stand up for the areas that they represent. We all are. Mr Ballard made a good point about the mechanics of the budget process that will have the SNP's support. I am delighted that Mr McNulty is at least willing to consider our looking at the mechanics of the budget in order to have a better debate. I point out to Mr Purvis and Mr Gordon that there are various pots of money, although sometimes it is not clear from how the money in them is applied what the outcomes will be.
We do not just want to get money to spend; we want to change people's lives. I am not convinced that the budget contains the clarity to tell us what the outcomes will be. There is a series of special funds to which the minister referred at various stages of the budget process, but we are not clear what the outcomes of spending the money in those funds will be. That is particularly true of Glasgow, which is a significant beneficiary of many of those funds. The statistics that Mr Gordon focused on today may be perfectly valid, but we have to look at the situation nationally. Life expectancy in Glasgow is much lower than it is elsewhere, but we need to ensure that when health funds and others are being spent, we are making a difference rather than just spending money. I do not know that our processes are sufficiently robust to deliver the information that will allow us to make the real decisions and choices to which Des McNulty referred. We need further sophistication in our budget process to enable us to reach that position.
Members have used the debate to raise issues that concern them; that is understandable. I will try to deal with some of the more substantive points and will conclude by reminding people once again of what exactly the budget is designed to deliver.
We should prepare better for Mr Mather's speeches, as we risk an outbreak of mass depression every time we listen to them. If only we could broadcast Mr Mather's speeches at the border, we could turn back the flu. They are so off-putting. I am sure, however, that the people of Scotland who experience the uplift in their services and see this country starting to blossom will pay no attention to Mr Mather's outpourings.
Colin Fox talked about poverty, but he demonstrated his poverty of ideas and his absolute inability to see the link between economic growth and its effect on poverty. Economic growth lifts out of exclusion people who for too long have been deprived of the benefits of a prosperous Scottish society. He completely ignored the £51 million for closing the opportunity gap that is contained in the communities section of the budget. He completely ignored initiatives such as the central heating scheme, which is bringing relief to thousands of pensioners throughout Scotland. He completely ignored the Scottish deprivation index, which is designed to ensure that resources are targeted at those who need them most. Economic growth—not the poverty of ideas that we hear all too often from the Scottish Socialist Party—will pull people in Scotland out of poverty.
I will not take interventions; I need to make progress.
Mark Ballard commented on the procedures that are employed in the budget process; he is entitled to express his view on that matter. In essence, that is a matter for the Parliament, but the Executive is more than happy to discuss its arrangements with the Finance Committee. If they so wish, members are perfectly entitled to raise concerns with the Procedures Committee about how the Executive deals with budget matters.
Des McNulty made a speech that was truly excellent in many respects, not least because it managed to prick Alex Johnstone's conscience. Through his intervention on Des McNulty, Alex Johnstone revealed that he was still concerned about the terrible things that the Conservatives wreaked on Scotland over a long period. I congratulate Des McNulty on once again showing us that the Conservatives know in their heart of hearts that they did terrible damage and that no one in Scotland has forgotten that.
It is worth re-emphasising that the budget is important because of the impact that it will have on people's lives. It will allow us to deliver our ambitious plans for 2006-07, to grow our economy, to invest in our transport system and to support the development of entrepreneurial skills. We will strive to deliver excellent public services by ensuring that the budget meets the service needs of individual people. Through the budget, we will ensure that, when necessary, our investment is matched by reform so that the necessary returns are delivered.
The budget will support strong communities; that is important in Scotland. It will tackle poverty and disadvantage and will empower people who have been excluded from opportunity for too long. As well as being ambitious, our financial plans for 2006-07 are responsible in that, through them, we will do our best to pull people away from disadvantage and to take them out of poverty.
Despite the minister's excellent budget and all his excellent projections, members of my generation and others who live on fixed incomes are frustrated that ScottishPower and Scottish Gas are imposing poverty on them by increasing the price of their products. That is outwith the minister's control. Those companies were once controlled because they were nationalised, but that is no longer the case. Does the minister share my frustration at the situation?
It is clear that the elderly people in this country, who have served us well, face a number of challenges. The Executive is resolute in its determination to ensure that we do all that we can to acknowledge the contribution that those people have made to our society over a number of years.
In increasing our expenditure by £3 billion to £28.8 billion, the financial plans that we lay before Parliament today will help us to deliver an ambitious programme. Those enormous sums will bring real benefit to people in Scotland. Although the debate marks the final stage of the budget process, it is simply the beginning of another stage in our determination to provide public services of the highest order. We will continue to monitor those services and to ensure that they are effective and efficient, and we will work tirelessly with our colleagues across the public sector to maximise the benefits of the budget.
The budget will deliver value for money for Scotland and will ensure that people's money is allocated to meet their priorities. The partnership Government is investing in the long term: by investing in business growth, it is investing in the future of Scotland. I warmly commend the budget to Parliament.