I am sorry—I did not mean to press the button.

If, as the cabinet secretary says, this is a reasonable settlement, why did Scottish National Party-run North Ayrshire Council yesterday propose a 12 per cent increase in council tax?

They are rural areas.

I fully accept that there are many different types of inquiries and that, therefore, a one-size-fits-all approach will not work. For example, a death in police custody is very different from a public procurement exercise that has gone wrong. However, one thing that should be common to them all is that the inquiry’s recommendations are implemented. Where does the member think that we should go in creating a statutory legal framework for the implementation of statutory inquiry recommendations?

[Made a request to intervene.]

I suspect that Shona Robison’s new-found friends in the Liberal Democrats and Labour will agree to the order, which is why we will abstain on a point of principle.

In the budget that was agreed to yesterday, the Government is yet again putting money in the wrong place. Councils are operating under sustained pressure following a decade of SNP underfunding, ring fencing and a centralised direction from the Scottish Government. Right across Scotland, demand continues to rise across core services while costs remain elevated, particularly in relation to social care, where even the late adjustments to the budget will not go anywhere near meeting the requirements as set out by COSLA.

The gap between what councils are expected to deliver and the resources that are available to them is becoming increasingly difficult to manage, and that will continue in the future. Let us make sure that it is on the record that it is the SNP Government’s political choice to spend more on benefits and to starve local authorities of the resources that they require. Even if, in certain years, there are real-terms increases, the scale of the challenges and the costs that councils face exceed any above-inflation increases, which only rarely occur.

That is why, across Scotland, councils are grappling with the challenge of balancing their books. Take Dumfries and Galloway Council, for example, which has already been forced to make £130 million in savings in the past 15 years and now faces a further £35 million gap over the next three years. That is why, today, that SNP council made a proposal for an 8.5 per cent council tax increase, which was only voted down a matter of a few minutes ago. It is why, in Dumfries and Galloway, an SNP council proposed to remove the entire funding from its citizens advice bureau and remove Alzheimer Scotland’s care services for those with dementia. It is why, in that SNP council’s final draft proposal, there were cuts that would remove funding for campus cops, close small rural nurseries, reduce the number of deputy headteachers and scrap the pool of permanent supply teachers. That is the reality of the effects of SNP Government decisions on an SNP-run council.

The picture is no better elsewhere. For years, councils have been asked by the Government to do more with less. As I said earlier, yesterday, the SNP-run North Ayrshire Council would have passed a budget forcing a 12 per cent increase in council tax, had numerous councillors not intervened. To go back to the cabinet secretary’s earlier point about why certain rural councils—Conservative and otherwise—are having to look at double-digit increases, it is because the funding formula works against rural local authorities, particularly in relation to social care, and particularly those rural authorities in areas that do not vote for the SNP. In future years, future finance secretaries need to look seriously at not only the funding formula for rural local authorities but the national resource allocation committee—NRAC—formula for funding rural healthcare.

It is not only me who is critical of the Government’s decisions. Professor David Bell has warned that the position of local government in Scotland is severe and will become critical. The Accounts Commission has reached similar conclusions: its recent report projects a combined funding gap of around £1 billion across Scotland’s councils by 2027. That means significantly higher council tax increases in future years or more severe cuts in areas where core services and statutory functions have already been cut to the bone.

Let us not forget that local government’s share of the Scottish Government budget is projected to reduce from 26.4 per cent to 24.8 per cent. That is a continuation of a decades-long trend in which council funding has been sacrificed for SNP Government priorities elsewhere. That is why we will not support this local government finance order.

Ultimately, the budget is about choices. We have said all the way through that we believe that the SNP Government has made the wrong choices. Now, and in the past, it is not living up to the obligations that it put into the Verity house agreement. I recognise that there will be more funds for certain councils in this package, but the package singularly fails to meet the challenges and the costs that councils will face. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government delivers services that people across Scotland rely on every day. However, none of this funding will go near touching the sides once all those costs—particularly the labour costs—are met. That is why the Scottish Conservatives will not back this deeply deficient local government settlement. We encourage the Government to finally focus on rewarding local authorities and giving them the fair funding that they deserve and the Scottish Government’s guarantee—which we will put in our manifesto—to deliver in future years.

17:13

I cannot wait. [Laughter.]

The minister had moved on from it slightly, but I will go back to the issue of costs, and specifically to the case that we heard about from the Scottish Police Federation. The new public inquiry that was announced yesterday will put additional strain on police resources. Does the minister accept that the police perhaps have a special case to plead, because they seem to be drawn into almost all public inquiries? If the Government will not look at the sponsor framework arrangement, will it perhaps look at a specific budget line for Police Scotland to be able to deal with the significant costs of dealing with public inquiries?

I do not think that we would let defence or prosecuting lawyers dictate the pace of a trial. Judges would come down on them rather quickly if they sensed that there was any attempt to do so.

Ultimately, it is about ensuring that those who call for a public inquiry have trust in the recommendations as well as in the Government or any other bodies to implement the recommendations. My fear is that, if we focus too much on the process and not on what happens after an inquiry has reported, we will end up improving the process, efficiency and operation of inquiries but leaving it to the Government of the day to act on the recommendations. I hate to say it, and I go back to Sir Humphrey Appleby, but there is still a desire for Government ministers to get problems off their desk and hope that they stay off their desk for as long as possible, or at least until after the next election or when they leave office.

I close with an appeal for all those who the report touches to take its recommendations seriously, for the Government to implement the recommendations expeditiously, whichever party is in post after the election, and for future Governments and other bodies to implement the recommendations from public inquiries. Only then will public confidence be enjoyed and trust maintained.

15:32

What does the cabinet secretary say to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, which argues that many of the baselined funds still come with clear requirements to deliver on specific national priorities of the Scottish Government?