Chamber and committees

I presume that the idea is to move at pace. It seems to me that, for your self-interest, it is extremely important that the Funding Council, the Government, this committee and others have a clear idea of what is happening and what benefits are being produced. In my area, one college is steadily withdrawing from a council area that has one of the highest levels of deprivation—Andy Witty mentioned it earlier—so the benefit to that area is reducing over time.

When I had responsibility for colleges 15 years ago, the need for parity of esteem for the college sector was the big rallying cry, and that had some effect. However, parity of esteem is served when the benefits can be demonstrated, so there must be clear and accurate figures. The SFC says that it is not its business to talk about outcomes for individuals—I do not know why that is the case—but surely it is in your interest to make sure that clear information is gathered at pace.

On the Funding Council point that Willie Rennie has just raised, I say that nearly every comment that you have made—and, in fact, all the comments in the committee’s previous report—relate to funding. Most of us in this committee are on other committees, where we get a pretty constant parade of organisations that say that they want more funding and that are convinced that they are the ones that are treated the worst, but very few acknowledge the constraints that the Scottish Government is under—we have had 14 years of constraint on public sector budgets. However, that is just a thing of mine.

I come back to what the Scottish Government is responsible for and to the Funding Council. Earlier, you mentioned the disparity between the £4,000 that is spent on a college student and the £7,000 or so that is spent on an undergraduate student. In my experience, the year that I had at one of the Edinburgh colleges was the best with regard to educational attainment—it was better than university. Is it your view that the Funding Council has an institutional bias in favour of higher education as opposed to further education?

Audrey Cumberford talked about the nature of the courses that people are interested in having an impact. Has the sector made an assessment of the effectiveness of the SFC’s new outcomes framework and assurance model since its introduction? I was not on the committee when the report was put together, but I know that having data is very important. If people do not have a grip on the matter and the SFC is reluctant to provide particular matrices for people going through the system, that is an issue. Has the sector as a whole looked at the model? If so, what does it make of it?

Does anyone else want to go further with regard to the Funding Council? Any additional money will have to come from somewhere. Is there an institutional bias in favour of higher education at the expense of further education?

If Ms Smith can be brief, I will give way.

Why can the Labour Party not support something that will address the horrendous decision to cut the winter fuel allowance? You would think that it would jump at the opportunity to do that.

We have heard a great deal from the Conservatives and the Labour Party. They are very much in favour of reform, even to the extent that they are willing to give their votes away to the Reform party, as we can see. I read today that Anas Sarwar is willing to work with Nigel Farage on a case-by-case basis. That gives the game away as to what kind of Labour Party we currently have in this Parliament.

This is a very good budget but, of course, it should be open to influence and amendment if members have any decent ideas and they can say where they would make cuts. The Tories have been asked a number of times where they would get their tax cuts from. Is it local government? Is it transport? Is it health? They will not say because they cannot say. This is a good budget, and I urge the Parliament to support it.

I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests. I also say well done to the cabinet secretary for the work that she has put in so far—it has not been an easy process—as well as to her civil servants and colleagues in the Scottish Government. I also include within that the Greens and the Lib Dems, who have taken a positive and constructive approach to the very serious business of ensuring that funds are available for public services in Scotland.

It is worth mentioning that there are some very good things in this budget bill, the general principles of which we are being asked to support. I am very pleased about the uplift for local government. Whatever our party, we can all acknowledge the fact that it has been a difficult few years for local government because of budget settlements from elsewhere. It is a great relief to see a real uplift for local government services.

In relation to health, I note that I currently have cause to interact with the health service a great deal, and my experience is that people are fed up with the work that they are doing being denigrated in this place on a weekly basis. They know that they are better paid and that there is more money coming to the health service. Of course there are challenges, but they provide an excellent service. It is good to see the uplift that is being allocated to health as well.

Similarly, it is a tough time for our police force, but, at every level in Scotland, they are paid more than their counterparts elsewhere in the UK, and we should not let the budget pass without saying that we are grateful that that will continue.

A couple of members have mentioned free prescriptions, and we sometimes forget how important they are to people across the country, as are free tuition fees. There are horror stories down south just now because people face tuition fee debts of hundreds of thousands of pounds. Apart from being a disincentive to other people to go on to further and higher education, that is a crippling start to people’s working lives, and we will not have that in Scotland, just as we will not have the bedroom tax once again. We used to hear a great deal about that, but we do not hear so much about it these days.

We should also recognise that, in this country, we have a publicly owned train company that is deemed to be the best train operating company in the UK, and it is great to see that continuing under this budget.

I very much welcome the proposal to have a cap on bus fares for a trial period. At some point in the future—although I would not propose it for this parliamentary session—we might have to consider a completely free bus service, because of the benefits that that could provide for the environment and for people across the country. The trial is a great initiative to see whether we can start that process.

Over and above that, two things should be mentioned. One is the action on the two-child cap—which we have heard little about from Labour or the Tories, but which is so important to many people—and the other is the action on the winter fuel allowance.

It seems absolutely astonishing that all the benefits that I have just mentioned will be opposed by the Tory party and not supported by the Labour Party.

Let us look at the Tories. The Tories will vote against the budget and Labour will not support it, but I could not believe it when I heard Pam Gosal accuse the Scottish Government of financial incompetence. The Government of Liz Truss is the very acme of Tory financial incompetence.

Let us look in more detail at the Tories’ track record. People in England now pay higher tax than the majority of people in Scotland. The Tories do not like that fact, but it is simply a fact. The majority of people in Scotland pay less tax than people in the rest of the UK. The Tories brought in the highest tax burden since the second world war.

The budget will be balanced, as it has been every year. The cabinet secretary will ensure that that happens, and I am content with that.

It is also true that the Tories have brought in a debt of £1.7 trillion. That is financial mismanagement. That is nearly 100 per cent of gross domestic product. That is the Tories’ track record of 14 years of failed austerity.

The big story is the Labour Party, which will abstain from the vote. One of the dictionary definitions of abstain is to refrain from performing a duty. That is exactly what Labour members are doing. They have a duty to participate in this Parliament and make decisions for the benefit of the people of Scotland. Simply opting out because they have difficult choices is not good enough.

That is one reason among many why Labour is slipping down the polls in the way that it is. The Tories are now fourth or fifth behind Reform and various others, but Labour is tumbling down the polls. One reason for that is the lack of decision making, the lack of principle and the lack of conviction from the Labour Party here.

Why can you not support something that will address the two-child cap? You have said that you are against the cap, so why can you not support something that will—

Having consulted the standards clerks, I have no interests to declare, but I advise the committee that my daughter is a full-time primary school teacher, working for Aberdeen City Council.

We all feel like that from time to time.