KPs such as the umbrella contracts are the ones that we wish to discourage were possible. That concludes the portfolio questions and is now time to move on to the next item of business, which is a debate on motion prone number 1226 in the name of John Swinney on the Budget Scotland number 4 bill. I invite members to wish to speak in the debate press that requests to speak but ond yn gallu ei wel, oherwydd, ond yn dweud o'r gweithio Gwain Swinney ddatblyg a dweud eich mwyfg a'u gwaith i Gwain Swinney, Minister hefyd, o�m14, mwyf. The budget bill confirms that our spending plans deliver more prosperous and fairer Scotland. Although the latest economic indicators continue to be encouraging, we recognise that a strong economy is only successful if it is underpinned by a society that is fair and equitable. that all of our citizens have the opportunity to achieve their potential, today's budget will invest £16.6 million to implement the findings of the Wood Commission on developing Scotland's Young Workforce, spend £526 million in our colleges, and over £1 billion in our universities, and expand our modern apprenticeship programme towards a target of 30,000 stats each year by 2020. Secure capital investment of about £4.5 billion knife in our schools, and transport networks allocate £81 million to mitigate the most harmful impacts of the UK Government's welfare reforms and deliver over £200 million to support health and social care integration. Those are just some of the measures that we are taking forward to create a fair and a prosperous Scotland. We have also taken progressive decisions on land and buildings transaction tax, which means that 50 per cent of residential transactions at the lower end of the property market will be taken out of tax altogether, providing a welcome boost to first-time buyers and the property market into the bargain. Over 90 per cent of taxpayers will pay no tax at all or be better off compared to the UK's current tax rates. Our landfill rates balance concerns over waste tourism with the appropriate financial incentives needed to deliver our zero waste ambitions. We will maintain the most competitive business environment in the UK, but 95 per cent of non-residential taxpayers are better or no worse off than under LBTT. We will not only continue to support the small business bonus scheme, worth an estimated £172 million to businesses the length and breadth of Scotland in 2015-16, but we will also invest £11 million to match the poundage for business rates south of the border. I have taken a prudent approach to forecasting revenues from the devolved taxes, and my forecasts have been endorsed as reasonable by the independent fiscal commission. With tax devolution, however, inevitably comes an increase in the exposure to risk, and I have decided to hold £15 million in 2015-16 to provide insurance against such risk. Our economic strategy is working, but we must continue to act swiftly to address Scotland's economic challenges. We have established the energy jobs task force to help the economy of the north-east, and we have committed to the apprenticeship guarantee for oil and gas, and we give the categorical assurance that we will deploy the leadership, the energy and the resources of our enterprise and skills network to tackle economic problems wherever they emerge in Scotland. We recognise, however, that in some circumstances the substantive powers to tackle those issues lie out with our control, and I would urge once again the United Kingdom Government to reduce the supplementary charge, invest in exploration credits and back our North Sea oil and gas industry. Our tax measures will support the housing market, and those are complemented by our investment in housing supply. We are more than two-thirds of the way towards delivering our five-year target of 30,000 additional affordable homes by March 2016, including 20,000 homes for social rent, but we recognise that, in that approach, there is more that has to be done to tackle fuel poverty and improve energy efficiency in the housing stock. Over half a million tonnes of carbon and over £200 million in household fuel bills will be saved over the lifetime of the measures that are installed through our programmes in 2013-14. Improving energy efficiency not only helps to address both social and environmental inequality, but it can also improve our housing stock and support our economy by creating and sustaining employment. That is why we are already investing £94 million in 2014-15, a higher level of funding than ever before. However, too many people are continuing to struggle with the cost of heating their homes this winter. Having listened to points raised by parliamentary committees, I can announce that we will increase investment in domestic energy efficiency by £20 million to provide a total budget of £114 million in 2015-16. The extra £20 million of investment that is announced today gives clear and powerful impetus to our efforts to tackle fuel poverty. It also has a positive impact on tackling climate change emissions from our efforts on housing. Patrick Harvie I am grateful to the Deputy First Minister for giving way and any increase in this area, as we have argued consistently over many years, is welcome. However, is the figure of £20 million extra calculated on the basis of what is necessary to meet the fuel poverty targets or contribute to the climate change targets? The lack of an assessment of what scale of investment is needed is one of the issues that has been raised by us as well as by committees. The Deputy First Minister We are considering the full extent of the scale of investment that would be required to tackle the issue, which is an issue that has been raised with us by the economy committee of Parliament. I would not for a moment suggest that the £20 million that has been allocated today would address all of the requirement in this particular area. However, what it is is a solid commitment by this Government to tackle fuel poverty, to tackle energy efficiency and to make a constructive contribution towards the realisation of our climate change targets to which the Government attaches great significance. Our efforts on carbon reduction will be complemented by an additional £4 million of capital funding to support cycling infrastructure in 2015-16, and ministers will announce the details of the investment shortly. To deliver a fairer society, we must focus on the importance of creating a culture of fair work. The Government has targeted its pay policy at those on the lowest incomes, including through measures such as the Scottish living wage. Over 100 companies across Scotland are now accredited as living wage employers benefiting 100,000 individuals, and we aim to expand that number to 150 companies by the end of the year. We will also promote better engagement of employees in business through the establishment of the fair work convention this year. We are pleased with the progress that has been made, supported by the additional funding of £200,000 that we allocated in November to the poverty alliance to encourage more employers to deliver the living wage in Scotland. However, we are determined to do all that we can and announced today that I will allocate an additional £200,000 in 2015-16 to support further progress in our fair work objectives. The health of our population and the education of our young people is two of the most important responsibilities of government. Our overall investment in the national health service is building a health service fit for the 2020 year. The Government is making clear progress on the implementation of the living wage, and I would have thought that Mr Finlay could have welcomed that. The health of our population and the education of our young people are two of the most important responsibilities of government. Our overall investment in the national health service is building a health service fit for the 21st century. As a result of our front-line investment, patient satisfaction has increased with 85 per cent of people fairly or very satisfied with their local health services, an increase of 4 per cent. Hospitals are cleaner with cases of MRSA reduced by 89 per cent since 2007. Over 600,000 patients are treated within the 12-week treatment time guarantee. Full-time NHS staff numbers have increased by over 9,600 under the SNP Government and figures released this week for accident and emergency waiting times show nine out of 10 people were seen within four hours between October and December 2014, and 99 per cent of all A&E attendees were admitted, discharged or transferred within eight hours, a record that is better than performance in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and we have protected our hospitals. Accident and emergency departments at Monklands and Ayr remain open, handling 827,000 attendances since 2007. We will sign contracts for a new Edinburgh raw children's hospital and a De Friesen Galwayraw infirmary this year. Last week, NHS Greater Glasgow took ownership of the new £842 million Glasgow south hospital that will transform the delivery of acute healthcare in the west of Scotland. That has been achieved by our commitment to the national health service, by the hard work of every member of NHS staff and through the fair funding of Scotland's health services. In October, I announced that not only would we pass on the £202 million of consequentials to the NHS but that we would invest more. We have now gone even further. A vote for the budget today will see an additional £127 million of extra spending for front-line healthcare in our national health service, taking our additional investment for 2015-16 to £383 million. The health secretary has already confirmed that £98 million of those additional resources will boost the funding for territorial boards and tackle delayed discharge. I can further announce today that the balance of this extra spending will be used to establish a performance fund of £31.5 million in 2015-16 to improve the quality of care and to reduce waiting times. Scotland's health service will continue to have the benefit of a Government that supports it and that funds it properly. Our front-line fund for the national health service is not £100 million, it is over £12 billion. That is real investment in the national health service. Can Mr Swinney explain how cutting the budget allocation for general medical services, GPs by inflation, is protecting our public services? There is an extra £40 million put into that particular budget line for Mr Hume's information. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting families for whom additional investment of more than £300 million in expanded early years provision is delivering real and tangible benefits. The key focus of our work is to tackle inequality and to ensure that Scotland is one of the best countries in the world for children to grow up. When our youngest children enter school, they should have access to the best possible education. The evidence is clear that the foundations of a successful education system lie in the quality of teachers. We have thousands of excellent teachers across Scotland, but we need not just to maintain, but to improve the high standards that we have set. We have been consistent in our commitment to maintain teacher numbers in line with pupil numbers as a central part of our priority to raise attainment. Over the period 2011-12 to 2014-15, we have provided additional funding to local authorities of £134 million specifically to support them in maintaining teacher numbers. As part of this year's budget process, we agreed to enter discussions with COSLA on educational outcomes, including teacher numbers. However, following the results of the teacher census in December, we reviewed our approach. It is important to stress that we have worked successfully in partnership with local authorities on a range of issues, and we remain committed to that partnership. I also recognise the very real budgetary pressures facing all the public sector, including local government, as budgets are set for 2015-16. However, when specific and sufficient funding is available to maintain the employment of teachers, it is not acceptable that the number of teachers that declined slightly last year and the ratio of pupils to teachers rose slightly into the bargain. In discussion with COSLA and in line with our objective to maintain teacher numbers, I have offered to suspend the penalty for 2014-15 that I was entitled to apply as a result of the fallen teacher numbers and to provide a further £10 million next year on top of the previously allocated £41 million to support the employment of teachers. At this stage, despite the support of SNP councils, COSLA has been unable to agree to what I consider to be a fair and generous offer of government support to deliver a good outcome for our children. As a result, the Government has no alternative in order to protect teacher numbers and to deliver the educational standards that we want to see, but to make that funding available on a council by council basis if and only if they are prepared to sign up to a clear commitment to protect teacher numbers. £41 million is available at the start of this financial year as planned. However, let me be clear, any council that does not make that commitment and demonstrate that it can be achieved will have their share of the £41 million clawed back before April. For those who share our ambition to maintain teacher numbers and deliver on their commitment, a further £10 million is available following the teacher census in December. However, a failure to deliver will result in a further clawback of funding. To each of Scotland's 32 local authorities, let me see this. My door is open. I therefore call on each council to make that commitment, access the resources that we have made available and deliver the teachers that our children deserve. The education of Scotland's children is the key to both their future and to the future of Scotland. However, too many of our young people have life chances narrowed by circumstances out of their control. As we signalled in the programme for government, tackling inequality is one of our key priorities. I am today announcing the first tranche of additional funding to tackle educational inequality within Scotland. This Government will provide £20 million in the coming year to be followed by further funding in next year's budget to focus minds and efforts on supporting those in education who face some of the greatest challenges. Further details on this announcement will be set out shortly. This budget provides new affordable and energy efficient homes, as well as support to first-time buyers looking to enter the housing market and assistance to people as they progress up the property ladder. It supports our economy through investment in education, a supportive business environment and by removing obstacles to people getting into work. It delivers the social wage, protects household incomes and our high-quality public services, and it provides funding of more than £12 billion for health. It puts the life chances of our young children at the heart of what we do with the investment in childcare, further funding for teachers and new efforts to tackle inequality and to give every child in Scotland the best possible education opportunity. It is for all of these reasons that I commend the budget to Parliament. I move the move. I now call on Jackie Baillie, 10 minutes or thereby please. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I welcome the opportunity to participate in the stage 3 debate this afternoon. Labour approached the budget this year, with three very clearly defined asks. A front-line fund of £100 million for our NHS, in addition to the money already going in, a resilience fund of £10 million to mitigate the large-scale job losses and a Scottish office of budget responsibility at less than £1 million to ensure trust and transparency with independent financial scrutiny and economic forecasting. We also ask that the cabinet secretary sit down with local government to look at the huge cuts that have to be made to their budgets, most notably in education. Despite much laughter from the SNP benches a fortnight ago, that is exactly what the cabinet secretary has done in relation to teacher numbers, but more of that later. Our budget requests have been based on what we believe is in the interests of the country and also of immediate need. There is no shopping list, but a series of measured requests that are all fully costed. Mr Swinney has substantial resources available from Barnett consequentials arising from the autumn statement, and those can fund in full all of our budget requests. Let me start with the front-line fund for our NHS. I listen very carefully to what the cabinet secretary had to say. There is not one penny more allocated to health than simply announcing what you would do with the remaining 127 million consequentials already allocated to health. No one can be in any doubt about the pressure that our hospitals and accidents in emergency departments are under, and, despite the very best efforts of our NHS staff, there is a limit to what they can do without the backup of adequate resources. Literally every week, newspaper headlines highlighted the crisis in A&E. There were stories of older people lying on trolleys for as much as 21 hours waiting for a bed. In another case, I know of a woman who was discharged from hospital in the morning suffering from acute COPD, readmitted to A&E in the afternoon, and then spent more than 12 hours on a trolley waiting for a bed. She was clearly not fit to be discharged, but such was the pressure on beds. She was sent home far to her early, only to end up back in one on the same day. That was an inefficient use of NHS resources. We also witnessed that Port of Cabins, mothboard for years pressed into use, such was the pressure. If you needed any more convincing, you only need to look at the A&E stats that were published yesterday. The target for waiting times at A&E has not been met. Some health boards only manage 85 per cent against a target of 95 per cent. Of course, the real target that the Scottish Government wants to quietly drop is, in fact, 98 per cent. Those stats were for the last quarter of 2014, before there was significant additional pressure on our NHS. Clinicians tell me that there is no longer such a thing as winter pressures. That is now the norm all year round. January saw hospital after hospital under strain, some closing their doors to any new admissions, like the western general in Glasgow and the Royal Alexandra hospital in Paisley. I fear that things will get worse before they get better. We have been subjected to daily stories about the state of the NHS in England 2. I watched the documentary the other night that exposed the extent of the problem in A&E. That was bad enough, but it turns out that Scotland is worse than the NHS in England. We do not have to contend with the reforms inflicted on the NHS in England by David Cameron. The cabinet secretary talks about the budget being over £12 billion. What he will not talk about is the IFS report that suggested that there was a real-terms reduction on health spending in Scotland. I seem to recall at the time that the excuse was that they had not dealt with the commonwealth games that were in the health budget. Today I understand that the excuse is the efficient way that the cabinet secretary deals with capital. I look forward to the next excuse appearing over the horizon, but it would suggest that consistency in excuses might be desirable. I also point out to the cabinet secretary that, for the period 2007-2010, when there was a Labour Government in the United Kingdom, the NHS was given inflation busting increases, yet the SNP failed to pass those on fully to our NHS in Scotland. Perhaps, if you had, we would not be in the position that we are in just now. Our NHS front-line fund would help to move the hospital to some evening and weekend working, so that elective procedures can be carried out at weekend, diagnostics in the evenings, making the best use of our hospitals and easing the pressure on A&E. I am told that the Scottish Government will review the position, but the truth is that we have had reviews. We have even had pilots, at least four in different health boards in 2013. Since then, we have had silence. The need is self-evident. The time for review is past, the time for action is now, and there is not one new penny allocated by the cabinet secretary today. Let me turn to education, because I have highlighted the very tight financial settlement that is given to local government and the particular impact that it is having on the delivery of education. Whilst I am pleased that the cabinet secretary has engaged in discussion with COSLA about maintaining teacher numbers, it clearly is the case that no agreement has been reached and he has imposed a deal. Now, I think that that is the first. I think that the concordat that he signed up to now lies in tatters, but the terms of Mr Swinney's offer are curious. I think that the original letter said £8 million. I heard him say £10 million, so I take that as an improvement, but one local authority said that it just wasn't enough, that the amount that they would receive, and it wasn't a Labour-controlled local authority, the amount that they would receive doesn't even cover the advertising bill for new teachers. He also talks about sanctions being applied collectively, which would be administratively difficult to do, never mind being unfair, and most bizarre of all is the SNP's starting point. Their baseline is 2014, where the teacher pupil ratio got worse, where the number of teachers fell even further, so he is accepting and building on failure. Her comments, would Jackie Baillie do something helpful and encourage Labour councils to protect teacher numbers? Our position is to maintain teacher numbers. The SNP, of course, promised to do just that, yet you have failed miserably. We now have almost 4,500 fewer teachers in Scotland today than when you took charge, and in that time, according to Spice, spending on education, which showed a steady increase from 1999, has levelled out since 2008-9. Indeed, the Government's own figures, supplied to the education committee, show a fraction of a percentage increase that is in effect a real-terms reduction in school spending. We believe that education is a key tool in the battle against inequality. It is perhaps one of the most significant opportunities provided over a person's lifetime that enables them to overcome inequality, yet the SNP has presided over a cut in teacher numbers, a cut in college places, and a decreasing number of students from the poorest backgrounds accessing university. The SNP's approach to education actually entrenched inequality. Let me turn, Presiding Officer, to the resilience fund. There can be no doubt that, in a second, what we are witnessing in the North Sea with the drop in oil price has the potential to have a significant and negative impact on the economy of Scotland. The scale of the job loss could exceed the scale of loss at Ravenscraig. Only this week, we heard that Shell was drawing up plans to close the Brentfield. BP was making billions of pounds of spending cuts due to the drop in oil prices. 133,000 jobs in the north-east of Scotland are supported by the oil and gas industry, including 46,000 in the constituency of Gordon, where Alex Salmond is standing. There may be the risk of an economic tsunami in the north-east, but all of Scotland will be badly affected. The potential loss of jobs is bad enough, but the loss to public revenue is of the order of £6 billion. Let's make that some real. That is the entirety of the school's budget for the whole of Scotland, yet the SNP's response has been so slow that it has been positively glacial. Both the UK and Scottish Governments need to do much more to help one of Scotland's key industries. Finally, Presiding Officer, I want to touch on our call for a Scottish Office of Budget Responsibility. This is about building trust and transparency into the forecasting of the nation's finances. As the Smith agreement transfers even more powers, overtaxation and welfare to this Parliament, we need to be sure that our scrutiny inspires confidence, a body that is wholly independent of government, able to bring oversight to our public finances and economic forecasting in a way hitherto unseen. I am genuinely disappointed that John Swinney does not appear to have listened to any one of our proposals. There can be no denying the need that lies behind them. Our approach has been measured, has been proportionate, it has been costed, the money is there. It would, however, appear that, rather than work together if the proposal comes from Scottish Labour, the SNP will put party interests before the interests of the people of Scotland. I now call on Gavin Brown. Before I do, can I encourage everyone to follow the good example of the Deputy First Minister to make interventions standing up, not from a sedentary position? Let me then begin with what the Deputy First Minister ended with, and that is education. Although I was not privy to the detail of the discussions between the Scottish Government and COSLA, I cannot help but think that the education of our children in Scotland will be best served if all levels of government work together to achieve outcomes instead of using a budget speech as a platform for creating a turf war with COSLA. I do not think that that serves anybody any great purpose. Perhaps there are faults on both sides, who knows, but using a budget speech to kick COSLA when they are not in a position to stand up for themselves, I think that it does not demonstrate—well, they are not speaking in this debate, Deputy Presiding Officer, unless I am mistaken. Let us remember, in one moment, we heard talk today of clawbacks, of penalties, of ring fencing. Just a few months ago, the First Minister and her programme for government said that this would be a great decentralising Government, Deputy Presiding Officer. What was decentralising about today? The point that I want to raise is that Mr Brown has complained about me coming to Parliament and explaining the outcome of my discussions with COSLA, which I volunteered had not reached agreement. Where am I sitting? Mr Brown would have been at the front of the queue to complain if I had made the announcement anywhere else other than in a budget speech to Parliament, where I have properly informed Parliament about the unsuccessful conclusion of my negotiations with COSLA. I think that there was a little more than factual reporting that there had not been an outcome. I think that there was real politicisation of education, Deputy Presiding Officer. I am very happy to listen to COSLA's side of the story too, before rushing to judgment. In terms of the changes that we have seen since the draft budget announcement, I think that the three most significant changes have been thanks to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Scottish Conservatives. We see money flowing to health from Barnett consequentials through the autumn statement, £127 million worth. We see business rates increase being capped at 2 per cent again thanks to George Osborne. Despite the Scottish Government saying that it had no plans to do this when it was asked about this in November, we see changes to LBTT going nowhere near far enough in our view, but we see a 5 per cent ban, which is a significant improvement on what went before. We have two big concerns about this budget. The first one is the impact on the housing market from the land and buildings transaction tax. It is tax on aspiration. It is an extra obstacle, making it harder for families to own their own home, and the eye-watering 10 per cent rate still kicks in at £325,000, compared with £925,000 under stamp duty. We are concerned that this will have a negative impact on the housing market. You need movement and activity at all rungs of the ladder, and if you hit and punish one section of the housing market, that can have an effect on all other parts of the housing market. We ask the Scottish Government if the Scottish housing market does perform badly relative to the UK—stripping out London, of course—but if it does perform badly relative to the rest of the UK, will the Scottish Government now take responsibility for that, or will it blame somebody else, whether that be the UK Government or COSLA, Deputy Presiding Officer? Our preference was for a tax cut in this area, but we certainly expected the Scottish Government to deliver on its own principle, which they said was revenue neutrality. However, the definition of revenue neutrality appears to have changed over time, Deputy Presiding Officer. Initially, back in October, it was raising no more or less than the taxes that it replaced, which, according to the Scottish Government, for residential LBT, is £198 million. Definition 2 was enough to cover the block grant adjustment, and then definition 3, which appeared more recently, was enough to cover the block grant adjustment and put money into a cash reserve. We hear today that that is going to be £15 million, but doing definition 3 is not revenue neutral, Deputy Presiding Officer. In the real world, that is known as a tax increase, and that is one of the reasons why it will be impossible for us to support the budget today at stage 3. For the Scottish Government, revenue neutral means exactly what they choose to mean at any given time—nothing more, nothing less. However, we can put some numbers on it, Deputy Presiding Officer. They say that they need to collect £231 million, but when SPICE run the numbers, drawing on the same data source, SPICE say that they will collect £242 million, but that is based on just 84,000 estimated transactions. We know from another department within the Scottish Government that they are predicting 100,000 transactions over the next financial year, so if 84,000 gives you £242 million, I just wonder what 100,000 transactions will actually give you over the course of the financial year. Is this really just a designed tax increase that the Government can use to put into their cash reserve or their war chest, but one that could impact negatively on the housing market and the wider economy as a whole? Deputy Presiding Officer, I only have 20 seconds or so left, so I am afraid that I am not able to give way, but we are concerned about the impact that we will have on the economy, particularly on the housing market, but on business rates too, where we see things like the retail levy that came into force, the empty property tax, and the failure to implement a retail bonus, slowly but surely, the advantage that we did have is being eroded away. For that reason, Deputy Presiding Officer, we will not be supporting the budget at decision time. Many thanks. We are extraordinarily tight for time today. Up to six minutes, speeches would be welcomed. I call on Mark McDonald to be followed by Jenny Marra. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. It is clear today that, once again, Mr Swinney is looking at protecting the front line, despite the austerity measures that are being imposed upon Scotland. The additional money for the health service is welcome. Let us be clear about this. The NHS is a vital service that all of us at some stage in our lives will rely upon. It is therefore important that that investment is protected. What we are seeing from the Scottish Government is spending in the health service going above £12 billion, and we are seeing the protection of the revenue budget. In particular, in my area in the north-east of Scotland, there is welcome news for NHS Grampian as a result of that. The way to test what the public opinion is of how the health service is operating is to look at patient satisfaction with the national health service. We see in terms of the health service as a whole and in terms of accident emergency, high patient satisfaction levels, in particular patient satisfaction levels in relation to accident emergency above those of England and Wales. We see a strong record for the health service that is being bolstered by the investment that Mr Swinney is putting in. The Labour Party stands up and calls for a £100 million front-line fund set against a £12 billion-plus budget. The money that is being invested in the health service is front-line funding. It is there to provide funding for those front-line services on which people rely. I do not seek to diminish the individual cases that many of us receive as politicians. We receive cases of people in our constituencies who are for whatever reason the health service has not performed to the standard that we would expect it to. That will not change irrespective of the funding levels that are thrown because it is a human organisation and human organisations will have errors that will occur. The key thing is to ensure that for the overwhelming majority of people going through our health service that the support is there to ensure that they get the best treatment that we can give them and that is what this Government is seeking to do. On the issue of teacher numbers, I think that what the cabinet secretary has done is entirely appropriate. It is clear that COSLA is unable now to speak on behalf of all of local government because it has been unable to come to the table on behalf of local government and strike a deal with the cabinet secretary. Therefore, the only option that is left available to the cabinet secretary is to put the money on the table and for each individual local authority to declare its intentions. I, in my own area, would urge Aberdeen City Council to commit to maintaining teacher numbers in order to unlock the finances that are available from the announcement that the cabinet secretary has made. I hope that other local authorities will follow suit as well because it is vitally important that those teacher numbers are maintained in order that our young people can get the best education possible. I will give way to Mr Rowley. I agree that we should be doing everything within our power and local authorities, likewise, to maintain teacher numbers and improve education. Does he not accept that council's length and breadth to the country, regardless of their political make-up, is having to make major budget cuts in front-line services and education services, are not exempt for that? I am always interested by the Labour Party narrative because, on the one hand, they are all for local decision making and the flexibility for councils to make their own decisions. What the Government has done across the peace in local government is to remove large amounts of ring fencing that existed prior to 2007. However, in certain key areas where we have agreed key national priorities, it is, I think, entirely appropriate that councils have to fulfil their part of the bargain. Mr Rowley was on the local government committee at the same time as I was when we had Labour-led local authorities saying that they wanted flexibility over teacher numbers. Does not flexibility to put teacher numbers up, flexibility to cut teacher numbers, I do not think that that is acceptable. I think that the message is clear here that local authorities absolutely have to commit to maintaining teacher numbers. If they wish to, within the budgets that are allocated to them, go further than that, that is fine. I am all for that, but they, at the very least, must take the money that Mr Swinney has put forward and commit to maintaining those teacher numbers. In terms of my own area in the north-east of Scotland, I mentioned the situation at NHS Grampian, where, thanks to the investment decisions of this Government, we now see NHS Grampian receiving its population share of funding, something that was never delivered by the Labour Party when they were in power. That will be welcome both by staff working on the front line and by those patients in the north-east of Scotland who rely on the health service. In terms of Aberdeen City Council receiving the highest cash increase of any local authority in Scotland. Beyond that, tomorrow, when the council sets its budget, it will do so in a situation where, while Audit Scotland recommends that councils should hold 3 per cent of their revenue in reserve, Aberdeen City Council is holding over a quarter of £116 million held in cash reserves. I am calling on the council not just to use the additional money from the Scottish Government but also to use that money to protect front-line services and invest in preventative expenditure. Finally, in my last 15 seconds, I wish the Labour Party would clarify, and Jenny Marra is next, so she can clarify for us. Is this a general resilience fund or is it, as she said on the BBC just before the budget debate started, an oil resilience fund? What is the resilience fund that Labour is proposing? Is it a general fund or is it, as Jenny Marra labelled it earlier, an oil resilience fund? Let's have the answer. Now I call on Jenny Marra to be followed by Linda Fabiani up to six minutes, please. I am always very happy, Presiding Officer, to pride Mark McDonald with the answers. If he has been listening to our debates throughout the budget, he will know that we are proposing a resilience fund for industries that are under strain. Currently, if he was paying attention to the news in his own home region of the northeast, he would know that the oil industry, as Jackie Baillie pointed out today, is under severe strain. Therefore, that resilience fund would initially be used to support the oil industry. Unless Mark McDonald has more questions for me, I would like to turn to the health service. Yesterday, the Government published its accident and emergency figures. Not something that they do very often, however. Far less than in England, and we are still not sure why that is, because the Government in England publishes its accident and emergency statistics weekly, so patients and families up and down the country can see how their national health service is performing. However, the health secretary here in Scotland says that she has been advised by her own agencies to publish far less often than that. Yesterday, we found out why. We also found out that, in order to be part of official statistics release, we have to make sure that it is not subject to political interference. Is she suggesting that we should politically interfere with the way official statistics are released? I think that she should clarify that very carefully indeed. It is suggesting that Shona Robison, who gave the intervention, is the health secretary and is her job in the interests of the Scottish people and the Scottish NHS to make decisions about how information is published, on what basis and how often, in the interests of transparency. If she is saying to me that she cannot overrule civil servants and agencies, I think that that is a very weak position to be in. We also found out why the Scottish National Party last week decided to downgrade its A and E waiting time target from 98 per cent to keep it at 95 per cent. We thought that 98 per cent might be difficult when the announcement was made last week, but now we discover that 95 per cent, its current target, is impossible in itself but slipping fast. The figures, Presiding Officer, were worse than the same period last year. Things are not improving, they are not even staying the same, they are getting worse. We all know that there are a few key reasons for that. They are well discussed both in this chamber in private meetings and in meetings with all the health stakeholders. That was why it was even more surprising that Friday's press release from the SNP sought to see off Scottish Labour's proposal for a front-line fund to ease pressure in our hospitals by announcing yet another review and the cabinet secretary buying herself another six months before she takes some action. Because the front-line fund is simply SNP policy, it is the right thing to do. Both those benches and the Government benches know it. We have the Government's policy papers on seven-day hospital services, evening diagnostics, weekend surgery and round-the-clock discharge, but for some reason the cabinet secretary wants to wait another six months before she lets it happen. We saw again today that reflected in John Swinney's budget. The money announced is money that has simply been announced over the past few weeks. The £29 million that he said was additional is not, but it was health consequentials that were already sitting there. The task force was put on the back burner. Could it be that it was put on the back burner during the referendum? The cabinet secretary laughs, but the evidence bears this out. It was pressed released in October 2013. Despite the paper saying that it was going to meet every two months, I have not received an answer to my PQs on whether this task force has met at all. Not much seems to have happened. The task force has met every two months. The PQ is being answered today. It has met every two months. I think that she really ought to move away from the conspiracy theories and let the people who are on the task force get on with the very good work that they are doing. I am glad that the cabinet secretary was able to clarify that for me today. She was not able to answer that question when I put the same question to her last week. Yesterday, Jim Murphy and I witnessed at first hand the difference that seven-day services would make at Monkland hospital that the A and E consultant talked us through the chart that showed a significant peak into the written note. I think that I would like to make some progress if that is okay. The difficulty that they face on a Monday when discharges are not made at the weekend so beds are at a premium when they are most needed on a busy Monday. There was no new money in John Swinney's budget today for front-line services, and I ask the chamber to consider. I am happy to take an intervention from the health secretary if she would like to go on deck. I wonder if Jenny Marra would not have a bit of self-awareness of the fact that she is talking about an A and E visit that she and her party wanted to close. Will she not congratulate us for keeping it open so that her and Jim Murphy had the pleasure of visiting the excellent facilities at Monkland? In your remaining 10 seconds. There is no new money in today's budget for front-line services in the NHS. I think that the health secretary knows as well as I do how desperate this situation is and that they need to invest. Any thanks. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I was quite stunned yesterday to see photographs of Jim Murphy standing outside Monkland's A and E. I am even more stunned today to hear that Jenny Marra thought that it was worth raising that in the chamber today, because I remember in Lanarkshire fighting an election a couple of years ago an awful lot of it being based on Labour Party's proposals to close A and Es. To me, it just sums up what the Labour Party under the new leadership and regime is doing right now, which is let's find any issue and have a go with absolutely no self-awareness of the role that it played in creating the problem in the first place. I suggest that some kind of collective memory kicks in before that goes even further, because the people of Scotland are not fooled. They are rolling about their living rooms right now, listening to all the machinations of the Labour Party, not least that all of a sudden the Labour Party is going to make sure that we get more powers for Scotland. My goodness, if the Labour Party had been true to that over the past few years, perhaps we wouldn't be having the wrangles over the Smith commission and the rolling back from it, that the Labour Party and the Conservative Party and the Lib Dems in their wee partnership have been doing over the last few years and really sticking up for Scotland. When I listened to Jackie Baillie's analysis of John Swinney's opening debate today, there was nothing at all there that said, you know what, we actually agree with you that equality and fairness should be at the heart of everything we do. We actually agree with you that you should be boosting our small businesses to try and overall improve our economies, improve our communities. We actually agree with you that education is really, really important for our children. I am very grateful to Linda Fabiani, who I don't often disagree with in the chamber, but on this point she clearly wasn't listening. I talked about education as being a key tool in tackling inequality and the importance of education. Will she therefore revise her comments? Jackie Baillie belongs to the same party that is currently paying off teachers in Glasgow. Maybe I will take back paying off, reducing teachers in numbers in Glasgow, raising class sizes. She is in the same party as those that are running South Lanarkshire, who have not even got their budget through because the SNP group is saying that they should not be increasing class sizes and reducing teacher numbers. Perhaps the Labour Party should get together and talk about its vision for this country, instead of being all over the place the way it is. It should start welcoming the fact that an A&E was kept open in Lanarkshire and that the situation with bed blocking and patient flow is nearly as bad as it might have been if the Labour Party had had their own way. Welcome the fact that extra funding has been put into tackle delayed discharge. Welcome the fact that we are starting to have a joined-up approach to social care and hospitalisation for our elderly. Welcome the fact that this Government believes that education is so important for children that we are taking steps in this party to make sure that no child in Scotland should be unfairly disadvantaged because of the political imaginations of whatever group happens to be running that area. I suggest that perhaps welcoming the fact that we are trying to address fuel poverty and domestic energy efficiency, because that has been an on-going issue for many years in this country. Most of all, could I perhaps ask that the Labour Party welcomes the fact that some of the reduced budget that comes to Scotland is being spent on mitigation of welfare policies that are hammering people, absolutely hammering people right across this country? I think that we have heard enough from the Labour Party. They cannot even welcome free education in the higher education sector. They cannot even welcome free prescriptions, free medical attention at the point of need. If the Labour Party has gone so far from their roots, that hatred of the SNP is much more important to them and that they will scrabble about and talk about resilience funds, offices of budget responsibility and some—I cannot remember what they call the fund for the NHS—frontline fund for the NHS, but—can't welcome and work together with some of the things that are happening, welcomed by civic society, that the Labour Party used to listen to? Maybe I was wrong what I said earlier, maybe they should not get together and talk to each other, because it seems to me that they have been far too much of that already. They should start to talk to the people of Scotland, find out why their support has gone down the tubes and maybe join with those of us that really want to make it a better future. The context of the budget is one of an economy in recovery. There are now 168,000 more jobs in Scotland since the UK Government came to power. Employment is up more than ever before. GDP is up above the level from before the recession and unemployment is down. We should remind ourselves that that is all based on a plan that those on the SNP benches and the Labour benches said would not work. Although the economy is in recovery, the NHS is in crisis. It is not a word that I like to use frequently, but that is exactly how we have to describe the NHS as we see it today. I have to say that the remarks from John Swinney and Mark McDonald showed a creeping level of complacency about what the NHS is facing just now. For those who meet NHS workers on a regular basis, we understand that the enormous pressures that they are under just now, partly through demographic changes but also partly because the SNP took their eye off the ball during the referendum. They were distracted by their obsession with independence and, as a result, we are seeing the price that has been paid by our hospitals. As I said, I do not like to use the word crisis, but there is no doubt that, after we have seen the figures on A and E waiting times this week, where they have plunged below the level that is in England, the NHS is in crisis, not just now. We have also seen what is quite clear is that the colleges are under extraordinary pressure as well. Part-time courses have been cut. Full-time is not quite full-time anymore for college courses just at a time when industry needs an increasing number of skilled workers. Class-sized targets have been missed, cancer waiting times have been missed and on teacher targets, I have to say, to attack local government for this Government's failure to meet its target is below acceptable. All that has been seen, not just now. All that means that what we have seen is at a time when we needed this Government to focus on the big challenges that public services face. They have taken their eye off the ball to focus on independence. We have recommended a realistic, costed set of proposals. The Deputy First Minister notes that Liberal Democrats have taken a constructive and costed approach to the budget process in every single year. When we oppose budgets, we do not oppose budgets on the basis of being opposed to everything that the SNP says. We will look at budgets on their own merit. That is the approach that we have taken in the past. We supported the Government when they increased funds for colleges, when they increased funds for house building, when they made sure that thousands of two-year-olds were able to get 15 hours of nursery education each week, and when P1 to P3 in our primary schools were getting free school meals, on every single occasion, when they came up with proposals that met our ambitions, we supported them. So, when we oppose, we do not just oppose for the sake of it, we oppose for realistic reasons. Our proposals this year again were realistic and costed. We wanted the NHS to get the investment that it needed, including for mental health. We wanted all the Barnett consequentials, unlike in previous years, to be transferred right over to the NHS. We also identified that funds from the pharmaceutical price regulation scheme—additional funds that the Scottish Government has received for that—should be spent on mental health. Our second recommendation was to make sure that childcare matched the level of support that two-year-olds are getting in England. 40 per cent there, only 27 per cent here. Two thirds of the way there, but still a bit of a way to go, because we know that that is the best educational investment that we can make. Our third was on student loan repayment thresholds. In England, in England, graduates only start to repay their loans once they earn £21,000 a year. In Scotland, that figure is down to £16,950. We believe that that is a price that graduates cannot afford to pay, and therefore we should be giving them the extra support. Mr Swinney, to his credit, has said that he is investigating the matter, and we welcome future discussions about that matter. On colleges, colleges have been at the forefront of the Scottish National Party's cuts in recent years, and we are still with this year's coming budget. We do not see it back up to the level that we had in 2011-12 when it was at £544 million. That is a big shot fall, and that is the price that students are paying as a result. Those were the reasonable tests that we set the Scottish National Party Government this year for the budget. I am sorry to say that they have not met the tests that we have set, so therefore we will be unable to support them in this budget. They took their eye off the ball in the referendum. We have now seen the price that people are paying as a result of that. The budget, please. That is something that we believe is unacceptable, and that is why we will not be supporting the budget today. Many thanks. I now call John Mason to be followed by Malcolm Chisholm. I start off by very much welcoming the extra funding that the cabinet secretary has been able to provide—specifically 20 million for domestic energy efficiency, 10 million for teacher numbers, 15 million held back—which is not a huge sum of money, but it does send out a good signal as compared to the profligate Labour Government that we had in the past at Westminster, where they spent all they had and more. I was somewhat surprised to hear Gavin Brown suggesting that we should be much more optimistic in what we think we are going to get in and spend it before we actually get it. I think that we should put on record the good management of the budget by John Swinney and the SNP Government. Clearly there have not been the opportunity to date to borrow and get into the kind of difficulties that have been got into at Westminster, but what has been achieved has been capital projects staying very close to or sometimes coming in well below budget, and projects that were in trouble when other people ran them, such as the trams, getting sorted out when they were taken over. Revenue expenditure has to be said to be staying remarkably close to the budget, and all of that bodes well for the future when we have more powers. I can also mention some welcome projects in my constituency. Recently, Garahill primary school opened, which is thanks to both the Scottish Government and Glasgow City Council. Also, in the past month, we have seen the games village starting to be occupied by both owner occupiers and tenants. That is great news for local folk, as well as newcomers in certainly boosting the east end of Glasgow. Sometimes it is good that we remember past budget decisions when we are now beginning to see the fruit of them. If we want to emphasise more on outcomes rather than inputs, then it does require patience in all our parts to see that happen. We have discussed all that at the finance committee to some extent, and it is touched on in paragraph 192 of the committee report. I very much agree with the Government's comment on that, which says that the assessment of outcomes is complex. It is neither practical nor feasible to attribute each pound spent to a single outcome. In reality, most interventions, actions and activities will influence a whole range of outcomes. I think that that shows a more mature approach to budgets that we need to move towards. I can also say very much welcome the commitment to future funding, especially of affordable housing of £390 million, which I think is an increase of 21 per cent over the current three-year period. When we look at budgets, we all have to accept that we make choices. If there is going to be more for the NHS, then there has to be less for something else. Again, I do not think that we have heard very much of that this afternoon. We can all see where more money could be spent. For example, this week on Monday, I met representatives from the national union of students and discussed their concerns about the college bursary system, some students who are clearly struggling financially. By comparison, the higher education students seemed to have more certainty earlier in the academic year what their income will be. Although it might be partly a question of moving resources, there is also a question of the way that resources are dispersed in the two sectors. However, the main thing that I wanted to speak about this afternoon was the block grant from Westminster, because clearly that remains a key part of the Scottish budget and is likely to remain so for some time to come, albeit being gradually reduced. If anyone was going to design a system for the UK from scratch, would it not be logical to decide the main UK-wide part of the budget first and then each of the devolved administrations would build on that? Once we knew the block grant, the allowances and other rules around income tax, we would then set the bans and the rates. Once we know the UK VAT rates and expected income, we would then know how much we had to spend. Yet, by contrast, we face the situation where, with LBTT, the Scottish Government does a very thorough consultation, listens to a wide range of responses, sets its rates for some months ahead, although that had been criticised for being too short notice. Then, by contrast, the Westminster Government changes SDLT at a few hours notice with no consultation and with the ludicrous scenes such as house buyers or sellers being pulled off the golf course to make instant decisions to avoid tax. We have two fundamentally different styles of government here, Presiding Officer. One is trying to be inclusive, consultative and modern. The other is stuck in a traditional mindset and loves theatre over substance. My concern is that, going forward, we are asking for trouble if this Parliament is expected to strengthen its fiscal framework. I have no problem with that, but is there a matching openness at Westminster to move into the 20th century and produce a budget that any modern organisation should? I fear that the signs are not good. I asked Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the treasurer at the finance committee last week, about modernising Westminster, and I would have thought that a Lib Dem would be open to that, but I fear that I was not greatly encouraged by his response. He talked about it being easier administratively to change rates and bans than the likes of personal allowances, but is that really the basis of how the UK or Scotland should set its budget? It is of administration. Surely it should be based on the major decisions being made first and then moving on to the finer detail, i.e. UK-wide decisions made first, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland build on that. The Smith commission report also talked about intergovernmental working. There is a very good quote on page 5, which I probably don't have time to read out, but it talks about the concern about needing a better relationship, greater respect between the two. However, if we are going forward where, broadly, Scotland sets its budget first and then Westminster is the opportunity to play games and catch Scotland out, how can that be productive or mean greater respect? In summary, I am very happy to support the budget at stage 3. Looking forward, we are likely to face more complex budgets in the future. A major factor will be what actual powers this Parliament is given, but another major factor will be the attitude of Westminster. Do they want the UK to work better or do they want to build up tensions that will cause problems in future? We shall see. This is a historic day when we are setting budget tax rates for the coming year, as well as hearing from the Government what they are going to spend the money on. It is appropriate to spend some of the debate on that first issue. I do not actually dissent from the decisions that the cabinet secretary made about LBTT, but I share some of the concerns that Gavin Brown voiced about our understanding of the tax, and given that this is the first of many devolved taxis to have, I think that it is important that we have clarity and transparency. I think that Gavin Brown had perhaps been reading the same Bill Jameson article about this in which Bill Jameson said, first of that, few acronyms are more calculated to empty a room these days than LBTT. Then he went on to say that MSPs can be excused utter bafflement as to how much LBTT will actually raise. Perhaps the cabinet secretary in his wind-up will give some answers on that. I think that the problem really does rise in the shifting meaning of revenue neutrality. As Gavin Brown pointed out, on 9 October it was raising no more or less than the taxes that it replaced. When I questioned the cabinet secretary and committee last week, he said that it was enough to cover the block grant adjustment, and his letter of the 22 January to the finance committee said the same. On the very same day in the chamber, the First Minister said that revenue neutrality was enough to cover the block grant adjustment and put money into the cash reserve. I think that we are all still utterly baffled. If an explanation could come in the wind-up, I think that it would serve the interests of transparency. Although, no doubt, most of us after the explanation will be asking the cabinet secretary to explain his explanation. Moving on to the spending, I think that it has never been more clear or consistent in terms of the demands coming from the Labour Party. There are three. They are the same as they were at stage 1. Briefly £1 million. The Scottish Government should consider the option of inviting the Scottish Fiscal Commission to produce the official macro-omic and fiscal forecasts for Scotland. That, by the way, is not words from the Labour Party but from the finance committee. Clearly, this whole issue about forecasting has been put on the agenda by the finance committee and Labour is merely articulating that at a specific budget request, which does not cost a great deal of money. The second demand is the resilience fund, not an oil fund but an emergency fund to help areas affected by job losses. I do not really see how anybody could argue against that. I have not really heard the arguments of the Scottish Government against that, but clearly they are not minded to accept that request. Of course, the third and major demand from the Labour Party today is the front-lined fund for the NHS. In the stage 1 debate, I pointed out that this was merely implementing what was Government policy, because it also supports seven-day services. I quoted from the seven-day services position paper of the Scottish Government, which says two very interesting things that back up what Labour is demanding. First, it says that there may be some actions that could be taken immediately that would result in a rapid improvement in patient care. That is prior to the reporting of the task force, which has been meeting on this subject for rather a long time now. Among the various suggestions, there was one called spread elective surgery, which is what Labour is asking for. The position paper of the Scottish Government said that there is an argument that spreading elective surgery over more days to avoid the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday congestion—which, of course, Jenny Marra referred to—would help both scheduled and unscheduled care. It seems to me that, from the very arguments of the Government, we can justify the position that we have put forward in the budget. Of course, we have to make hard choices in the budget. It does not mean that we do not support the objectives that Linda Fabiana outlined, but we have to choose. Clearly, the health service, having had a long period of steady progress, has, in many respects, started to go into reverse. That is something that we have to respond to. That has been focused, a great deal of the time, on the—I give way. I am just looking and seeking for clarity. I may have missed it, and forgive me, Malcolm Chisholm, if I did miss it. I am pretty sure, on stage 1, that Jackie Baillie also suggested that there should be more money for local government, but I have not heard you restate that in your position today. Is that position of Labour or is it not? I did not say that today. That is not the correct interpretation of what she said at stage 1, either. We have to respond to the crisis. The barometer of the problems, of course, is what is happening in A&E, but it is very close related to the big increase in bed days occupied by delayed discharge patients. I am never unkind to the Cabinet Secretary for Health, but the Herald, of course, had a cartoon of a man in a bed with a delayed discharge, and the hospital manager was saying to the patient, do not worry, the health secretary has a long-term plan. Reviews are good, but, at my last minute—at my last minute—can I take an intervention? We are rather tight for time, but we need to make a quick one. Yes, I am sorry. I never like being unkind to you, but I have to be because the Presiding Officer tells me to be. Reviews are good, but there is an urgency about what is required. On the delayed discharge money that she has announced, I will make one final point, although I would have liked to know more about the performance fund, which was what I was trying to intervene on the cabinet secretary in his speech. Perhaps he can explain how the performance fund will be distributed in his wind-up speech, but on the delayed discharges, that should be distributed according to the formula, but I would argue on a one-off basis that the delayed discharge fund should be distributed on the basis of those who have the biggest problem currently with delayed discharge. That would be my final point, and I want that I am able to make in my speech today. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I welcome this opportunity to support the 2015-16 budget bill. Scotland has made clear its desire to have more powers devolved to the Scottish Parliament since the Smith commission reported on the UK command paper that was published just last week. Indeed, the UK of Poland Monday found support for Scottish independence at a record high of 53 per cent. It seems that the Scottish people share the SNP view that the Smith commission proposals are a watered-down version of the panicked promises made just before the referendum. Even Gordon Brown seems to be riding on the SNP's coattails claiming that the Smith commission was too weak. Interestingly, the comments made my Mr Brown in last November sang a different tune in which he expressed grave concerns about devolving control of income tax to the Scottish Parliament. Now he has previously expressed concerns about devolving tax control to Holyrood, taking a backseat to the need for Labour's urgency for naked political survival three months tomorrow. After five years in power, there are no signs that the UK Government has any intention of loosening the noose of austerity from the neck of the UK economy. We recall that only last month Labour voted with its Tory pals for a further £30 billion in cuts. Such an approach has been condemned by several leading economists over Blanchard, chief economist of the international monetary fund and MIT professor, claiming that the Conservative Party leadership were playing with fire and continuing to pursue austerity policies. Additionally, a report published by the London School of Economics professor and advisor to the European Commission, Paul DeGraw, said that a unilateral application of austerity policies is not only ineffective in resuscitating the economy, but more often they are not leads to greater state problems such as civil unrest. If last week's success of Saritsa in Greece has taught us anything, it is that people will ultimately have their say in the budget reactions of the state. In a statement published by the Office of Budget Responsibility on Future UK spending, the OBR announced that, between 2009 and 2010 and 2020, spending on public services administration and grants by central government is projected to fall from 21.2 per cent to 12.6 per cent of GDP and from £5,650 to £3,880 per head in 2014-15 prices. This cut of almost a third of public spending will impact men and low-income families with welfare recipients, low-paid workers and pensions bearing most of the brunt. Labour has fundamentally contradicted its self-time and again claiming to have Scottish interests at heart while voting for policies detrimental to Scotland and the Scottish people, particularly those most funded public spending cuts. As a Government, it is imperative that the SNP Government use the economic leavers that they have to tackle inequality. That is why I am delighted that, in the 2015-16 budget bill, we will deliver a welfare reform mitigation of £81 million. The cabinet secretary's land and building transaction tax and Scottish landfill tax will encourage first-time home buyers to stimulate house building and work synergistically with the additional £125 million investment in affordable housing. My view differs somewhat from Gavin Brown's in terms of the more expensive houses, as I think that the tax level there will serve to dampen house price inflation and ultimately save money even for the people who will actually be paying that additional taxation. The new rates satisfy the principle of revenue neutrality laid out by Mr Swinney. In October, again, I disagree with Gavin Brown on that, but in creating a system in which the first £145,000 of every residential purchase is tax free, over 90 per cent of transactions will pay the same or less in taxes on the new homes than under current UK arrangements, as the cabinet secretary pointed out. The Scottish Government is, of course, committed to increasing employment and promotes a burgeoning Scottish economy. At a time when Scotland has unemployment rates below that for the UK as a whole, I was delighted that this budget will enhance employment by providing £16.6 million to support youth employment through the commission on Scotland's young workforce. This budget invests in the public sector, boosting, as we have heard, the NHS by an additional £383 million. On contrast to George Osborne's austerity measures that are crippling the local Government in England, the Scottish Government has delivered a fair settlement for local authorities enabling the delivery of shared priorities such as education, free school meals and childcare, and we note no calls from the opposition parties for additional spending in those areas. The bill demonstrates the Government's commitment to tackling inequality, with more than £100 million committed to delivering the living wage and implementing a two-year public sector pay policy, which increases a minimum of what is worth for those earning less than £21,000 a year. A variety of investments outline the budget and demonstrate the Government's effort to support a more prosperous Scotland in measures to improve opportunities at all stages in life, such as £160 million invested into early learning and childcare. John Mason touched on an extra £20 million in delivering energy efficiency. £615 million is being invested to provide the most competitive business taxes in the UK and almost £1 billion invested in capital projects through the non-profit distribution model. The budget bill is a testament to the SNP's ability stack prudently within the constraints set by the UK Government in terms of the devolution of powers and Tory austerity measures, sadly supported by Labour. In short, the budget augments the Scottish economy, boosts employment, tackles inequality and invests in public services. We compare that to Labour's irresponsible shopping list. We heard about 100 million figures to my mind seem to be plucked from thin air. There is no detail behind it that I have been able to see. I have no detail of where that money is to come from. If we look at other recent Labour statements on 29 December, Kezia Dugdale suggested that 100,000 new homes be built in Scotland. Whatever happened to the legendary Glasgow airport rail link? Jackie Baillie said that, on 12 November, £50 million is a small amount of money to pay to cancel Scotland's care tax. Whatever happened to that, I wonder if Ms Baillie could perhaps tell us that they are all over the place on this budget, so I am pleased that we have a responsible and prudent Scottish Government that can deliver a sensible budget for the people's schools. Thank you very much. Iain Gray, we followed by Sandra White. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Our focus in this budget debate and indeed in the whole budget process this year has been around health and the NHS and there are good reasons for that. It is the single biggest component of the Scottish Government's budget. It is also currently the most urgent in need of attention given the stories of crisis that we regularly read or hear, particularly around accident and emergency and bed blocking. It is a natural thing for us to do too, because it was Labour who created the national health service. It is the thing of which we are most proud and we will always defend it first and foremost. That has been our focus. However, if Labour's proudest achievement is universal healthcare, then Scotland's proudest achievement in public services is universal education, almost 500 years since the predecessor to this Parliament first enacted the famous school and every parish legislation. It is also right that we judge this budget on its record—not just this budget but the Scottish Government's record through almost eight budgets now in the sense in which it has supported education. The story, as with health, is that much was promised, but little has been delivered. In that, this budget is one more chapter. Indeed, if you listened to Mr Swinney's opening, you would imagine that the Scottish Government had delivered on its promises on schools education, that it had sustained teacher numbers and that basically everything was right. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. In 2007, the Scottish National Party's promise was to maintain teacher numbers as they were at that time. In 2011, its promise was that it would look first to maintain the recent improvement before continuing with progressive reductions in class sizes and improved pupil teacher ratios. The reality, of course, is that, if we look at teacher numbers, they reduced in 2008, they reduced in 2009, they reduced in 2010, they went down in 2011, they went down in 2012, down again in 2013 and dropped, of course. As Mr Swinney himself mentioned last year in 2014, we are now almost four and a half thousand teachers fewer than when the SNP came to power. The story on pupil teacher ratios is the same. An improvement, yes, from 2007 to 2008, but every single year after that pupil teacher ratios have worsened year on year. As for the core promise of class sizes of 18 in primaries 1 to 3, when the SNP came to power, 15.3 per cent of pupils were in classes of 18 or less, P1 to 3. That is now 12.9 per cent less. On every one of those promises, the situation has worsened. We begin to see now some of the effects, particularly of the loss of teachers, the delay and the introduction of new exams, appeals being squeezed out. We saw last week in order to save money for the SQA's central budget. This week, Murray counsel suggested that they might have to close schools because they do not have enough teachers.  Clearly, we require some attention for education in this budget. Across those points genuinely. Can you tell us just how much Labour would propose spending additionally in local government to support the issues that he raises? I am talking about a situation that has taken eight years to develop. If you are suggesting that a single amendment to this budget could reverse that, I do not think that that is possible, but I will comment on the action that the cabinet secretary has taken today. This year, the cabinet secretary told us when he introduced his budget that he was going to bring forward educational outcome agreements with COSLA. They were going to be agreed in consultation with local authorities, parents and teachers. I say to Linda Fabiani that that is something that I would welcome, but it does rather beg the question why, after eight years, the Government is only now beginning to think about what outcomes it would like to see from our education system. It also begs the question what was happening to those promises on sustaining teacher numbers. The EIS, in particular, was quick to rumble that this was a cover for abandoning those. To be fair, the cabinet secretary responded to that by turning to his usual scapegoats local government. First, he made local government an offer that they could not accept—an amount of money that was nowhere near what would have been required to deliver what he was asking. Now, today, he has tried to make them an offer that they cannot refuse. This is the man who used to boast in budgets of the concordats that he signed with local councils, and now he is reduced to bragging about the ultimatum that he has issued to them. The truth is that, faced with the growing evidence from teachers, headteachers and councils, the local authorities do not have enough resources to sustain teacher numbers. His answer is to claw resources back. It is hard to see how that will do anything except to accelerate the drop in teacher numbers for which he is already responsible. What will he do with this money that he clawed back? Perhaps he can add it to his own education department underspend, which stood at £165 million at the last count while our schools lack the resources that they need. The truth is that, as always, the budget fails our education system, and it will be parents, teachers and pupils who pay the price. Once again, I thank the cabinet secretary for his contribution and his announcements of extra revenues, particularly in the health service, energy efficiency and tackling fuel poverty, which I think is very important, particularly in heating households, which obviously leads to ill health and inequalities, and protecting and increasing teacher numbers. If I can just say to Iain Gray, whose contribution I listened to very carefully, in the constituencies that I represent in Glasgow Kelvin, Glasgow City Council is causing the problems with teacher numbers and class sizes. I would really appreciate it if you wished to speak or write to some of the parents of Hillhead primary school and the situation that they find themselves in because of the situation with Glasgow City Council closing schools and not having a big enough school for the pupils, and that is an absolute disgrace. We cannot blame this Government for what is happening, particularly in my constituency, Glasgow City Council, that blame fully lies upon there. Iain Gray cannot seriously say that, when the Scottish Government makes promises to parents and when they then starve local government of the resources that they would require to deliver those promises, that it is somehow not their fault. The Government did not starve Glasgow City Council of any money. Glasgow City Council took it upon themselves to build a school and basically did not take cognisance of the evidence that it got from parents that that school would be overprovided. Now they have an absolute mess where children cannot even get into their local school, and that is being called in in Glasgow City Council, thanks to the Greens and the SNP group on that council. That blame is firmly at Glasgow City Council's door, and we will look into whatever is happening there. It is not just the Government that needs to recognise that. I have listened to the opposition on the health service, and the word crisis has been bandied about. It is as if you want to give bad news consistently to everyone, to frighten people. We have fantastic people working in the health service. How do you feel that you think that they feel every single time that Labour party, Lib Dems in particular, say that the NHS is in crisis, is that it is falling apart? It is not falling apart. I will take Alex Rowley. I want to get some figures from him. Alex Rowley. I was interested in what they were saying in crisis. I had a phone call for a lady this morning and arrived at hospital in 5.45 to 8 due to go for a goblader operation. I got prepped, saw the consultant, saw the neath the test, was sitting there in the bed clothes, was ready to wait, and 11 o'clock was told to go home that her operation was cancelled. Is that acceptable? I must hurry you. Sandra White. Thank you very much. I do not think that it is acceptable, and I am sure that if you wanted to write to the cabinet secretary, she would look into that individual case. I do not cover the five area, I cover Glasgow area. I did answer Mr Gray. If you just let me carry on. Order, please. I wanted to let you know about the news, the good news of the health service. I talked to people in my area too, patients, doctors, consultants and nurses also, and they are not all saying that it is in crisis. Let us look at some of the figures here. NHS consultant numbers are at record level, 36.8 per cent increase and over 1,300 more WTE consultants since 2006. Overall, NHS staffing is up 7.6 per cent. The number of qualified nurses in midwives is at record high. The number of NHS consultants, medical and very importantly dental, which sometimes gets overlooked, is at a record high. The number of GPs is up 5.7 per cent. Senior managers are down 29.3 per cent, which is something people always called upon. We want people there at the coalface, not just at the managerial level. Jackie Baillie. Sandra White for taking the intervention. Will she accept that vacancies are also up and push a vacant for much longer? What we are seeing in the NHS is more people being treated and demand outstripping the number of staff that are available. It is a good thing that more people are being treated. The reason that you are saying that those vacancies are up is that we are having more staff, so obviously more people are applying for jobs. That can only be a good thing. It is not that the NHS is deteriorating or is in crisis. It is the impression that the Opposition parties are giving to the people out there. It is a dangerous thing to do and it is disingenuous not just to the people out there but to the staff that work in the NHS as well. We should really think very carefully—someone else might have been Gavin that said, basically, why do not we work together? That is what we have been trying to do. We have listened to people throughout, not just in various parties, but throughout the country as well. We are trying to put forward a budget, and I think that John Swinney has put forward, a very sensible budget, but we are constantly talking about the NHS in crisis falling apart. When I have just read out the figures of the increase in staff that we have got in the NHS, well, I do think that it is rather disingenuous and it does frighten the people out there. I am not saying that. That is what the Opposition parties are trying to do. I would never say that, but I do think that people need to sit and think about it very, very carefully in that respect. Support the budget when the decision time comes, Presiding Officer. I would think and hope that other parties and other Opposition parties will think very carefully about not supporting the budget. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I now call Patrick Harvie to be followed by Bob Doris. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. This budget, like several recent budgets, takes place in a context in which we see continual pressure on public services, particularly those at local government level, and continual public sector pay cuts in real terms, even if there have been moves to ameliorate that at the lowest end of the wage scale. We are also discussing a budget in the context of continual challenges in meeting the targets that we have all signed up to on issues from climate change to fuel poverty, and in particular a recognition that energy and transport are areas where both of those issues, in terms of social justice and environmental priorities, are not making enough progress. At the same time, we see a crisis that could be turned into an opportunity in the energy sector, and yet we are seeing from the Scottish Government continual appeals to the UK Government for tax breaks for more fossil fuel exploration. That will only dig us deeper into the hole that we are in, leaving our economy ever more exposed to the vulnerability of the carbon bubble. When we could be looking to a new energy future, one based much more on renewables and on public and community ownership. In that context, we have continued to ask the Scottish Government, for example, what budget will be associated with the new body wave energy Scotland. Last week, the cabinet secretary, the Deputy First Minister, Peggy Pardon, said that there will be money allocated from within the energy budget to that, and we still do not know what the figure is. I hope that there can be some greater clarity. In addition to those issues of context, we put several issues on to the agenda for discussion with the Scottish Government. Energy efficiency is by no means a new topic for the Greens in the context of budget negotiations, but it is one that we still believe not enough progress has been made. The cabinet secretary has talked about an increase from £94 million announced at stage 1, an increase of an additional 20. That, of course, is welcome. Steps in that direction are welcome, but I would have to say that it remains short of what the NGOs that are specialists in this sector have been calling for as the bare minimum annual spend. Even if it was just a question of the figures, because those discussions each year would be wrong for them to end up merely as horse trading, we should be taking a coherent approach to that issue and conducting an assessment of what is needed to reach the targets that all political parties have signed up to. The Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee recommended that. They have called for a full-cost analysis of what it will take to reach the statutory target on fuel poverty. That has not happened. It is difficult to know how much closer that extra 20 million will take us to that crucial target, both in terms of the social justice and environmental goals that we set ourselves when we all agree on those targets. We have also heard a notion of an additional £4 million on cycling. Again, not just as a regular cyclist but as someone who wants to see a transformation of our transport system toward a more sustainable model, that has got to be a step in the right direction. The Deputy First Minister said that there will be more information coming later about how that is going to be deployed. It will have some positive steps. I am sure that some good will be done with that £4 million. It does not yet represent a concerted shift in transport policy. That, I believe, is what is needed, not only in terms of a transport system that allows money to circulate within local economies, which strengthens the resilience of local economies in Scotland but also does it within environmental limits and saves people money. It is also not clear yet what additional measures are going to be taken in terms of the air pollution, which is particularly acute, arising from transport in certain parts of Scotland. Again, that is something that we have argued within the same context of sustainable transport and air pollution. Finally, we also argued that, on a smaller scale in budgetary terms, there was going to be a need for local authorities to be able to build their skills and capacity in relation to unconventional gas and fracking and other techniques if those applications were going to come through. In the light of the moratorium that has been announced, which is very much welcome, it is clear that that is not such an urgent priority, although we will reserve the right to return to that issue if that moratorium is ever lifted. If local authorities find themselves burdened with the threat of unconventional gas applications, we will need to skill them up if they are going to deal with that adequately. However, I have put this to the cabinet secretary that every bit of the same kind of opportunity exists from a small investment at local authority level to add skills in relation to renewable energies. The opportunity for every local authority to build up a local energy company that can not only contribute to the energy needs cleanly in our country but can generate revenues for itself in future. That is something where we are missing a trick. Partly, the barrier is simply one of skills. Local authorities are not having people who know what needs to be done to get under way on that. The cabinet secretary may have decided that today is more of a day for taking what I am sure he regards as a robust approach with local government rather than an empowering one. I would encourage him to look at that as an opportunity. I had been hoping to give three cheers on the three main themes that we had raised. I might even have been willing to settle for two. It seems that there is maybe one and a half, so I think that I may reserve my position at the end of the day when we come to the vote. Thank you very much. I now call Bob Doris, who will be followed by Alec Rowley. It is often said that politics is about spending priorities. If true, it is undeniable that the Scottish Government has prioritised health spending once more of the financial year 2015-16. It is worth putting in record the significant cash uplift that NHS has had under the SNP Government. In the five years up to and including the budget that we are seeking parliamentary approval for today, the NHS will have a real-terms increase of 4.6 per cent. That should be contrasted directly with the Scottish resource budget that has been slashed by the UK Government by 10 per cent in real terms. That clearly shows Scottish Government priorities. Let me make some progress then, maybe later, Miss Bailey. With all Barnett consequentials from health spending having been given to our NHS in each and every year is promised. With commitment now extended to the entire lifetime of the next Scottish Parliament should the SNP Government be re-elected in 2016. With the NHS funds now sitting at over £12 billion in 2015-16 alone, the Scottish Government's commitment to our NHS is self-evident for all to see, Miss Bailey. Would he agree that between 2007 and 2010, when a UK Labour Government gave the Scottish NHS inflation-busting increases, the SNP did not pass those on to the health service? I would ask Miss Bailey to just sit tight for a second, because do not worry about contrasting the NHS in 2006-07 when Labour were last in power with its condition today. I assure you, when I get to that, it is far superior today than when you were last in power. I would like to think that the Scottish Government's commitment is self-evident to financially backing our NHS. I hope that that commitment can be accepted across the party political divide. The new conversation that we could have in relation to the NHS is a constructive fashion about how best to spend record levels of financial support. That is the chat that we should be having. The budget will ensure £173 million additional funding by the Scottish Government to support the delivery of health and social care integration. Supporting it today will achieve that. It will also help to sustain the huge increase in staffing that we have seen under the Scottish Government, compared to what I have to say to Miss Bailey's Government when they were last in power. As we have heard, that means 1,300 more consultants in the NHS. It means more than 1,700 full-time equivalent nurses in the NHS than under the last Labour Government. However, that does not go far enough, because it is not just about nurses and doctors. It is about pharmacists and allied health professionals. It is about a range of social care staff that is required at the right time to deliver the NHS, the health and social care services that we wish to see. There is no complacency, but it is important to point out the progress that has been made. The budget will also ensure that there is a commitment to maintain the progress that has been made since 2007 in terms of delayed discharge in the NHS. I am delighted that a £15 million partnership deal supported by the budget will take real action in partnership with the NHS, the Scottish Government and, I have to say, in this occasion, COSLA. I recently met Robert Calderwood, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde chief executive, and he informed me that money has already been put to use in the city of Glasgow. There are now an additional 120 step-down care beds to better support older people who are clinically fit to leave hospital, but social care packages have yet to be put in place. That is the reality of additional funding by this Government on the ground in the city of Glasgow. We all know about recent challenges in relation to delayed discharge, but let us go back to 2007 and let us get some perspective. Delayed discharge today has reduced by two thirds compared to 2007, and the average delay is down 50 per cent. Short-term challenges and long-term progress under this Government supported financially over a sustained period of time, despite huge cuts from a United Kingdom Government. The budget will also ensure that the first tranche of an additional £100 million over three years will also be invested specifically to enhance social care services. That money is aimed at ensuring that medically fit patients can be more speedily discharged from hospital where appropriate, with appropriate care packages put in place. It will also help to deliver preventative actions, hopefully to avoid older frail people ever getting to A&E in the first place. Let us get some context today with the budget and the commitment in relation to the national health service. Yes, we will always hear claims for more money. We heard on 13 January from Neil Findlay that it was West Lothian, not councils, just West Lothian Council, £108 million. I believe that it was there, shortfall. We have heard from Jackie Baillie, I believe, to get rid of care charges at a price of £50 million. Joanne Lamont wanted to cap childcare costs. Spice say that that could cost up to £1 billion. We have heard an exposition for Ian Gray about more money for teachers, totally uncosted, with that one commitment for one penny will come from. It takes this budget, this Government and SNP Government to balance the books, and despite huge austerity cuts from the UK, to prioritise our NHS. We have done that here this afternoon, and all I hear from others is empty promises that will scurry about Scotland, promising everyone money for everything, but do nothing to stop UK austerity cuts coming from London, which they have signed up £30 billion to do to win right-wing votes in the south-east of England. I know what I stand with in this budget, and it is not the opposition party over there, and it is not Mr Murphy. Murphy is John Swinney, our deputy First Minister, and I commend this budget to the House this afternoon. Thank you. I now call Alec Riley to be followed by Bruce Crawford. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I certainly would not be able to support this budget today, because I think that it fails on a whole range of fronts that need to be tackled. If I can refer to Sandra White earlier on talking about the commitment to the NHS and somehow talking the NHS down, I would certainly say that, from my personal experience, my family's experience, the NHS has been there, and we could never repay what the NHS has done for our family and their families up and down Scotland in every community that would say the same, but that does not mean that we do not question the NHS's greatest creation of the last century and in this century's politicians, regardless of what party you are in. We have a duty to stand up and fight and make the case for the NHS. I mentioned to Sandra White about the case of the lady this morning with the cancelled operation. I understand, or she suggested to me, there were 10 cancellations this morning. I will be taking that up with the health secretary when I meet where tomorrow. I will be calling for an inquiry into NHS 5 practices where another patient has died. We saw the accident and emergency waiting times that came out yesterday with NHS 5 again. They were not acceptable. The point is that Mr Swinney comes along here today and tells us that patients' satisfaction is up, cleanings are up, accident and emergency figures are up. It is a bit like the emperor's clothing. We would expect the health service to be improved, but where it is not and where, in the case of NHS 5, it is bouncing from crisis to crisis, we need to be able to, as elected politicians, speak up for that. I also want to touch on a number of other points. Mr Swinney talks about a fairer society and that the economic strategy is working, but that is one of the major failures of the budget. It is failing to ensure that everyone can enjoy the benefits in Scotland in a stronger economy. 160,000 people are presently unemployed in Scotland. They are certainly not reaping the benefits. Many more are not registered as unemployed but are out of work and we know skills and are not able to be able to get access to jobs that are there. In my own constituency, we see pods being built in the south and elsewhere in the house, workers coming from abroad and employers tell me that they cannot get the skills locally, whilst at the same time we have seen a 37 per cent cut in college budgets since 2007, some £67 million. That, for me, does not equate to some kind of fairness. As others have said, I do not doubt the sincerity of Labour's speeches, it is merely the fact that there has to be a budget agreed this afternoon. Tell me how much money is the Labour opposition pledging for Scotland's colleges? Is it costy? How many places can you deliver it as a sound bite just to garner favour of whoever you have spoken to at any given time? What we put forward today was £100 million for the national health service because we are saying that that is a key priority. In my case, in Fife, there is clearly a crisis within the national health service. £67 million taken out of the colleges over the past seven or eight years will not be put back in one budget. That is the point that Iain Gray made. I have to say to the Deputy Prime Minister that I am absolutely appalled at the attack that he makes today on local government. Right across Scotland, local authorities—he knows that local authorities are absolutely struggling in terms of the budgets that they are actually trying to deal with. In Fife, for example, the deputy leader advises me that they have a face-wear bill at the end of last year for some £3.5 million for pension costs. There are many other costs that are there, and in every local authority councils are looking at cutting education budgets. There is no doubt about that. I had always taken the cabinet secretary and the deputy First Minister at his word where he said that he wanted to work with councils, but today he comes into this chamber and tries to politicise the relationship between local government and Scottish Government, not recognising the major problems that local authorities are facing. When it comes to local government finance, year on year, there has been real-term cash cuts in local government. The council tax freeze has not been properly funded, and as a result of that, we have seen cuts taking place in front-line services. It is absolutely difficult to see how education will be able to continue with the levelly services that they have with the types of budget cuts that are there at the present time. Certainly the offer that Mr Swinney makes today to talk to individual councils, I would hope that the council in my area and council leaders and education spokespersons across Scotland are knocking on Mr Swinney's door and coming and presenting the facts to him. I hope that they will also be able to present the facts to the public. We must move away from this phony war between local government and Scottish Government, where the Teflon Cabinet Secretary and Deputy First Minister is prepared to blame local government but is not prepared to take responsibility. Our teachers, our parents and, most important, our children who are coming through the school system and cannot get the jobs within the economy are not enjoying a share in the wealth of the Scottish economy. They deserve better, far better. Before we turn to closing speeches, I now call Bruce Crawford as our last open debate speaker. I am glad to get the opportunity to contribute to this stage 3 debate on the Scottish Government's budget bill. Second budget can be a difficult and challenging earth task when the backdrop is a budget allocation growing in real terms. You will need to talk to Labour finance ministers to find out just how challenging a job that was, even in those circumstances. However, setting the budget in the teeth of a reduction of about 10 per cent in the spending power available to you since 2010 does make budget setting substantially more challenging, particularly at the same time that you are trying to help stimulate growth in the economy, create a fairer society and improve public services. The primary aim in any budget must be the goal of improving economic prosperity, because without such conditions it will prove even more difficult to support our vital public services. Of course, any Government with the full normal fiscal levers available at its disposal would start with a significant advantage in attempting to help to stimulate an investment-led recovery. Given that the finance secretary does not enjoy such a position, we must judge him on how he uses the tools that he has available at his disposal. I am glad that, in setting his budget, John Swinney's infrastructure investment programme will now be worth more than £8 billion over two years, with a further £1 billion extension to the NPD infrastructure pipeline. With key infrastructure projects, including obviously the fourth replacement crossing, costing about £1.4 billion and directly contributing at peak about 1,200 jobs, and new South Glasgow hospitals costing £842 million and supporting 1,500 jobs in sight. Of course, Scotland schools for the future building programme, which will deliver 91 new schools by March 2018, and an additional £140 million provided to deliver two new college campuses. Those are the very type of infrastructure projects that will help to drive the economy forward, create jobs and improve prosperity of Scotland. In that respect, I cannot help but reflect on the pre-recession period before 2008, when financial resources were much more freely available. In some respects, I regret that Governments did not at that time commit a larger share of expenditure to infrastructure improvement. Had that been the case, I believe that our economy would have proved much more resilient to economic shock than the reality that we all know. That is obviously a retrospective position, and we cannot go back and undo the past, but perhaps, however, we can learn from the lessons that history teaches us in that regard. That is why I am pleased that today the finance secretary is utilising all of the revenue spending room that he can potentially apply to get finance into much needed infrastructure spend. I am also pleased that today's announced additional £20 million for energy efficiency measures, not only had to help to reduce fuel poverty but also our climate change footprint on the planet. Crucially, Scotland's only glass wheel insulation production facility is located in my constituency of Stirling, in the shape of the firm's superglass. That company has had significant trading challenges as a result of negative changes to the UK Government's green deal programme. I hope that, in how the spend is deployed, the excellent quality of product produced by superglass will be borne in mind as we try to develop the budget process in that regard. Particularly if we can consider that in Scotland there are still a significant number of homes that remain to have appropriate levels of loft insulation installed. I want to turn in the time that I have got left to the position of the Labour Party to the budget. During the stage 1 debate and today during stage 3, Labour spokespersons have put forward arguments that the budgets for both health and local government should see more resources applied to them, plus a resilience fund of some sort. I have got this right. It is specifically £100 million added to the health budget, a less specific amount to local government. Malcolm Chisholm, Ian Gray and Alex Rowley, none of them were able to put on a sum of exactly how much they were going to commit to local government in the future. They are obviously not as brave as Jackie Baillie, though, because, from what Jackie Baillie said at stage 1, she would like to see an additional £1.8 billion provided to councils or anything up to that sum. Now, I see Jackie Baillie shaking her head as if that is not the fact, but if she would happen to go to columns 31 to 33 of the official report, oh yes, I am delighted to take that answer. Jackie Baillie, that indeed is very kind of the member, but if he reflected on what the official report says, the £1.8 billion is the amount that the SNP has removed from local government. Interestingly, you have not suggested today that we put one penny back into that, if that figure was to be correct. The report says that the First Minister is asking a question. I have a simple question for Jackie Baillie. I am hearing that she wants to give more money to local government. I said that the issue is too big, too to be resolved. It absolutely is. We are talking about £1.8 billion, so it is committed in paper that Jackie Baillie wants to put that number in. A number that none of our people around about are would brave enough to put forward. I fully respect Labour's right to put forward proposals for additional expenditure. That is the right of any party in this chamber. Even the figure of £1.8 billion for local government in the context of a fixed budget seems quite extraordinary. Labour putting forward those proposals has also got the responsibility to the Parliament and to the people of Scotland to identify which budgets will be cut by the equivalent amounts. It is no wonder that you are struggling in the polls. It is no wonder that, because you have shown absolutely no responsibility here in this budget process today, you are going to continue to suffer in the polls until you learn about what responsibility is all about. Thank you. I now turn to the closing speeches and I call on my do-phraser. Six minutes, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Bruce Crawford made a fair point. I think that Labour members do need something of a reality check if they are going to pledge to spend more money. They need to say what other areas of the budget they should cut. It is not just the Labour members who need a reality check, if I may say so, because, of course, we have become used in these debates to hearing SNP members complain about the level of budget settlement received from the UK Government. Today, we heard Mark McDonald and Kenny Gibson and others making just that point. The point that I made in the stage 1 debate, and I make no apology for repeating it this afternoon, is that the reality is that this budget for 2015-16 is the highest that we have ever had to deal with in this Parliament in cash terms. In real terms, it may not be the highest, but it is the second highest. Only in 2009-10 was the budget higher. In each of the past 16 years, with that one exception, the budget was lower. When we hear SNP members talk about savage cuts or slashing to ribbons of the budget, we need to bear that in context. Indeed, for all the complaints about austerity, the Scottish Government has, in historic terms, huge sums to deal with, and today has given no indication of being a Government that is having to count the pennies. Gavin Brown raised the issue of business rates. We firmly believe that all the business-related consequentials coming up from the UK Government spend should be passed on in rates reductions. Otherwise, the competitive advantage that Scottish businesses have, which we very much welcome, will be eroded. The Scottish Government should have been ensuring that the additional sums coming up from down south, for example, reflecting the support for retail premises that exist south of the border, were either mirrored in Scotland or passed on to business in some other way. I make no apology for raising again the proposal from the Scottish Government to introduce rates on sporting interests, which will have a negative impact on the rural economy. It is in relation to the rates on LBTT that we have the greatest disagreement with the Scottish Government. Mr Brown has set out our proposed alternative approach to that being taken by Mr Swinney on LBTT. We believe that having a 10 per cent rate kicking in at £325,000 will have an adverse effect on many individuals who would not regard themselves as wealthy. Of course, we have some supporters in that view. Even that leading member of the Yes campaign, the independent councillor for Midlothian, Peter Da Vinke, has expressed concern about wealth creators being chased south of the border by those measures. I heard councillor Da Vinke on the BBC morning call programme on 22 January. This is the man who stood shoulder to shoulder with Mr Swinney on platforms as part of Yes Scotland. He said this and I quote, I don't like the direction of travel. Scotland will be known as a high-tax country. This sends out all the wrong signals. We shouldn't be hitting wealth creators. We need to keep them here. I am deeply, deeply disappointed. If even Mr Swinney's closest allies are taking such a dismal view of his tax plans, he can hardly blame us for being critical of them. Indeed, on the phone-in programme that I was listening to, Mr Swinney's plans took a pasting from callers. With one exception, someone called Dave from Blair Gowrie, who called in to support Mr Swinney's proposals in fulsome fashion. Dave had a voice that sounded remarkably like that of Mr Swinney's constituency assistant, councillor Dave Duggan. Surely it can't be the case that the only people prepared to support Mr Swinney's taxes are his own staff members. He has to instruct them to spend their time calling up radio phone-in programmes to support his position. A number of those others involved, for example in property, including estate agents, have expressed similar views. They do not see why Scottish house purchasers should be disadvantaged compared to those south of the border, which is why we have proposed increasing the threshold for the 10 per cent rate to £500,000. Then there is the issue of revenue neutrality. In this, Mr Swinney has been consistent or so it seems, because in announcing the proposed LBTT changes on October 9, he said that the tax would be, I quote, raising no more or less than the taxes that they replace. As Gavin Brown pointed out, the term revenue neutral now appears to have been changed so that it has had not one definition, not two definitions, but three. For the First Minister's questions on the January 22, the First Minister took revenue neutrality to mean not simply raising no more or less than the taxes that they replace, but also to include money to go into a cash reserve. So it seems that there are three definitions now of revenue neutrality. Definition one is raising no more or less than the taxes that they replace. Definition two is enough to cover the block grant adjustment, and definition three is enough to cover the block grant adjustment and put money into the cash reserve. Here we have Mr Swinney squirreling away £11 million in Barnett consequentials, which could be applied to LBTT and putting that into his cash reserve. We have been very clear, Deputy Presiding Officer. We do not want to see Scots paying higher taxes than those elsewhere in the UK. We believe that when the Scottish Government says that it believes in revenue neutrality, it should do what it says. We believe that Scottish businesses should not see their competitive position in relation to businesses elsewhere in the UK being slowly eroded. For all those reasons, we cannot therefore support the Scottish Government's budget today. It is, in the words of Peter Devink, Mr Swinney's close ally in the Yes campaign, setting Scotland on the wrong road. Although the figures involved may appear in the great scheme of things to be relatively minor, it is a direction of travel that sets a worrying precedent. For all those reasons, we will, I regret, be voting against the budget at five o'clock today. Thank you very much. I now call on Lewis MacDonald to maxim a minute, Mr MacDonald. Thank you very much. We need to do more. I heard the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport yesterday in responding to the accident and emergency figures published this week, which showed performance in Scotland's NHS going in the wrong direction. She was right, and it is that need to do more that we have asked the Government to address, above all, in supporting Scotland's NHS. The number of people attending A and E who are not treated within the Government's four-hour target fell in December below 90 per cent for the first time in nearly two years. Shona Robison said that that was because of unprecedented pressures, and on one level she was right. Professor Malcolm McLeod at Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Larborough told the Scotsman early this week, every year we get busier and busier, and he was right too. As more people live longer, each year is likely to see more demand than the year before. The pressures would be all the greater if we were faced, for example, with an epidemic of influenza, but health boards already face a challenge in meeting the pressures to which Ms Robison referred. Last week, I visited the emergency department at Aberdeen Royal infirmary, along with a number of colleagues, and heard about the concerns of senior staff. NHS Grampian is over 300 nurses short of what it needs in order to deliver the services patients are entitled to expect. Some of that can be met by bank nurses working for the health board on anod hoc basis, but not all over 100 posts are unfilled even after that is taken into account. It is no wonder that Grampian and other health boards find it so hard to meet their targets, despite the fantastic commitment and effort of those who work there. Not enough nurses, not enough senior medical staff either, and Grampian is not the only health board with struggles to recruit the staff that it needs to provide around the clock emergencies. I wonder whether Lewis Macdonald would take this opportunity to welcome the additional NRAC funding for Grampian and the fact that it has additional nurses planned for the Grampian area, which will help to address some of the issues that he has just outlined. Any step towards the NRAC formula that the Government promised some eight years ago that it would put in place would, of course, be welcome. The small step perhaps goes a little way in that direction, but I think that we have to recognise those pressures that I have described are not so easily met. Of course, likewise, passing on of health consequences today is also welcome. That will do a little too to help, but it is not enough. The Government indeed needs to do more, as we said here two weeks ago and as we have said again today. That is why we have made a case for a front-line fund to help ease the pressure on the A&E and on Scottish NHS services in general—£100 million, all from the remaining Barnett consequentials that are available to ministers to allow out-of-hours access for patients to both hospital and primary care services. A front-line fund would signal a willingness to explore new ways of delivering healthcare, outwith the standard working week. It might even reduce the number of patients forced to travel for treatment to other board areas or turn to the private sector by making it easier for people to be treated close to home. I thank the member for taking the intervention that you mentioned about private healthcare. I just wondered if yourself or your colleagues in the bench agree with John McTernan, who is newly appointed by your new leader, John Murphy. Labour has committed to 20 billion cuts of—if elected—the NHS needs the savings that privatisation creates. Would you agree with that? Certainly what I regret is the trend towards more and more patients, including many of my constituents, being referred by the NHS to private sector providers because the provision is not there within their local board area. We asked at stage 1 for ministers to discuss future funding with local government. Of course, as we heard today, Mr Swinney has done so, and he has found an additional £10 million to offer to local councils, but the way he announced that today can hardly be described as a step in the right direction. Indeed, Jackie Baillie said that the historic concordat between the Scottish Government and local government now lay in tatters following the Deputy First Minister's speech today, and Alec Rowley spelled out clearly what that would mean in a moment. As Mark McDonald very revealingly said, COSLA no longer speaks for local government not because some councils might withdraw from COSLA, but because COSLA could no longer deliver the deal that the Scottish Government wanted. Mr Swinney today criticised local councils on the grounds that they had received specific and sufficient funding to maintain teacher numbers, and that was the reason for him imposing clawbacks and penalties. That sounds very much as if ring fencing is back, as if the concordat is over, as if local councils will pay a price in clawbacks and penalties for not doing the Government's bidding. As if consensus somehow comes to an end, the moment other people fail to agree with what the Government wants. Minister. Mr McDonald, will you call on all Labour councils to protect teacher numbers here and now? In this debate, I will call on Mr Swinney to abandon his plans to take money away from the very money that could be used to help to improve the situation. Ardurd, please. We cannot hear Mr McDonald. I am sure that Ms Constance will recognise that there are many councils across Scotland that are unable to recruit staff and need support from the Government rather than penalties as has been proposed. Of course, if the Government needs to do more to protect our most important public services, it also needs to do more to respond to pressures on our productive economy. Of course, the oil economy is in a very different category from the NHS. Every decision in Scotland's national health service is the responsibility of the Scottish Government. Every penny that Scottish health boards spend is provided for Mr Swinney's budget. In the oil and gas industry, by contrast, most of the big decisions are made not by Governments at all. They are made in the boardrooms of multinational oil companies around the world. We have heard in the last few days of decisions by oil majors such as BP and Shell to cut global investment to the tune of billions of dollars. As a result of that, urgent action is required here in Scotland. We know that many thousands of jobs are at risk in Aberdeen and across Scotland because of the low price of oil. Indeed, Bob Dudley of BP talked yesterday about the price remaining low in the near to medium term, which means that he foresees no recovery in real terms over the next two to three years. If pressure on the NHS is the biggest challenge facing our public sector, the consequences of that on-going oil price are the biggest issue facing our private sector and the wider economy. I agree with the Scottish Government that fiscal measures by the UK Government can help in the longer term. It would signal the recognition of the urgency of the problem. I am glad that both Governments supported the oil jobs summit in Aberdeen this week and agreed to work together on a city deal for the Aberdeen city region. However, there is more that the Scottish Government can do and there is more that it should do in light of its responsibility for the stewardship of the Scottish economy. We have pressed today, again, for our resilience fund to give local councils the flexibility to support economic sectors facing sudden economic shocks, whichever sector and whichever area that might be. Ministers have not responded positively to that proposal, which is disappointing. Yes, they are promoting the merits of partnership action for continuing employment. I welcome that. It is important that workers facing redundancy get the support that they need. However, it is also essential that the Government assesses the potential impact on the wider economy of a continuing low oil price. I believe that, if they do so, they will see very clearly the case for our resilience fund. In the meantime, we will continue to remind Ministers that they need to do more in both public services and the productive economy. In part, we will do that by voting against the budget tonight. John Swinney, to wind up the debate, you have 10 minutes. Can I begin on the subject of land and buildings transaction tax and try to address some of the issues that were raised by Mr Brown and Malcolm Chisholm? The Government has maintained a consistent position that we did not want to raise any more from the devolution of land and buildings transaction tax and landfill tax than would have been the case had the taxes remained in place. When I ran the assessment of the existing tax provisions as amended by the Chancellor in the autumn statement, that generated a revenue sum of £461 million. Unfortunatly, to be a supposed absolutely consistent point should have been defined as it should have raised £461 million, but the problem was that I could not get agreement with the United Kingdom Government on those estimates. The United Kingdom Government, in fact, believed that those taxes would raise £524 million. After two years of procrastination and endless dialogue with the UK Government about trying to get to a point of block grant adjustment, the chief secretary to Treasury and I sat down and we had a discussion, which essentially went along the lines of my number was 461, his was 524, and on a tremendously sophisticated two years worth of procrastination basis, we decided to split the difference, and it was £494 million. That then raised the issue for me. If I wanted to deliver revenue neutrality, was revenue neutrality defined by £461 million or a block grant adjustment of £494 million? I made it absolutely clear that I was not going to inflict upon the Scottish Government's budget an impact of £33 million loss because the block grant adjustment was higher than I thought it reasonably should be. If Parliament thinks that I should have signed up to that, well, Parliament can have that opinion, but I am prepared to defend my actions in that respect. Having focused on a number of £494 million, I had to work out how much had to be raised in residential land and buildings transaction tax to fill that gap, because on non-residential transactions I had not changed my proposals, so I had no need to change my estimates, and on landfill tax I had not changed my proposals, so I had no need to change my estimates, so the amount of money that had to be raised was £235 million to ensure that we were able to deliver comfortably on those numbers. Mr Brown, that is the explanation. That has all been set out to the French Committee in my letter of 22 January to explain the entire narrative. Of course, I will give way in a second to complete the argument, but if Parliament wants me to be clear and transparent with it about all those elements of the calculation, that is exactly the basis on which the Government has come to this conclusion. New definition of revenue-neutral seems to also include putting £15 million into a cash reserve, as we heard today. Will you not accept that that is a tax increase as opposed to being revenue-neutral? No, because the £15 million is not coming from the revenue raised by land and buildings transaction tax. It has come from the allocation from within the autumn budget consequentials. That is precisely it. Mr Brown, there is your happy, cheerful answer to your war chest point. You can call off the Scottish Conservative attack dogs on that particular point. Let me move on to the question of health funding, which has been rather central to the debate. As I set out in the statement, the Government originally, in terms of our published plans, would have increased the health service budget by £202 million for 2015-16. As a consequence of the decisions that we have taken on the autumn statement and the decisions that we took on the budget in October, we will be increasing the health budget by £383 million, a very substantial increase in the resources that are available to the health service in Scotland. The health secretary has already announced that some of that funding will be used to support NRAC funding, which I would have thought might have got a more cheerful response from Lewis MacDonald, but that is what he described as cheerful. I would hate to see the reaction to a broken pay packet. There is money for £32 million for new drugs pressures and support for boards, £30 million on delayed discharge and waiting times and the resources that I have announced today on performance, capacity and quality to focus on strengthening the health service in every way that we can. Would you accept in what you have just outlined, welcome though it may be, that there is not one additional penny that you have not already announced in this chamber? What there is is £383 million more for next year than there was this year for the running of our national health service and in the financial context in which we have got to operate. I think that that is a pretty substantial additional investment that has been made. We then follow through the logic of the Labour Party's position. Jackie Baillie has said today that all of the money in the Barnett consequentials should go to health. Even if that could all add up to the £100 million fund, which it does not, we will just cast a veil over the fact that there is only £65 million of consequentials available to be allocated and Jackie Baillie is trying to deliver £100 million, apart from the arithmetic impossibility of those two points. We will just cast a veil over that. If Jackie Baillie is saying all the health all the Barnett consequentials have got to be allocated for health, then that means the Labour Party is not prepared to support the additional investment that we are making in improving educational attainment, in tackling educational inequality, in trying to boost the teacher numbers in our schools, in trying to take the investment in energy efficiency on that logic. The Labour Party is turning its back on all of that investment that I thought the Labour Party might have supported. Jackie Baillie said in the chamber today that Labour's position was to maintain teacher numbers. She says, I am glad that I have had sedentary confirmation of the point. It is always nice to hear it muttered from the side. Ian Gray talked about the fact that the pupil teacher ratio had deteriorated, that numbers were falling and that something had to be done about it. I have come to Parliament and I have set out what I am going to do about it. Mr Rowley, anyone who thinks that I do not take seriously dialogue with local government and, frankly, Mr Rowley, you should know all about it of di