Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]

Meeting date: Wednesday, December 4, 2024

Official Report 874KB pdf

Parliamentary Bureau Motions

The next item of business is consideration of Parliamentary Bureau motion S6M-15711, on approval of a Scottish statutory instrument. I ask Jamie Hepburn to move the motion on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau.

Motion moved,

That the Parliament agrees that the Budget (Scotland) Act 2024 Amendment Regulations 2024 [draft] be approved.

The Conservatives will support the motion lodged by Jamie Hepburn, but we do so with some reluctance. I will explain why.

Although we are not opposing this particular set of budget revisions, we have significant concerns about the practices at play here. There are questions to be asked about Government transparency and about whether the Parliament has been able properly to scrutinise the final details of major in-year budget changes. The Scottish Fiscal Commission, Audit Scotland and independent analysts all agree that greater transparency is needed regarding the Scottish Government’s budget revisions, because significant proportions of the original Scottish budget are being transferred in-year between portfolios.

I understand that some in-year revisions were required because of United Kingdom events such as the general election and the timing of the budget. However, the Scottish Government itself also made many changes, and those shifts, mostly from the health and education budgets, are now being propped up by a quick-fix funding boost at the heart of the Government’s finances.

That practice is problematic for two key reasons. It does not allow for sufficient and accurate parliamentary scrutiny of Government spending and it means that this Government appears to be flying by the seat of its pants in funding our public services. Relying on massive in-year transfers means that the figures presented to Parliament in each year’s budget could be construed as being a façade because they do not represent the actual plans, policies and spending intentions of the principal portfolios.

That can mislead the Parliament and the public about the scale and focus of the Government’s plans and priorities. For example, a portfolio such as health and social care can be promoted as having received a big funding uplift while the Government has every intention of re-routing the funding elsewhere.

In summary, we will support the SSI, but questions remain about transparency, scrutiny and the sustainability of the process by which funding is delivered. We have to question whether it is acceptable to move around such significant proportions of public money using only the vehicle of a statutory instrument. We need such questions to be discussed in a wider debate in the Parliament, and I encourage the Government to engage with that process.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak about the SSI. The Budget (Scotland) Act 2024 Amendment Regulations 2024—which are also known as the autumn budget revision—have already been subject to consideration and scrutiny by the Finance and Public Administration Committee, which took evidence on the SSI in November and approved it to go before the Parliament.

The autumn budget revision provides the first opportunity to formally amend the 2024-25 Scottish budget, and it allocates almost £1.1 billion of additional funds to support our public services. The changes include providing £1,058 million to health to support services and to fund pay rises and changes to employers’ pension contributions, £155 million to local government and £35 million to fund police and fire service pensions. It also sets out savings, as announced by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government in the Parliament in September, that impact underlying budgets. That was required to fund priority areas such as health and to support pay rises in order to avoid strike action.

The autumn budget revision is part of routine parliamentary business and proposes amendments to better align the Government’s budget with planned spending profiles. Budget revisions require to be in place to ensure that spending can be taken forward against the full allocated budget. It is not that the additional funding that has been received during the financial year thus far—most significantly as part of the UK main estimates—cannot be taken forward without breaching statutory spending limits.

I and colleagues across the chamber are a bit surprised by Craig Hoy’s approach and his rather fruitless attempt to make a political point about the process. In relation to transparency, the Government has provided everything that the Finance and Public Administration Committee asked for. As Craig Hoy well knows, the budget document that the finance secretary has just talked about includes extensive tables and back-up information to provide transparency. If he is struggling to understand that, we would be very happy to come back to the FPAC to go through it with him one more time.

As is normal practice, I urge the Parliament to support the SSI in order to ensure that the funding that has been received to date is able to be spent on our vital public services.

The question on the motion will be put at decision time.

The next item of business is consideration of Parliamentary Bureau motion S6M-15712, on approval of an SSI. I ask Jamie Hepburn, on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau, to move the motion.

Motion moved,

That the Parliament agrees that the Disability Assistance (Scottish Adult Disability Living Allowance) Regulations 2025 [draft] be approved.—[Jamie Hepburn]

The question on the motion will be put at decision time.