Chamber and committees

I, on the other hand, respect the autonomy of democratically elected institutions.

Turning to budget choices, let me set out the Government’s budget choices. In this financial year, 2022-23, the Government provided £145 million of additional funding to local authorities to employ up to 2,400 more teachers and 500 more classroom assistants. That funding is being protected in the budget that we have put forward for the next financial year. Overall, we are increasing the resources that are available to councils by more than £570 million. That is a real-terms increase of £160.6 million.

Those are the budget choices of this Government. Had we followed the advice of the Conservatives, of course, we would not be able to do all that, because we would have cut taxes for the very richest people in the country.

This is, of course, the time of year when we hear lots of reports about the savings options that different councils are considering and when Opposition parties, quite understandably, make hay with that. Very often, those proposals do not proceed. The Parliament’s Official Report will be littered with examples of that.

I have not seen the detail of those particular proposals. Councils are, of course, autonomous in their areas of responsibility, which is something that parties across the chamber often call on the Scottish Government to respect. As my record shows, and as my Government’s funding to councils demonstrates, I am in favour of more teachers, not fewer.

I will answer the questions fully. First, on the general issue, I know—and we have seen this week—that Douglas Ross favours riding roughshod over the decisions and powers of democratically elected institutions. [Interruption.]

—to support additional teachers. Those are our funding choices. That is our record and I am proud to stand on it.

I will let the people of Scotland continue to judge the record, actions and decisions of the Government. Let me repeat some of that. At a time when the Tories have been slashing budgets for local councils, this Government, in the budget that we have put forward for next year, is increasing council budgets by more than £570 million. We are providing £145 million to councils to support the employment of additional teachers. [Interruption.]

Again, I repeat that we would not have been able to do that had we followed Douglas Ross’s advice and cut taxes for the highest paid. Instead, we are asking those at the top of the income spectrum in Scotland to pay a little bit more to protect our public services.

When it comes to pay disputes with teachers, this Government continues to negotiate and to seek settlement. Again, that stands in marked contrast to where the Conservatives are in power. The education secretary in England said this week:

“We didn’t negotiate ... pay”

with teachers, because

“that’s not what we are there to do.”

We welcome the survey by the National Autistic Society Scotland and Scottish Autism. It adds to the diverse range of views that we have from autistic people, people with a learning disability and other neurodivergent groups on a learning disability, autism and neurodiversity commissioner. The survey highlights areas where autistic people feel that they need better support, including around mental health and education. We have recognised the need for additional work on mental health and have been working closely with autistic adults and adults with a learning disability on this. We are committed to bringing forward a consultation later this year on the learning disability, autism and neurodiversity bill, including on the creation of a commissioner.

A range of work is being taken forward by national health service boards to increase capacity, workforce and activity for diagnostics, including the use of seven mobile MRI and five mobile CT scanners to provide additional activity. I am conscious that the Conservatives claimed this weekend that there are five-year waits for diagnostic tests and that they described that as “scarcely believable”. There is, of course, a reason for that, which is that it is simply untrue.

NHS Grampian has pointed out that the Tories have misrepresented data that they received in a freedom of information request response. It is routine for patients who have been treated for forms of cancer or received neurosurgical care to have pre-planned and scheduled scans in future years, to monitor their progress and condition after treatment. Those are not diagnostic tests prior to treatment, as the Conservatives claimed.

Clearly, our NHS is wrestling with a number of very significant pressures right now, but it does no service to anyone when the Conservatives distort figures and mislead the public.

There are no cuts to national health service budgets. On the contrary, we are proposing a £1 billion increase to the budget of the national health service next year. Again, that is something that would not have been possible had we taken Tory advice to cut taxes for the richest people in our society. Within that, capacity for diagnostic tests is being increased, because everybody recognises that the earliest possible diagnosis, especially for cancer, is vital. We continue to build up capacity and to support the NHS to fully recover from Covid.

Our commitment to substantially eliminate the poverty-related attainment gap by 2026 still stands. I have said that in the Parliament before and I say it again today. I stress the phrase “poverty-related attainment gap”. Of course, we are also trying to tackle child poverty through something that I think Douglas Ross might have referred to as a pet project earlier: the Scottish child payment, for example.

That task of tackling child poverty and helping to reduce and substantially eliminate the poverty-related attainment gap would not be as difficult as it is if we did not have a Tory Government pushing more children into poverty every single week. [Interruption.]