Chamber and committees

For absolutely clarity, the first point that I will make is that the pay offer that is on the table, which has been accepted by some but not all of the trade unions, is for this financial year. We have not yet negotiated next year’s pay award. The type of calculation that Mr Johnson seeks to make involves information about the final cost, which is not yet clear.

I suppose that I can best respond to the question by saying that I have tried to maximise the resources that are available to the health service in the budget settlement by moving substantially beyond the consequentials to provide an uplift to support the health service. Secondly, I have tried to be as mindful as possible, within the resources that are available to me, of the pay demands and pay pressures. Thirdly, once we get into the next financial year, we will be operating within a largely fixed financial envelope, given that I will have taken the decisions on tax—or, rather, I have taken those decisions. Parliament must decide whether it wishes to endorse those decisions. If it does so, that will in essence fix our budget for 2023-24. We will then have to manage the range of pressures within that fixed financial envelope.

Some of the changes that Mr Johnson puts to me will arise from the changes in the powers and responsibilities of the Scottish Government. For example, in 2020, we were in the foothills of establishing Social Security Scotland. In fact, I am not sure whether were even there.

That remains the Government's intention. It has largely driven a number of my responses, which have been designed to set out to the committee that, in the budget arrangements, there will be consequences that will have an impact on the size and scale of the workforce.

Returning to a point that I made in response to Mr Greer’s questions, I note that the shape of the financial outlook in the years to come does not encourage a view about expansion. Comparatively speaking, we are facing two less challenging years in the first two years of the spending period and two tough years in the latter part of it. That is a different shape to what was envisaged in the resource spending review, but it remains relevant in that, previously, it looked as though we would be facing two years of acute challenge and two easier years. That position has been reversed, but we will still have to face those realities and budget provision will dictate a large measure of that.

There is obviously scope for us to explore many of these questions. Prior to the budget, there was a call from some—not all—stakeholders for the Government to use its powers effectively and comprehensively. I believe that we have done so; I also believe that we have done so in a context that is credible, deliverable and in balance. Some of the other proposals that I have seen would have had quite a negative effect on the Scottish tax base, on the Scottish economy and on Scottish society, and some of them I quite simply could not take forward—it was not in my gift to do so.

I am confident that I have taken the steps that are necessary to the maximum of the scope that is available to me to take such steps.

John Swinney has identified an error in his contribution and provided the following correction.

At col 54, paragraph 1—

Original text—

The first thing that I would say is that I do not consider our position to have a discernible effect on middle-income earners in Scotland. Essentially, the steps that we are taking are affecting individuals who are in the top two quartiles of the population in terms of earnings. We are concentrating the measures that we are taking on the top two quartiles—we are not discernibly affecting middle-income earners.

Corrected text—

Will the member give way?

I am grateful to Jackson Carlaw for giving way. I point out the irony of his attack on the Bute house agreement between the SNP and the Greens, given that it comes from a Conservative who was prepared to usher austerity into the United Kingdom with the accompaniment of only the Liberal Democrats, who are roundly rejected across the United Kingdom. I point out the absurdity of the argument that characterises what Jackson Carlaw has put to us this afternoon.

Will the member take an intervention?

You have to use the microphone.

Frankly, I do not recognise the world that Liz Smith talks about. [Interruption.] Well, okay. Let me explain the dialogue with local authorities. I had several discussions with local government about the preparation for the budget, right up until the eve of the budget. I had discussions with all the political leaders in COSLA of all shades of political opinion. My colleagues who are involved in the work on the national care service have been involved in dialogue with local government, but I stress that local government has made it quite clear, because of its opposition to the national care service, that it does not particularly want to take forward dialogue with the Scottish Government on those questions.

When it comes to wider partnership working, I cite to Liz Smith the work that the Scottish Government did, in partnership with local government, that resulted in the Covid recovery strategy being agreed—it was a jointly agreed proposition. With the president of COSLA, I chair a delivery board to take forward such priorities. I wish that members of Parliament would reflect the reality of what is going on, not the invention of reality that we get from the Conservatives.