Chamber and committees

If there are issues in France and companies cannot employ people there, how can we tell that it is worse here? It is not as though there are thousands of people lined up who are being blocked by Brexit. That is simply not the case.

The big issue is the weakness in tax revenue and the shortfall that it will bring. Liz Smith pointed that out and we heard about it at the Finance and Public Administration Committee today. That is the big serious issue that is caused by long-term structural issues in our economy.

I completely agree with Michelle Thomson that we need to train Scottish workers to the highest possible standards. However, Paul Sweeney was right to highlight cuts to the skills budget. Just when we need it, money is being taken away.

Jim Fairlie said that we need independence. Well, I have news for him. He does not like Brexit, but the SNP’s own economic adviser said that independence would be like “Brexit times 10”.

Other huge areas of failure by the Scottish Government are productivity and automation. I have seen nothing from the Government that will address those issues, which are long term.

The Scottish Conservatives’ top priority at the last election was employment. We want to create good and sustainable well-paid jobs across all the regions of the Scotland. We want to give people hope and opportunity.

We also promised unlimited apprenticeships for Scotland’s young people. Our demand-led model for apprenticeships would ensure that funded places would reflect employer need rather than unambitious SNP targets. We would expand funding for graduate apprenticeships, and we would extend choice in and availability of one-year and two-year foundation apprenticeships for secondary 5 and 6 pupils. We would aim to boost the number of apprenticeships that are taken up by women, and we would ensure that the UK apprenticeship levy is fully used for apprenticeship funding in Scotland.

The UK Government’s kickstart scheme has been a great example of what a Government can achieve when it is focused on the day job. New figures show that 100,000 young people have started new jobs through the kickstart scheme—among them, thousands of Scots who have been helped on to the first step of the career ladder.

So much more could be done by the Government to develop the existing talent in this country, so that we could boost our currently lagging productivity levels. There must be a real focus on workforce planning, skills training and increasing employee compensation for our essential workers. Scottish workers have heard enough warm words while seeing other parts of the UK recover faster than us. They have heard enough platitudes, but seen no action, from the Scottish Government, and they have had enough of seeing our public services being underfunded and our workers being undervalued.

It is time that the Government stopped playing politics with the issue and, instead of simply blaming Westminster for all Scotland’s ills, came up with proposals for how it can grow and flourish. It has had 14 years in power. It is time that it stepped up and took responsibility for the financial situation that Scotland is in.

Perhaps I can get clarification about that afterwards because, as I said, there are no figures for previous years. If that money is coming in, it must be allocated out. I just could not see in the budget where it was being allocated to, which is straight out to local authorities, I guess.

My next question is about the north-east and Moray just transition fund. The budget shows that there is £20 million of capital funding for next year. Can you provide any more details on what that money will be spent on?

Looking at the figures that COSLA has provided, I think that a big piece of that £100 million is the employer national insurance contribution increase, which it has calculated as £70 million. I guess that it would complain that it has not been compensated for that while areas such as the NHS potentially have been compensated. Would that be a fair reflection?

That is helpful—thank you. In considering the local government budget, I am also thinking about what the Deputy First Minister told us in the committee not that long ago about the shift to prevention. I guess that that is difficult when local authorities see their budgets being restricted in that way.

A report on obesity came out this week. Local authorities might be closing swimming pools and sport facilities, which will potentially bring about inequalities. However, people who can afford to do so can still go to private clubs. How can we address inequalities such as that when the amount of funding that local government is getting is being squeezed?

Do you have a timetable for when those plans will come forward?

I want to point out that I was in no way being critical; I realise that the systems were put together at pace. Looking ahead, we realise that we will probably have some sort of hybrid working in the future, so we should look at the systems. We probably have a bit more time in which to do so because we have something else in place right now. I was in no way being critical of the staff who put the systems together at pace.

Good afternoon, as it is now, cabinet secretary. John Mason asked about the £100 million for business support and the £100 million for self-isolation. I think that you said that that came from portfolio underspends. Did you stop at £200 million, or were there any more underspends that could be used for other things?

I want to move on to another issue. As a new member, maybe I am not quite understanding the point, but page 115 of the budget document says that there is city deal funding of £100 million for 2022-23. However, there is no figure for previous years. Could you explain that, cabinet secretary?

Did that exercise stop at £200 million, or was there more money that could be allocated?

You will probably expect me to ask about local government. Page 12 of the budget says that there is a real-terms resource increase of 4.4 per cent to local government. However, the briefing note that we received from COSLA claims that there is a cut of approximately £100 million to the revenue funding for councils compared to 2021-22. In relation to capital, the budget claims a 7.2 per cent increase, but COSLA claims that it is flat cash. Who do we believe when it comes to local government finance—COSLA or the Scottish Government?