Chamber and committees

In an extremely challenging financial climate, and following a worst case scenario UK Autumn Statement in which UK Ministers prioritised tax cuts over public spending, we have had to take difficult decisions in setting this budget. The amount Scotland has available to spend is still largely driven by the block grant, which is derived from the UK Government's spending decisions and continuing constraint on public expenditure. The block grant has fallen by 1.2% in real terms since 2022-23 and because of the UK Government’s failure to inflation-proof capital budgets, our capital spending power is due to contract by almost 10% in real terms over 5 years.

Despite this, I am pleased that this Government has committed £4.7 billion in capital and resource in 2024-25 for activities that will have a positive impact on delivery of our climate change goals, and funding of almost £3.9 billion for transport across Scotland.

A significant proportion of the expenditure in my portfolio is legally and contractually committed, and I have ensured that those commitments are met in full in this budget as well as allocating funding to support critical maintenance and renewal expenditure to ensure that the people of Scotland have access to a safe and reliable transport system.

I have considered equalities and fairer Scotland duties and progress towards our statutory targets for climate change and child poverty in prioritising the budget available to me. I refer to the Equalities and Fairer Scotland Budget Statement and Carbon Assessment published alongside this budget.

The Scottish Government approach to the bus powers in the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 ("the 2019 Act") is to empower local transport authorities with flexible tools to enable them to determine what is best to address any transport challenges according to their local needs. Local transport authorities are encouraged to consider the full powers available to them, including partnership work, franchising and local authority run services which sit alongside their ability to subsidise services.

Through the Community Bus Fund we have provided funding to support local transport authorities to explore the options for bus services set out in the 2019 Act and improve public transport in their areas. More details are provided in the answer to question to S6W-24668 on 2 February 2024. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

In addition on 29 January, Transport Scotland officials published an overview of the bus powers available to local transport authorities, which provides an outline of all the powers available to them, and the opportunities they provide to improve local services. The document is available on the Transport Scotland website. Officials continue to engage with local transport authorities and other key stakeholders on the development of detailed guidance to help in their consideration of the franchising and partnership powers. This guidance will be available later this year.

Providing high quality early learning and childcare is critical to supporting children to recover from the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic, including by supporting them to participate in much needed socialisation and play-based activities.

Scotland is the only part of the UK to offer 1,140 hours a year of funded ELC to all three and four-year-olds and eligible two-year-olds regardless of their parents’ working status - putting children first. We have put quality at the heart of delivery of the expansion of funded early learning and childcare. Latest Care Inspectorate data show that the quality of funded early learning and childcare services remains very high, with over 90% of funded providers found to be good or better in all quality key questions.

We continue to support children’s recovery through our investment in universal national programmes like Bookbug and Play Talk Read which provide books, activity packs for the home and free drop-in sessions across the country to support children’s language, learning and social skills through the provision of play, talking and singing. I also think it is important to highlight that many parents lost out on socialising with their children outwith the home and am proud that through approaches such as Stay and Play, there are opportunities for parents to do so, which will also greatly benefit children. We wish to explore models like this through our childcare expansion, including the Early Adopter Communities and expansion of funded childcare to more two-year-olds.

Our block grant funding for this Budget is derived from the UK Government's spending decisions and has fallen by 1.2% in real terms since 2022-23 – a real terms drop of £0.5 billion. The reality is that the amount Scotland has available to spend is still largely driven by the block grant set by successive UK Governments whose constraint of public expenditure prolongs the austerity felt by public services. We fully recognise that all difficult funding decisions have an impact and while there is significant pressure across all Scottish Government budgets in 2024-25, we have reviewed funding options and have identified budget resource for the Mark Scott Awards for 2024-25.

The grid-level costs of specific variable or baseload generation will depend on various factors including (but not limited to) grid capacity, demand flexibility and the geographical location of installation.

The Scottish Government has not made an assessment of this. The responsibility for the balancing of grid lies with the National Grid Electricity System Operator and wider system integration costs are set by the regulator, Ofgem. This data is not held by the Scottish Government.

The responsibility for the balancing of grid lies with the National Grid Electricity System Operator. More information including data on balancing costs can be found here: Balancing costs | ESO (nationalgrideso.com) .

The Scottish Government received approximately £8.5 million in consequentials from this Spring Statement announcement. Consequential funding is not ring-fenced and Scottish Ministers decide how to allocate this funding. These consequentials were used to support Scotland’s overall 2023-24 budget position.

Scotland is delivering against a backdrop of continued austerity at Westminster, catastrophic cuts to Scotland’s block grant and a UK Government Autumn Statement that was the worst-case scenario for Scotland. Our Barnett funding – which is driven by UK spending choices – has fallen by 1.2% in real terms since the 2022-23 budget was presented. Nor did the UK Government inflation-proof their Capital Budget, which has resulted in nearly a 10% real terms fall in our UK capital funding over the medium term.

As set out in the draft Scottish Government budget, the capital funding position is extremely challenging due to the UK Government’s decision to cut our capital budget by nearly 10%.

The capital budget settlement allows for Health Boards’ delegated capital budgets to be maintained at 23-24 levels, for all major projects in construction to be completed and for continued support for the national replacement programmes for ambulances and radiotherapy equipment. Given the current uncertainty regarding availability of funding, regrettably, we have advised boards to pause any new capital projects until capital funding becomes more certain.

Our Infrastructure Investment Plan identified priority health capital projects for funding within that period. As a result of UK Government cuts, we will bring forward a revised Infrastructure Investment Plan in the spring. All due consideration will be given to what projects can be included to ensure the revised Plan is affordable and deliverable.

The Scottish Government has not provided any funding to Lochaber Sensory Care from 2019 to present.

The Scottish Government has not provided any funding to Hayfield Limited from 2019 to present.