Swinney urges Scottish Parliament to pass Budget of ‘delivery and hope’
John Swinney will give a speech in Edinburgh on Monday.
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Your support makes all the difference.Scotland’s First Minister will urge opposition parties to back a Scottish Government Budget offering “delivery and hope” in his first speech of the new year.
John Swinney will say that the draft Budget, set out by Scotland’s Finance Secretary Shona Robison in December, marks a turning point and is a foundation to build a Scotland fit for the coming decades.
With the SNP in a minority administration at Holyrood, Ms Robison and Mr Swinney need at least one other party to back the draft Budget for it to pass.
It is expected to be voted on in the coming weeks and the First Minister will urge others to back it to “make progress for Scotland”.
Mr Swinney will give his first speech of 2025 in Edinburgh on Monday to representatives from organisations across the public and private sectors.
He is expected to say: “There is nothing wrong in Scotland that can’t be fixed by what is right in Scotland.
“Yes, we’ve had a tough few years – but we have got what it takes to build our nation and transform our prospects, step by step, if we are willing to put our collective shoulder to the wheel.
“We know what needs to be done to make progress for Scotland, and we took a massive step forward in delivering that progress with the draft Budget, published last month.
“It was a foundation – a platform on which to build a Scotland fit not just for the coming year, but for the coming decades. It is a Budget that marks a turning point.
“With this Budget, I want the people of Scotland to hear loud and clear my twin commitment to delivery and hope. Delivery in the present, hope for the future.
Let’s choose progress, let’s choose renewal and let’s choose hope
“In these opening days of 2025, let us resolve that this will be a year of progress for Scotland.
“The first step is for Parliament to come together and to pass a Budget that enables us to get on with delivering. So let’s choose progress, let’s choose renewal and let’s choose hope.”
The speech in Edinburgh will be the first in a series of events across Scotland where he will set out what he sees as the benefits of the draft 2025-26 Budget and the importance of the Scottish Parliament passing the Budget Bill.
The First Minister is expected to say that if Scotland is going to “recover and renew as a nation, then we have to come together as a nation”.
He will tell the audience: “We have to be willing to put in the hard yards.
“And as Scotland’s First Minister, I offer the leadership to do just that – to bring people together and to put in the hard graft to deliver real solutions.”
There are some positive steps in the draft Budget, and the Scottish Greens will work constructively with the First Minister if he is prepared to ensure record support for our climate and increased funding for our local authorities and the services we rely on
Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater said the party will be “negotiating in good faith and working to deliver the best possible deal for Scotland”.
She said: “There are some positive steps in the draft Budget, and the Scottish Greens will work constructively with the First Minister if he is prepared to ensure record support for our climate and increased funding for our local authorities and the services we rely on.
“In the weeks ahead we will be scrutinising his plans and ensuring that they deliver for people and planet.
“The Scottish Greens are also calling for bold action to tackle child poverty, including free school meals for all primary school pupils, and action to reduce the cost of transport, with a £2 cap on bus fares to help household budgets and protect our climate.”
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said: “Given there is no prospect of an early election it’s incumbent on opposition parties to try to shape the Budget in a way that will best unpick some of the damage caused by years of SNP neglect.
“You can see significant Liberal Democrat demands baked into the pages of the Budget’s first draft. There is the reinstatement of the winter fuel allowance for pensioners, spending on social care, affordable homes, family carers, additional support needs, GPs, dentists, long Covid, the Belford Hospital in Fort William and Edinburgh’s Eye Pavilion.
“Our priorities reflect our continued commitment to getting our constituents fast access to healthcare, fighting for a fair deal for carers, lifting up Scottish education and growing the economy.”
He added: “Whether we back the Budget in the final analysis will depend on the detail of the commitments made so far and what progress is offered on other key priorities for us.”
Hard-pressed Scots are sick of paying more and more tax but getting less and less for it
Scottish Conservative finance spokesman Craig Hoy said: “This Budget is more of the same from a tired and out-of-touch SNP government that cares more about the nationalists’ interests than the national interest.
“Hard-pressed Scots are sick of paying more and more tax but getting less and less for it.
“The SNP and other left-wing parties at Holyrood, including Labour, don’t care about driving growth and creating prosperity.
“They just want to hoard taxpayers’ money and waste it on misplaced priorities and political gimmicks.
“Only the Scottish Conservatives have put forward common sense plans which would put more money in people’s pockets and give them the freedom to spend it as they see fit.”