For the purposes of rule 9.11 of standing orders, I advise the Parliament that His Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Visitor Levy (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill, has consented to place his prerogative and interests, in so far as they are affected by the bill, at the disposal of the Parliament for the purposes of the bill.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I could not connect to the app. I would have voted yes.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I would have voted yes.

The budget provides record funding for local government and for health. In fact, we have consistently gone beyond the health resource consequentials that we get from the United Kingdom Government and have consistently provided more money to the national health service. The budget also provides more than £2.3 billion for social care, which exceeds our commitment to increase funding by 25 per cent over this parliamentary session by more than £500 million.

Record resources are going into both systems. I reiterate that the Parliament in the next session could look at whether the resources in those systems are being spent in the most effective way through the delivery systems that we have in place.

I think that everyone should welcome the increased investment in primary care. We have provided general practice with a £531 million three-year funding deal to recruit more general practitioners and improve access, and, as Emma Roddick referred to, we have provided £36 million for new walk-in GP services in communities across Scotland. That can only help to ease pressure at peak times, including during the early morning surge for appointments, so I thought that that would have been welcomed across the chamber.

Local government has a key role to play in driving progress on reducing child poverty, including by delivering whole-family support that breaks the cycle of poverty. That is why the 2026-27 Scottish budget provides a further real-terms increase to the local government settlement. The measures include making £90 million available for devolved employability services next year, continuing to invest more than £1 billion in funded childcare and investing to make free school meals available to more than 350,000 pupils.

Of course, we wanted to scrap the council tax, but we did not get a majority in the Scottish Parliament to do so. To put it bluntly, what we need is to reach some political consensus on what should replace the council tax. At the moment, such a political consensus does not exist. Even modest changes, such as the introduction of additional bands at the higher end, have been opposed by Labour members such as Daniel Johnson, for whatever reason, even though the Labour Government at Westminster has done exactly the same thing. That shows that there is a need to get beyond that dispute and to try to find political consensus.

I make the point again that there is a huge difference between council tax rates in Scotland and England. As of 2025-26, the average council tax bill in Scotland is £344 lower than the average bill in England. Despite all the talk of increases, council tax payers in Scotland will continue to pay less, on average, than they would south of the border.

The vast majority of the funding that is available to councils is provided by means of a block grant from the Scottish Government. It is then the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their budgets and to allocate the financial resources that are available to them. That includes the maintenance of local roads on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

The Scottish Government’s council tax reduction scheme ensures that nobody should have to meet a council tax liability that they cannot afford, and we continue to promote take-up, including through working with Citizens Advice Scotland. Where arrears occur, councils have powers to write off those debts.

The budget has provided councils with record funding of £15.7 billion, including £253 million of unrestricted general revenue grant. Councils have full discretion to allocate that money as they see fit, including to support for third sector organisations, where appropriate.

I wish Michael Matheson well in the future after his many years in the Parliament, including his time in the Government.

The flexibility that Michael Matheson referred to is really important. Along with the additional money that is going to local government, additional flexibility is being provided through the baselining of funds and the removal of ring fencing. It is important to provide local government with that flexibility so that we can align our shared priorities, and tackling child poverty is one of the most critical priorities that we share with local government.

I am confident that Falkirk Council, through its family inclusion teams, is setting a direction of travel that will ensure that it can tackle poverty in that area.