Plenary, 27 Jan 2005

Meeting date: Thursday, January 27, 2005

Official Report 735KB pdf

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Budget (Scotland) (No 2) Bill: Stage 1

We come now to a debate on motion S2M-2291, in the name of Tom McCabe, that the general principles of the Budget (Scotland) (No 2) Bill be agreed.

Today we reach the start of the final stage of the 2005-06 budget process—the culmination of nine months' hard work by parliamentary committees, by Executive officials and, of course, by ministers.

Ha!

Mr Morgan nearly missed that one.

There have been many hours of work to ensure that we are spending our money in the right places. The Budget (Scotland) (No 2) Bill is, perhaps, the most important bill in the parliamentary calendar. It is at the heart of everything that the Executive does. It provides the means to implement all of our policies and programmes: funding our universities and colleges; paying our doctors and nurses; building new railways; and meeting the commitments that we made in the partnership agreement.

The formal subject of today's debate is consideration of the general principles of the bill. I hope that we all agree on the fundamental principle that, in a democratic system, Parliament should approve the spending plans of the Government that is in power. There is also, I hope, no disagreement that the principles of openness, transparency and accountability should underpin the bill and the processes surrounding it.

Of course, within the Executive, we must always be open to possibilities for improvement, so I commend the Finance Committee for its continued work in suggesting where we can shed light and improve understanding.

I think that we can be rightly proud that our process is uniquely tailored to ensure that as many people as possible can contribute to the debate, which ensures that our budget is spent as efficiently and effectively as possible for the benefit of all Scots. However, we also need to acknowledge that, for all the improvements that we have made, this is not necessarily an easy process to understand.

The origins of our spending plans for 2005-06 go back to the spending review in 2002. The 2005-06 process began with the publication of an annual evaluation report nine long months ago. The document allowed for consultation of the public and of parliamentary committees. Its purpose was to present the Executive's priorities and high-level strategy. All committee responses were pulled together in the Finance Committee's report, which we debated in June last year.

Following the 2004 spending review, the draft budget for 2005-06 was published, setting out our detailed proposals. Again, that process was scrutinised by the public and by parliamentary committees and—again—the responses of all the subject committees of the Parliament were pulled together in another report by the Finance Committee, which we debated just before Christmas. That is the point at which changes to our spending plans can be proposed. None was proposed, which indicated broad support for our proposals.

Does the minister agree that, given the spirit of working to progress the Executive's proposals, the process militates against the production of alternative proposals?

I disagree with that. I have just explained—I will explain further—the process that we use in Scotland and of which we can be justly proud. The point that I am making is that the Executive and the Parliament must both be always vigilant and must ensure that we continually do more to open up the process and make it accessible to the maximum number of people.

As part of our engagement with individuals and organisations throughout Scotland, we distributed more than 1,500 copies of our budget documents and, of course, we posted them on the internet. In previous years, finance ministers have held roadshows in Lerwick, Dumfries, Fort William and Aberdeen. This year, my deputy Tavish Scott and I have continued those valuable efforts by holding roadshows in Arbroath, Dumbarton and Musselburgh. Later this month, there will be another such event in Falkirk. The roadshows attract a wide range of people from business organisations, councils and the health and voluntary sectors. Their main purpose is to allow the public to play a part in setting our budget plans, but they also allow ministers to hear at first hand concerns and ideas about how to adopt a slightly different approach in the future.

Since 1999, we have achieved significant progress in improving our budget process but, as I have said, there is no doubt that it is still complex. There is a challenge not just for the Executive and the Parliament, but for all organisations that take an interest in such matters to continue their involvement in the search for a budget process with which people can genuinely engage. I am sure that all members would support that and would want to ensure that the budget process in Scotland is meaningful.

Our budget scrutiny process is one of the most open of any Parliament, but I acknowledge that there is no room for complacency. In conjunction with Parliament, the Executive will always work hard to promote transparency. We have always tried to respond positively to the Finance Committee's recommendations and we will continue to do so. We will actively seek to involve the people of Scotland in our processes and decision making.

I move,

That the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the Budget (Scotland) (No.2) Bill.

What progress have we seen in management of the budget? There have been some moves aimed at streamlining and improving the accountability of what is—and, for me, always will be—a mere spending exercise. We have a national spending plan that contains no macro targets and has no credible sense of purpose, so the likelihood of the budget being able to transform Scotland is limited.

In the spending plan, the Executive must spend heavily on many of the symptoms of the relative decline into which we have been led. The plan attempts to keep alive the false hope that Scotland's potential and resurgence can be triggered by a magic spending formula—a formula that has yet to be found after 50 years of trying.

Last year, Andy Kerr told us that he would change stage 1 of the budget process

"into a more strategic look at the Executive's performance."—[Official Report, 29 January 2004; c 5376.]

However, the fact that the Executive does not have top-level targets makes it clear that it does not understand the word "strategic". I have found two definitions of the word "strategic", only one of which I favour. Although the other is also true, it talks of a culture that I despise. The first definition says:

"Strategic: Implies that the focus is on improving and sustaining overall performance".

That is the definition that I like. The second definition says:

"Strategic: A word people often use to make their pet project sound important".

That definition hits the bull's-eye. The Executive does not have top-level strategic targets for growth, so the budget looks like a national spending list that patently does not do enough to re-energise Scotland and make us more competitive. In Andy Kerr's mouth, the word "strategic" meets the second definition. We realise how true that is when we consider the fact that the Executive has now formally rejected the Finance Committee's call for strategic targets or a strategic forecast for economic growth.

In his response to the Finance Committee of 18 January, the minister wrote that the Executive did

"not consider that it would be appropriate to set a spending review target for a specific level of GDP growth".

So there it is: there are no targets, there is no joint and several responsibility with Westminster for economic growth in Scotland and there is no genuine concerted focus on Scottish growth. Why? Ministers obviously know that the current powers will simply not crack the problem and will not close the persistent gap in growth between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom.

The data that we now have for the year to the third quarter of 2004 say that Scotland grew at 1.8 per cent, but the rest of the UK grew at 3.2 per cent. The gap widens, but the Executive will not publicly acknowledge that and will do nothing to reverse the trend, but instead seems to be willing to let Scottish people live with the consequences. Happily, that is so apparent that everyone will, sooner or later, realise what is happening. Then there will be an electoral price to pay, especially as the current lack of a target is an indirect attack on the people of Scotland because the absence of an economic growth target allows all our competitors to claim correctly that the Executive is not serious about growth. Thus the Executive is indirectly creating downward pressure on the number of available jobs and on incomes in Scotland, as well as upward pressure on migration out of Scotland.

How can Jim Mather possibly square his frankly outrageous statements with the record levels of investment in our infrastructure, in business skills and in education in Scotland, or with the employment levels in Scotland, which are the highest for a generation?

The minister's whole package is not enough. I advise him to look at the International Institute for Management Development's "World Competitiveness Yearbook", which places Scotland 36th of 60 developed nations and regions on competitiveness and also places the UK 22nd. There is no level playing field and, without the necessary powers, that lack of a level playing field will persist and what I have just described will continue to happen. How competitive and responsible is that? The answer is, "Not very."

On lower-level targets, all the Executive will say is that it is committed to making its targets as outcome focused as possible. Is that all right? No, it is not, because many of its targets are not outcome focused, are not specifically measurable or are not dated within the current electoral cycle.

Meanwhile, other countries and autonomous states and provinces are cracking on, genuinely building competitive advantage and making real progress. They are not taking any self-denying ordinance on competition to give Scotland a chance, and that is why reversing the pattern of low Scottish growth is now becoming urgent. It is the cause of our population decline and of the high levels of deprivation that must be tackled if we are to avoid a further spiral of decline.

Will Jim Mather give way?

No. I have heard from Jeremy Purvis before.

That is all the end product of a deeply flawed Executive strategy. The Executive will not claim the powers that we need and it will not set targets. Meanwhile, the other countries of Europe are doing the sensible thing and are building all the competitive advantage they can muster. They are doing everything—I emphasise that word—that we can do, plus they are using their direct control of their resources to increase their competitiveness and the size of their national economic cakes.

Will Jim Mather give way?

No. I am in my last minute.

Members should look at this week's issue of The Economist. It elegantly supports the Scottish National Party's argument in an article entitled "A case for nationalism"—there is no question mark—and subtitled "European governments need more fiscal freedom, not less". It goes on to offer advice to other countries that have entered monetary unions. That advice is as valid for Scotland in the UK monetary union and goes as follows:

"Because euro members have shed their power to pursue independent monetary and exchange-rate policies, they need more fiscal independence, not less."

The SNP accepts that, of course, because it is true in the sterling zone. We advocate that policy every day and now, with even more proof and endorsement of the proposition, the argument is even more persuasive and will sweep the minister away.

The Economist is right. In the short term, the SNP would pursue radically different spending plans that would create a more competitive Scotland and be augmented by increased powers. We would thereby help Scotland to become the thriving, caring and prosperous country that it could be.

I am pleased to open the debate for the Conservatives. I would gladly have presented an alternative budget in detail, but the budget process and its associated parliamentary procedures militate against that. Executive ministers and back benchers have, in the past, criticised Conservatives and nationalists for not presenting alternatives—as happens in councils, when council taxes are set—but Opposition MSPs do not have the access to officials that councillors have. MSPs do not receive the detailed level of information that councillors do, nor do we receive details of incomes through the budget process.

Furthermore, amendment of the budget bill is problematic because it requires that each subject committee receive alternative proposals and that the Finance Committee receive those as well as making its proposals. The Finance Committee's budget report is an important cross-party attempt to point out serious misgivings and to scrutinise the budget bill. It is difficult to oppose the Finance Committee's report when it comes to Parliament; indeed, previous attempts by me to lodge reasoned amendments to the bill or to suggest amendments to the process have been rejected.

I admire the attempt to defend having no budget proposals. Why is it that the Tories in the rest of the United Kingdom are capable of producing alternative budget proposals? Apparently, that seems to elude the Scottish Tories.

I am sorry, but I think the member is being disingenuous. I am talking about the parliamentary procedure for dealing with the budget, which is designed to scrutinise the budget, but not to encourage an alternative budget. That is the distinction that I wish to draw. We prepare alternative budgets in the political sense, and we attempt to float them and sell them to the public. However, that does not form part of the parliamentary procedure. All things considered, the chances of alternative budgets coming before Parliament, or even coming before the Finance Committee, are very small.

I presume from the member's comments that he is directing his criticisms at the parliamentary authorities and at the processes that Parliament has adopted for scrutinising the budget.

I am not pointing the finger at any particular people or authorities; I am saying that there is much room for improvement in the parliamentary procedures. From time to time, the Finance Committee has said much the same thing, so there is nothing new there—it is not rocket science.

The Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform has already informed Parliament that—

Will the member give way?

No, I must make progress. Mr Macintosh is not going to ruin this speech by taking up my time. The minister has already informed Parliament that he will not raise income tax by 3p in the pound to fund the budget. Of course, he does not need to—we all know that a Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, if there happens to be one, will do that for him. We know that because this week the Institute of Fiscal Studies has told us that there is an £11 billion black hole that needs to be plugged. The average working family—a couple who earn average earnings—will face an additional bill of £1,000, which is equivalent to 3p in the pound on income tax, in order to pay for this budget.

The alternative, of course, is to allow Oliver Letwin to occupy 11 Downing Street, because he has matched Labour's spending on health and schools and has matched the Barnett consequentials that bring funding to Scotland. At the same time, he will ensure that Gordon Brown's black hole will be plugged.

And the sun will shine every day.

In Tory Britain, it certainly will. I believe in There Is No Alternative, but there is now an alternative: we can go for economic growth in Scotland. Our alternative would be to cut council tax—we have proposals for that—to cut business rates and to increase road spending. Those proposals, costed within the current budget year, could be delivered and would increase growth. None of those policies would reduce spending on schools or hospitals. With Oliver Letwin's guarantee of the same Barnett consequentials, the economic debate in Scotland should be about our different priorities. The debate should not be about childish accusations with scaremongering about Tory cuts; it should be about our priorities. For that reason, I call on the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform to support Oliver Letwin in his goal—to be in 11 Downing Street.

This is a short debate, which is a shame, because it is my last as a member of the Finance Committee. In a masochistic kind of way, I will miss these debates, which I have come to enjoy. If I may be self-indulgent for a moment, I will miss sitting on the committee but—as other more experienced members know—when it comes to committee membership what goes around often comes around, so I may well be back. However, the members, the clerking staff and the budget adviser have done an excellent job over the past year in supporting me as a new member of Parliament.

The main purpose of the debate is to approve the Executive's spending plans for the financial year 2005-06. We are tasked with scrutinising the differences between the bill and the draft budget for 2005-06 that was published in October. The main differences are in the presentation of figures. Much discussion has taken place in the Finance Committee and with the minister on how best to present budget documents to provide the right level of information consistently and with clarity. However, if such discussions never end, the result will be documents that are neither consistent nor clear. That said, the improvements in presentation have been applauded by the committee.

Of particular note is the fact that there is greater detail on capital spending. It was welcome that in his statement last year on the spending review, the then Minister for Finance and Public Services announced a substantial increase in capital investment. That was welcome because the spending is indeed that—investment. In June he announced a new target to increase net investment by 5 per cent per annum in real terms over the spending review period.

The summary tables in the accompanying documents to the bill are helpful, and are an improvement on previous examples. Indeed, the clarity of the accompanying documents highlights the lie of the SNP and the Conservatives, who say that they have insufficient information to provide alternatives budgets. Wendy Alexander was right in pointing to the fact that the Conservatives are quite happy to suggest alternative budgets in other parts of the UK. Indeed, Oliver Letwin did that, and admitted in three sections of his budget documents that his proposals for public services are cuts, cuts and cuts.

Will the member give way?

I will happily give way to Mr Monteith in a moment.

The nation—or those who are eagle-eyed among us—managed to capture the SNP's launch of its election campaign on Tuesday. The Salmond and Sturgeon double act—the Sonny and Cher of politics in Scotland—did not mention much about an alternative budget in Scotland, although Sonny did talk about oil. They seek to bank future investment in public services on the volatile oil market. That strategy, as Mr Mather would say, is about making a pet project seem attractive. That is the SNP's case for independence.

The document "Government Expenditure and Revenue in Scotland"—GERS—which Jim Mather referred to in a debate before Christmas, is a useful basis on which to proceed. It helpfully calculates all Government spending in Scotland. It shows a deficit of £9.3 billion. If 100 per cent of oil revenues is included—problematic though that is—the deficit is £4.4 billion. In the budget debate in December, Mr Mather had a magic wand to hand, and said:

"An independent Scotland would quickly and readily wipe out the deficit."—[Official Report, 23 December 2004; c 13260.]

Jeremy Purvis should do his arithmetic. GERS is a useful basis on which to make the case for how Scotland could perform. It should not be worn as a badge of shame that is put to the wider public and the investment community while saying, "Come here. We're a basket case." That is crazy. Turn it round, Jeremy—it can be turned into a positive.

Let us analyse that further. I know that a cynic is what an optimist calls a realist, but optimism is now an official policy of the SNP. Let us examine what Mr Mather asks us to consider in wiping out the deficit. Increased growth would wipe out 17 per cent of the deficit, but he does not give an SNP target for growth. Obviously, the growth rate would spring up from day one of independence—but that is ridiculous. He said that our full share of UK revenue—excluding oil, because that would already be counted at 100 per cent under the £4.4 billion deficit—would wipe out another 8 per cent. Scotland does not have a fiscal surplus. When we account for the population base in all non-identified expenditure in GERS, that is the simple fact. To say that we should have our fair share is therefore ridiculous.

Best of all, Mr Mather said that the SNP would implement

"proper and full Gershon savings".—[Official Report, 23 December 2004; c 13260.]

That would take away another 11 per cent of the deficit. As we know, Gershon is predicated on thousands upon thousands of job losses in Scotland. Is that now SNP policy?

Will the member give way?

No, I will not.

In addition, in the very next sentence of his speech Jim Mather said that Scotland should have a fair share of civil service jobs and defence spending, which would wipe out even more of the deficit. Those are civil service jobs that the SNP supports being cut, and spending on defence that it is opposed to, which is laughable. SNP economic policy is ridiculous, ludicrous and laughable.

The new big idea, which the SNP launched on Tuesday, is an oil fund modelled on that of Norway. It is true that Norway's oil fund is substantial, but it will not be the solution to all ills for all eternity, as Sonny Salmond would have us believe. On Tuesday he said that the fund will provide an income for Norway for the rest of time. Obviously that is the SNP's aim for Scotland, but there is no mention of revenue forecast from such a fund in any SNP documentation, such as its recent flawed policy pronouncement on pensions. The SNP would rely wholly on its version of the oil fund to pay for public services. The Norwegian oil fund has been described recently as the pension fund for Norway, but Norway's central bank, which administers the fund, said recently that it would not be able to pay more than one quarter of Norway's pension obligations and that the rest must come from taxpayers.

The SNP has no coherent budget policy and no coherent economic policy and not once has it proposed an alternative to the Executive's budget. Its members have said this week in the chamber that they want more spending on housing, health and pensions, but they continue to argue for corporation tax, although we do not know at what rate, and they claim that independence would wipe out our fiscal deficit at a stroke. As I said, that is ridiculous, ludicrous and laughable.

As has been outlined, this is a debate on the principles of the budget. I agree with Brian Monteith that the budget process does not favour amendment; it is designed for scrutiny, not alteration. That raises wider questions about what we want the budget process to achieve and what we want the relationship between the Executive's budget and the legislature to be. If, as the Executive parties seem to be suggesting, we want to make amendments to the budget, we need to change the process to make that possible.

However, the debate is about the principles of the budget and in the short time I have I will concentrate in more detail on some of the practices in the budget. Members with good memories might recall that last year I sought to draw attention to the contradictions in the transport section of the budget in particular. When I first read the budget document, I could not see the figure for the M74—the massive spending on road building in Glasgow. The reason why that figure does not appear anywhere in the budget is because the Executive has chosen to exclude capital and depreciation in its calculations of transport spending. When it is included, spending on public transport makes up a much smaller share of overall transport spending than the Executive's oft-quoted claim of 70 per cent by 2007-08. That massive spending on the expansion of road building in Scotland does not appear in the budget because we are using a private finance initiative scheme—a scheme that will spread the cost over 20 years and which will, I argue, mortgage our transport for the next 20 years and make the 70 per cent figure laughable.

On top of that, a closer look at what is included in the Executive's public transport spending is revealing. Included are grants to piers and harbours, grants to the Tay road bridge, the transport agency development fund, the regulation of utility road works and, as my colleague Shiona Baird pointed out to the First Minister, the road haulage modernisation fund. Those are all worthwhile projects, but why do they appear in the public transport sector of the budget? How can we have a proper debate about the principles of the budget when projects are hidden as PFI schemes and not treated properly, and when the road haulage modernisation fund, which is clearly not about public transport, is included in the public transport section?

We could discuss a host of other issues, such as funding for affordable housing in Scotland. We could discuss proper funding of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency which, as my Green colleagues have pointed out, faces real difficulty in meeting Government objectives in relation to the European water framework directive because it is not getting enough funding. We could discuss the continuing crisis in the health of our nation, which is caused partly by the fact that we spend so much on our national sickness service; we deal with people once they become sick and do not do nearly enough to prevent their becoming sick. We are spending £8 billion on the NHS in 2005-06, but not even £80 million on health improvement. We need that spending on public health improvement to ensure that we have a healthier nation.

Fundamentally, the budget is not about transport, the environment, affordable housing or health. It is a budget, like the previous ones, that is about meeting the Executive's obsession with economic growth. Until we have a budget that has a different set of principles and is not simply about arbitrarily increasing one measure of our economic well-being, we will not have a budget that can be fully supported.

I want to ask about transparency. Given that the entire Scottish budget is a lump sum that we are given by Westminster, it is obvious that Westminster's efficiency review, which is designed to save £21 billion by 2008, will affect the position in Scotland.

Gordon Brown breenged into the discussion in Scotland and in other devolved authorities about the announced 20,000 job cuts. There was a bit of a furore and the Scottish Executive denied that it would be taking on board Gordon Brown's cuts. In the press, ministers said that they would make efficiency savings of £500 million by the 2006-07 budget and £745 million by 2007-08. However, quite often, efficiency savings and moving front-line jobs are euphemisms for job losses and cuts. Where will the efficiency savings be made in the budget? Will they come from the £7.5 billion that is allocated through the Scottish Executive Finance and Central Services Department? What will the savings consist of? Will the Executive give the civil service union, the Public and Commercial Services Union, a guarantee that, as it moves towards so-called savings in the budget, there will be no compulsory redundancies? Will the minister clarify whether the savings will be achieved by taking more public services that are currently provided by civil servants into the private sector? Is that part of the Executive's strategy to secure the savings? I would like the Executive to identify those elements for us so that we are clear about the implications for job cuts.

The budget is supposed to be equality proofed. Equal opportunities was one of the founding principles of the Parliament. Where and how does the Executive propose to build in financing for equal pay for men and women in the public sector? I hope that the nursery nurses take the councils to court to establish equal pay for their jobs, but workers should not have to take the Executive, kicking and screaming, to tribunals to get equal pay. That initiative should come from the Parliament. Under which budget headings has equal pay been built in? I would like to hear what the minister has to say on that point.

I want to correct an impression that one or two members might have given. The procedures are adequate in giving members of all parties the opportunity to propose alternatives to the budget. What is interesting is that, if such alternatives are presented, they are scrutinised by an informed committee, whether that be a subject committee or the Finance Committee. Perhaps the fact that serious questions will be asked has acted as a disincentive to people who might otherwise have brought forward alternatives. I suppose that Brian Monteith, as the Conservatives' finance spokesman, has the option of being a member of the Finance Committee and scrutinising issues along with the rest of us. It is wrong to say that the procedures are inadequate in ensuring the ability to present alternatives.

Every year, we hear the argument that non-Government parties should produce a complete alternative budget. Will Des McNulty remind me whether Tony Blair produced an alternative budget before 1997? The answer is no, is it not?

Tony Blair published detailed proposals, which we have yet to see from the SNP. I will pick up Jeremy Purvis's point about Sonny and Cher. Perhaps the song that Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond should sing to each other is "It's not you babe", because we are still waiting to hear anything of substance from either of them.

It must be said that the Conservatives have produced something. We have the James report, on which Oliver Letwin's proposals are based. However, when we examine the proposals—we do not have full publication of them—we see a gap where Scotland should be. Perhaps the Conservatives' proposals contain a paradox, because Brian Monteith has said that the size of the Scottish block would not be affected, whereas I understand that Oliver Letwin says that about £35 billion of savings would be made.

Perhaps Brian Monteith wants to intervene to tell me exactly what would happen to the Scottish block. In that case, I would be delighted to defer to him.

It is gracious of the member to invite me to intervene. I am happy to answer him by saying—as I said in my speech—that Oliver Letwin has guaranteed that the Barnett consequentials will be the same as those that are proposed in Gordon Brown's spending plans. We have gone further, by saying that Barnett consequentials that do not match those proposals will be topped up to match them. There is no need to debate cuts. We need a debate about spending priorities.

I presume that the Tory slogan for the next election will be "Less is more", which is perhaps consistent with the Tory approach. Brian Monteith talked about cutting council tax but, as I have said frequently in the chamber, I have a strong recollection of council tax increases in 1995, 1996 and 1997, all of which were based on Conservative policy choices. Taxes for businesses increased significantly more at that time than they have under Labour. Those of us with longer memories should not allow people whose memories are not as exact to forget what the Conservatives did and would do in power.

Jim Mather makes the same speech every time. The paraphrase of it is that more powers would solve all Scotland's problems at a stroke. His Jeremiah speech is unfair to Scotland on two counts. There are things wrong with Scotland's economy, such as the features that the Finance Committee has identified, which include the need to change the balance between the private and public sectors, the need to improve Scotland's transport infrastructure and—properly—the need to address how the university sector can be improved and made more fit for the purpose of delivering opportunity.

The problem with Jim Mather's approach is that he takes us away from addressing such problems, which fundamentally concern how we spend the money that we have. To that extent, his approach has a diversionary aspect that does not serve Scotland well.

Will the member give way?

The member is in the last minute of his speech.

The second point on which Jim Mather lets Scotland down is that he does not take the honest position of being Churchillian, saying that independence would mean blood, sweat, toil and tears and telling us exactly how the SNP would deal with the missing billions and what services would be cut to follow the hard route towards independence. Saying that more powers would deliver immediate benefits is not an honest position. Jim Mather needs to own up to that. [Interruption.]

Order.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I am sorry to raise the matter, because time is constrained, but I seek your guidance. We know that it is not competent for members to intervene in the last minute of a speech. Does not that imply an obligation on members making speeches not to make personal attacks on other members in the last minute? Do not such attacks display a lack of courtesy to the members concerned?

Members are not prohibited from taking an intervention in the last minute of a speech. Sometimes we counsel against that because we are not convinced that sufficient time is available to take and deal with an intervention. However, ultimately, whether to take an intervention in the last minute is up to members.

I think that the discourtesy that has been displayed today was not against Jim Mather—his back is broad—but against the ambassador from Luxembourg, whom we saw representing that independent nation of a small and successful kind in the distinguished guests gallery this morning.

I return to a recurring theme when I speak in finance debates—the lack of conformity to good accounting principles in how we lay things out. As long ago as the 13th century, the Florentine bankers developed a system of double-entry bookkeeping in which one could see the sources and application of money. Ironically, to use that system and record effectively, they had to use not the Roman number system but the Arabic one, which had the number zero in it, although that was forbidden by the city authorities. The word for zero in Arabic is "sifr", from which we get today's word "cipher", and it was considered that using that system concealed the truth. Encipherment sometimes seems to be the way in which our accounts are dealt with.

I was grateful to Jeremy Purvis for bringing up pensions. As I look through the accruals in the bill—of which I shall say more—I note that there is very little in the way of accruals, or income. Let us look at the accruals that derive from superannuation. The figure for teachers is £1.156 billion, which immediately transfers to expenditure on pensions. The whole way in which we are managing pensions is going to bite and bite hard. I do not say that we will be able to solve that problem in one, two or three years; it is a long-term problem that we must engage with. That applies equally to 11 Downing Street as it does to people here.

In the brief time that is available to me, I will talk about accruals. Looking at the figures for the Scottish Executive Development Department, I see that we are going to get a total of £100 of income from 10 line items, including "Receipts from Energy Action Grant Agency" and "Fees for functions carried out by the Scottish Building Standards Agency". That is not a great deal. We also see, on page 14 of the bill, that the Scottish Police College superannuation funds the expenditure of the Scottish Police College and that the Scottish Legal Aid Board superannuation funds the expenditure of the Scottish Legal Aid Board. On page 17, we see that the superannuation contributions for teachers and the national health service turn into expenditure on teachers and the NHS.

Audit Scotland is going to generate £100 of income from the sale of information technology equipment. If it can sell anything worthwhile for that amount, I would love to have it as well. The miscellaneous income for the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body also totals £100. The Food Standards Agency's income from its charges, veterinary services and inspections is only £100. It is remarkable how, in focusing only on expenditure, we appear not to be dealing in any sensible way with income.

Occasionally, when we see a proper reference to income—such as the £17 million in the budget for tourism, culture and sport—we also see a footnote saying, "Income to be surrendered." Frankly, until we see income and expenditure, we will not be able to see what is going on. By the same token, it is time that we expressed our budget with assets and liabilities—especially the increasing, worrying, devastating, crippling private finance initiative liabilities.

I want to dwell on the issue that has come to dominate the debate—the fact that neither the Scottish Tories nor the SNP has produced even the bare bones of a budget proposal. I accept wholly Fergus Ewing's point that it is unreasonable to expect every detail to have been finalised; however, with £25 billion at their disposal, surely they could have come up with something.

We might ponder that question today in particular. I ask members to recall that, just three hours ago, at First Minister's question time, both the SNP and the Tories were worried about the UK Parliament trespassing on the Scottish Parliament's areas of responsibility for one family in one place who occasionally come to Scotland, yet here we are, three hours later, discussing spending plans that will affect every Scottish family in every single community on every single day of the year, and the silence is deafening. To be fair, Brian Monteith commended to us Oliver Letwin's plans. It is fair to say that Oliver Letwin has not been tiptoeing or trespassing on Scottish plans; he has been like a rampaging elephant.

My colleague, Des McNulty, took a significant intervention from Brian Monteith on that, when he said that we would get the Barnett consequentials of Oliver Letwin's plans. Of course, the Barnett consequentials of £35 billion of cuts is £3.5 billion of cuts. Therefore, it is perhaps not a surprise that we have heard not a squeak from the Sewel-sensitive Scottish Tories about where those cuts will fall in Scotland.

Will the member explain why the £23 billion of efficiency gains that Gordon Brown talks about are not sold as cuts, but the £35 billion of efficiency gains that Oliver Letwin talks about are sold as cuts? Both figures are clearly based on the same analysis and both are efficiency gains.

Tempting as it is for me to enter into the efficient government debate, I will resist for once and come to the central question that I want to pose to the Tories.

The biggest item in the budget that we are debating today is the Scottish health service. In that item, the Tories have a big idea that we are going to introduce health vouchers worth half of the cost of treatment. Of course, such a health voucher is only any use if the person using it can afford to top it up. No wonder that even Brian "free market" Monteith is frightened to go out and argue that the Tories' central budget proposal is to destroy 50 years of consensus about health care being dependent not on the size of a person's bank balance but on their need.

I turn to the SNP. This morning, the SNP was also sounding off about Sewel trespassing, but there has been no SNP budget, not even from another place. It is all so different from 15 years ago when, like snowdrops in spring, one could rely on there being an SNP budget. Those with good memories will remember the refrain "Everybody else fiddles the figures but not the SNP." The only problem was that eventually the SNP could not find one independent commentator who would put their name to an SNP budget that tried to spend the oil first to balance the books and then all over again to have a nest egg. Much better than spending the oil money twice was to jump on the bandwagon of an issue of public concern, preferably one that could be blamed on another place, such as pensions. It is much better to bleat than to face the tough choices that budgets bring.

The Executive has brought forward a budget that balances the books, boosts services and promotes economic growth. I commend it to the chamber.

In the short time available to me, I will consider the impact of the budget on the economy, which the Executive is always telling us is its top priority.

By a fortunate coincidence, three sets of relevant figures came out this week. The latest growth figures were published, to which Jim Mather referred. They show that in the third quarter of the year 2003-04, Scotland's growth was 1.8 per cent against the UK's rate of 3.2 per cent. Of course, Scotland's growth in the previous year was also 1.8 per cent, and the UK's was 2.8 per cent. Therefore, the gap has widened again. We know that manufacturing is a major reason for that, because it has suffered tremendously in the past five years and continues to decline.

We had a second set of figures on the trade gap. The deficit in Scotland's balance of trade was £3.96 billion in 1998, which is not a figure to be proud of. In 2001, the gap rose to £6.8 billion, which represents one tenth of the Scottish gross domestic product. The size of the United States' trade gap compared with its GDP is often criticised, but the Scottish figure is double that of the US and, rightly, should be criticised.

The third set of figures is on the enterprise gap, which has also widened. There are fewer entrepreneurs in Scotland than there were a year ago. Then, 5.5 per cent of the population was regarded as being entrepreneurs, but the figure now is 5.2 per cent. The UK figure has also fallen under this tax-and-spend Labour Government, which is not surprising, but it is still well ahead of the figure in Scotland. Again, the gap between the UK and Scotland has widened.

What should the Executive be doing? First, it needs to start tackling the size of the public sector. We have raised that issue time and again, as have many independent commentators. It is simply not sustainable to have a public sector that consumes around 54 per cent of GDP. The latest quarterly figures show an increase of 7,230 staff in local government. It would not be so bad if they were all in front-line services, but I do not believe for a minute that they are. The public sector continues to grow, despite all the warnings.

Secondly, the Executive should reduce the business rate. With the setting of the English rate, the gap has widened again. We know that the business rate goes straight to the bottom line of every business in Scotland and that it is a major factor in our poor progress on economic growth.

If we consider the budget as a whole, we see that, apart from revenue from the business rate, the money that the Executive gets comes from London in a cheque from Gordon Brown. Therefore, as Brian Monteith said, it is entirely appropriate that we should examine the wider picture at UK level. As he said, the Institute for Fiscal Studies identified yesterday an £11 billion black hole in the UK budget. That means that, under a Labour Government, the national tax burden is likely to reach a 25-year high by 2010 and that hard-working families across Scotland will have to pay £1,000 a year more. Of course, the result of that is that money will be sucked out of the economy and economic growth will slow even more than it has done.

Never mind—there is hope. Over the skyline on his charger comes our good friend Oliver Letwin, with his Conservative plans to benefit the Scottish economy. The James report, to which members have referred, identified £35 billion in savings. If Wendy Alexander examined the detail of that, she would see that the budget increases would be in the devolved areas, such as health and education. Of course, that would mean that Scotland would continue to receive what it does under the Barnett formula. The generosity that the UK Government has shown towards Scotland would continue and we would also have £4 billion in tax cuts. Therefore, Scotland would benefit twice; the very generous amount of money would continue to come in, but we would avoid the tax rises that would be inevitable under a new Labour Government. People in Scotland would have more money in their pockets and we would get economic growth as well as the same level of public services.

Therefore, my advice to the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform and, indeed, to all those concerned with Scotland's finances and economic growth is clear: vote Conservative.

I welcome the budget report and the behind-the-scenes work by the members of the Finance Committee and the staff who supported the committee in its appraisal of the budget.

In a sense, the budget looks at two fundamental things about which I do not think there is much disagreement in the chamber. One is how we deal with the elements of what we would call the new economy, which involves the retail and service sectors, and the high-knowledge economy. The issue is how we find ways in which investment can maximise opportunities for communities across Scotland. My contribution to the debate will be to consider how we can make the connections that will impact most markedly on the areas in which the greatest disadvantage exists. Obviously, that includes the Glasgow Shettleston constituency. Given the statistics that have been announced on a range of social policy, there is no doubt that if we can get the economy operating more effectively in disadvantaged areas or engage such areas in economic activity, we can change markedly the social make-up of those communities.

Another key thing is to ensure that resources flow in the right direction, so that individuals have the knowledge and education with which to enter the job market and so that new opportunities and investment can be targeted on those areas. It is not, as the Tories have claimed, about the level and scale of public spend. Like many lessons of the 1980s and 1990s, what we do with the public spend is much more critical. All major economies recognise that there is little or no difference in most European democracies in terms of public expenditure; the debate is about what that money is spent on.

If anything is a legacy of the 1980s and 1990s in the community that I represent, it is the scars that have been left by the economic policies that were followed by the Conservatives. We have levels of incapacity benefit that are unacceptable. We have high levels of lone-parent households with people who find it difficult to find employment. We also have a generation of workless households. Those things were never the concern of the Tory Administrations of the 1980s and 1990s. As someone who taught in the east end of Glasgow for a considerable period of time, I think that there is a marked difference there at present from what I experienced in the 1980s and 1990s when I was living and teaching in the east end of Glasgow.

We need to ensure that our economic strategy tries to make those differences. Where I differ from some other commentators in today's debate is that I welcome the M74 development. I believe that that is one of the key elements of economic regeneration for one of the most disadvantaged communities in Scotland. The trick with that development is to ensure that the community benefits, as previous investments have sometimes missed it out.

There must also be a commitment to ensure that, when we engage in major facility developments, we identify areas of disadvantage as key, conscious choices. I make no apologies for having argued that in the past, in my role as an individual MSP and in my role as a minister. That is why I welcome the national facility development in the east end of Glasgow. That sends a message of confidence and improvement.

We have a very different world now from the one that we had 20 years ago. We have a labour market in which the debate is about not lack of work, but skill shortages. The level of public sector employment is at an all-time high and we have a level of youth unemployment that is much more manageable than has been the case for generations. When I hear the Tories say that Oliver Letwin is the answer to some of the problems, I think that that will go down in the political lexicon as Letwin's folly. There is no doubt, in my opinion, that we have serious problems if the Tories believe that they can square the circle that they have drawn this afternoon.

From the nationalists, we have heard a counsel of despair—they say that until we have more powers there is very little that we can do. Jim Mather even used the word "strategic" to mean politicians having a key word for pet projects to make them sound more important. I therefore look forward to hearing next week the SNP's strategic election demand: independence for Scotland. I am conscious of Fergus Ewing's concern about ensuring that we do not make any political attacks in case people feel rather sensitive about that. It strikes me as a disappointment that the combined intellectual wit and economic knowledge of Jim Mather, Fergus Ewing, Murdo Fraser and Brian Monteith could not produce even a fragment of a budget that responds to the Executive's direction in its budget expenditure.

In the past five years, the Executive has made a marked difference to the community that I serve, and I believe that the budget deserves the support of the chamber.

I agree with Frank McAveety that what matters is how Governments spend money and whether they do so effectively and efficiently. I agree, too, that projects such as the M74 should be supported—and are supported, I believe—by mainstream opinion in Scotland. There is a certain consensus in respect of those aims.

I want to address the topic of transport in relation to the budget. We know that there are huge challenges facing Scotland, not just in the Highlands, which I represent, but throughout Scotland. We know that the sum that is required to bring our road network up not to a top-class standard but just to a reasonable standard is £4,000 million over 10 years. We know that our rail system in Scotland, although it is improving, is second class in comparison with that in continental Europe. We know that our air services in comparison with those of Ireland are inferior, fewer and less frequent, although we are a larger country. That is not a legacy in which successive Westminster Governments can take a great deal of pride.

However, I will be characteristically positive—as members would expect me to be—by offering some free and unsolicited advice to the Executive. The advice is that the Executive should cancel a new policy on which it is about to embark. I refer to lorry road user charging, which is about to be introduced to deal with the problem of the foreign freight lorries that come into Britain but pay no vehicle tax. In addition, those lorries do not generate any fuel tax because their drivers bring their fuel into the country.

To tackle that problem, the Government has decided that it will introduce road user charging of 15p per km, but only for lorries. Because of a fuel duty rebate, the charge will be revenue neutral. The only extra income will come from foreign vehicles and will amount to around £140 million a year. However, the technology to collect that £140 million a year might cost between £500 million and £600 million. Mr McCabe's colleagues down south are about to embark on a system that will cost approximately three times more to run than the revenue it will raise. The matter is reserved, but we will be landed with the consequences in Scotland.

Does Fergus Ewing agree that the advantage of a revenue-neutral scheme like that is that it will encourage fuel efficiency? I am thinking of the shift in emphasis from fuel to distance.

That is the theory, but the practice is different. The scheme that the Government proposes has a lower cost for using motorways and a higher cost for using trunk roads. That will encourage lorry drivers to go on longer journeys to avoid paying more than they need to. The scheme will encourage longer journeys, which is something that fuel tax does not do. If people have to pay as they go, they will travel by the shortest possible route.

I am sure that the Executive will ignore the advice that I have given it. Sadly, it is clear that we have inefficient Governments in London and Scotland. The public expect us to try to use money effectively, but that is not happening in the Scottish Executive's work in the transport area.

Tom McCabe said, rightly, that the bill is probably the most important bill in the parliamentary calendar. It is a pity therefore that we do not have a little longer in which to discuss it in more detail. He also said that he felt that the Executive had improved on the budget process. I concede that the Executive has taken on board many of the Finance Committee's recommendations. Jeremy Purvis was right to acknowledge the improvements that have been made, especially in the presentation of the budget document.

I agree with Jim Mather, Brian Monteith and other members that the budget shows few signs of an overall strategy or clearly defined targets. The Executive's refusal to accept targets for economic growth means that the budget does not appear to be making Scotland more competitive. In their speeches, Des McNulty and Wendy Alexander quizzed that rampaging elephant Oliver Letwin's guarantees on the Barnett formula, but Brian Monteith and Murdo Fraser sorted them out on that front.

Des McNulty was absolutely right to say that we need to change the balance between the public and private sectors. Tom McCabe went out of his way to emphasise the Executive's massive spending. Certainly, Andy Kerr, the former Minister for Finance and Public Services, told us that since devolution there had been the longest and largest sustained rise in public spending in living memory. According to the budget, the year 2005-06 will see public spending rise to a massive £25 billion—a 54 per cent increase over the 1999 figure. Although health will see a 70 per cent increase and education a staggering 83 per cent increase, does that mean that waiting lists and waiting times will be down or that our schools will do better? The answer is no, no and no.

As we heard in the debate, Conservatives are not against public spending per se. Scotland's block grant would increase at the same rate as that which Labour proposes. The significant difference, however, is that sustained investment would not require the third-term tax rises that most independent analysts agree are inevitable if Labour is re-elected. Conservatives will not throw public money at problems without first having a clear idea of the outcomes and the likely costs that are involved.

Frances Curran and Wendy Alexander raised the matter of efficiency and efficiency gains. I wish that Wendy Alexander had been tempted rather more into speaking about efficiency, but she drew back from doing so. One of the main building blocks of the budget is the document entitled "Building a Better Scotland: Efficient Government—Securing Efficiency, Effectiveness and Productivity", which the Executive has published and which sets out the plans to find £1.7 billion in efficiency savings over three years to 2007-08.

Does the member agree that efficiency is not related to expenditure and that one can reduce expenditure and decrease efficiency?

I am not absolutely sure what Stewart Stevenson is asking, but I will say that there appears to be no radical agenda for reducing the scope and therefore the size of government, despite Mr McCabe's mixed messages.

In the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform's interview in The Times, he seemed to accept that public service job losses are inevitable. He said that he expected to see an increasing number of people working on the front line, but fewer people overall and he committed himself to streamlining government. However, what do we find? The latest quarterly figures show that the number of council workers has now rocketed through the quarter of a million mark, with an extra 7,000 staff employed by Scottish councils last year. If that is not bad enough, John Elvidge, who is the Executive's top civil servant, admitted in response to a question that I asked at the Finance Committee a couple of days ago that the number of civil servants has soared from 3,500 to 4,457 in the past five years, which is a 33 per cent increase over the period. How does that square with Tom McCabe's pledges on efficient streamlined government? John Elvidge defended the extra civil servants. He says that we need them, but either he is wrong or Tom McCabe is wrong. Perhaps Tom McCabe will explain things to us when he sums up.

Will the member take an intervention?

I am sorry, but I am in my final minute.

At the beginning of his speech, Tom McCabe stressed the importance of transparency, and we agree that transparency is important. I may or may not agree with the first of Mark Ballard's arguments about PFIs, but he is surely right to say that projects such as those that he mentioned should be more clearly spelled out in the budget document.

We need far more transparency in our budget discussions and we need clear and achievable targets. As Murdo Fraser outlined graphically from the figures that have been released this week, improving growth in Scotland is crucial. The budget does nothing to improve growth and entrepreneurialism and it is certainly not strategic or transparent.

At the beginning of the debate, the minister said that the budget process is not necessarily easy to understand. We do not necessarily have to apologise for that, because running a country's budget—or at least the part of its budget that we control, as we control only part of the country's expenditure and virtually none of its income—is bound to be a complex matter. However, we are sometimes still a bit opaque in some doings.

Consider the bill that we are setting on its parliamentary progress. When my colleague Stewart Stevenson was talking about some of the accruals, I saw some distinctly blank faces on the benches, although that is perhaps understandable. If one looks at the final few pages of the bill and tries to work out why there is £100 income from the sale of information technology equipment, when the bill by and large consists of figures that are into the billions of pounds, one will find that there are questions that perhaps the Finance Committee might want to ask at stage 2, even if only to keep the anoraks on that committee happy. I am sorry that Jeremy Purvis will not be one of us on that occasion.

Of course, there has been an interesting debate about the Conservatives' budget and Oliver Letwin in number 11—a most unlikely scenario if ever I heard one, especially mounted on a charger, as Murdo Fraser would have him. Apparently, there was a reassurance that what was done to expenditure south of the border would not affect our Barnett consequentials or, if it did, there would be an extra allocation to the Scottish block. I can see that being popular with the Tory backwoodsmen in the House of Commons. If Mr Letwin ever became chancellor, he would not be able to get away with that.

Of course, the member has greater experience of Westminster than I have. Does he agree that that is exactly what happened in the past, and that Barnett consequentials were topped up or the Barnett formula was adjusted to ensure that Scotland got more money than it may otherwise have got?

The problem is that the past is in the past. Mr Monteith should know that the mood among his Tory colleagues south of the border is that we should shift for ourselves post-devolution. They will certainly not be willing to give us any top-up. The point is that we should not ask for any top-up; we should not be dependent on expenditure decisions that are made at Westminster to determine the total size of the Scottish budget. We should be responsible for our income as well as for our expenditure.

I presume that Jeremy Purvis, Wendy Alexander and others raised the old chestnut, "Why does the SNP not put forward its own budget?" because they wanted to have some fun voting against it. Most Labour and Liberal members spent most of their time talking about anything other than their own budget. I except Frank McAveety from that stricture, although I suggest to him that simply to say that the reason for the economic decline in the area that he represents is the political colour of the Government in Westminster is to underestimate the size of the problem. There is an inbuilt problem in the system that governs Scotland that contributes to that economic decline.

I return to the question of why the SNP does not have its own budget. Apart from standing order 9.16.6, which states that one cannot amend the budget unless one is an Executive minister—

Will the member give way?

No, I will not give way now because I am almost finished.

I do not know how many Government civil servants it took to draw up all the accompanying documents that go with the budget bill, but if the Executive were willing and thought that it would be cost justified to give both us and the Conservatives a similar number of civil servants so that we could come up with our own figures, we might want to re-examine our approach to the question of why we do not have our own budget. I suspect, however, that that would not be a good use of public money.

Leaving aside the accrual of £100 that I mentioned, most of the figures in the budget bill are so vast that any party could come up with a totally different pattern of expenditure in all areas of Scottish life without altering this budget bill. It is clear that none of the details in the budget is in the budget bill, so why bother amending it?

Wind up, please.

The conclusion is clear that Scotland needs to do better and that the Executive does not have the powers to deliver that. If the Executive is not prepared to campaign to get the powers that would allow it to do better, it should move over and let in those who are prepared to do that.

Today's debate has been about agreement on the principles of the budget bill. No one, thankfully, has proposed that we could get by without such a bill. Although several colleagues have made suggestions about its contents, no amendments were proposed at the appropriate time back in December last year. Therefore, I might conclude that not only are we all agreed on the need for a bill, and on the principles that I set out in my opening remarks, but we also seem to have some measure of agreement on the detailed contents.

That said, colleagues have raised a number of important issues during this afternoon's debate, even if they did not always concentrate on the matter at hand. I will try my best to deal with at least some of those issues.

Mr Mather is determined, as is the SNP's wont, to talk down the reality of the situation that people experience day to day in Scotland. He wants to pay much attention to the actions of other European countries and suggests that, somehow, their actions create a better set of circumstances than those that are enjoyed by people in Scotland. However, in doing so, he omits to mention the sustained and stable mortgage rates that people have enjoyed in Scotland over a prolonged period.

Will the minister take an intervention?

No, I will not.

Mr Mather omits to mention the lowest unemployment rate for a generation. He forgets, as I said in my intervention during his speech, that here in Scotland, we have the second-highest level of employment in all Europe. It is not in the SNP's interests to portray that situation and it is determined to deny that this budget will enhance that situation in the future.

Will the minister give way?

No, I will not.

According to Mr Monteith, the Conservatives will perform the magic act of cutting tax while increasing spending. The next thing we know, he will be asking us to believe that, during the Conservatives' previous spell in Government, we did not see unemployment that stinted a generation, mortgage rates that destroyed families throughout Scotland and the UK, or the horrendous sight of a Chancellor of the Exchequer bopping in and out of Her Majesty's Treasury as the economy went into meltdown. The economic model that Mr Monteith proposed today is exactly the same as that which led to that disastrous situation.

I have some difficulty with Mr Ballard's comments about the nature of the Executive's budget, because I absolutely agree with him. He said that the budget is predicated on the Executive's obsession with growing Scotland's economy—and he is absolutely right. That is why I can stand here and cite the statistics that I have already mentioned.

How can the minister make such a comment when we have discovered this week that, despite his predecessor's claims that economic growth was the top priority and that he would look for improvements in gross domestic product per capita, we achieved a pathetic growth rate of 1.8 per cent last year during Mr Kerr's term of office, against a UK growth rate of 3.2 per cent?

Again, we see Mr Mather's selective use of statistics. Mr Mather takes the annual figure and completely ignores the quarterly figures, which tell an entirely different story about Scottish economic performance.

Ms Curran mentioned efficient government. We have made it perfectly clear to the trade unions that we will do all in our power to resist any compulsory redundancies and will employ the best human resource practices in that respect. However, although we have said that we will retrain as many people as possible, we think that it would be disingenuous for anyone in a vibrant economy to give an absolute guarantee about redundancies.

I accept Ms Curran's point about equality proofing. In its evidence to the Equal Opportunities Committee, the Executive acknowledged that there is more to do and we have committed ourselves to working with the committee to make progress on that matter.

Mr Stevenson's speech was a tour de force about the accounting practices of ancient European economies. I would have thought that, with all that knowledge, he would have known that the insertion of the £100 that he mentioned is a convention that is used when there is uncertainty about the income generated. When that figure becomes more certain, it is added to the next revision. Perhaps Mr Stevenson is like the rest of his SNP colleagues in being more knowledgeable about the past and less concerned about Scotland's future.

Will the minister give way?

No.

I have no doubt that Mr Morgan will apologise to Ms Sturgeon for forgetting that, in fact, she proposed an amendment to a previous budget.

We recognise that the money in the budget belongs to the people of Scotland. It is our duty to ensure that we allocate it to meet their priorities and to get the best value possible for every pound that we spend. We also acknowledge that we need to improve efficiency in the public sector. Last year, we launched the efficient government plan for tackling waste, bureaucracy and duplication in order to increase and improve front-line services. We are taking that action not just for the sake of it, but to give real assistance to those who deliver education, health care and justice to the people of Scotland.

Our partners in local government will play a key role in helping us to meet those commitments. By March 2008, core funding through aggregate external finance will have increased by 55 per cent since 1999-2000 and a total of £30 billion will be available to local government over the next three years. In such a growth situation, it is only right and proper to seek out efficiencies and reassure people in Scotland that each pound of theirs is being spent to best effect.

This budget is only the beginning of the plans that we announced last September. It builds for the future by building up our infrastructure, including our schools, hospitals and transport network, and by providing a modern, sustainable base that allows our economy to grow and gives the support that our public services deserve. Such an approach will benefit and strengthen all our communities. Those are the things that people care about and which make a real difference—initiatives that seek not to promote a dependency culture but to provide people with real choices about how they live their lives.

That, Presiding Officer, is the budget that we present to Parliament today. Above all, it is a budget for ambition, for choice and for enterprise, and a budget that rejects the narrowness of nationalism and the selfishness of conservatism. It is a budget that portrays Scotland as a confident country, promoting opportunity and—while doing so—pursuing fairness.