Dale speaks to Rachel Amery about the upcoming Scottish budget.
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00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's daily video bulletin for this Monday.
00:05My name's Dale Miller.
00:06I'm deputy editor of the Scotsman and I'm joined by our political correspondent Rachel
00:11Armoury.
00:12Rachel, we are approaching December quickly, which means Scottish budget isn't far around
00:18the corner Wednesday next week, in fact, and we're going to talk about that very shortly.
00:22But the front page of today's Scotsman firstly.
00:26Retailers play the Sweeney as budget talks go down to the wire.
00:30It has been interesting, particularly over the past week.
00:34We've heard from the CBI, we've heard from the Scottish Hospitality Group, we're hearing
00:39from retailers as well.
00:41We're also hearing from colleges and I would expect there'll be others, including the
00:47arts sector that is asking for money in the Scottish budget.
00:51They want to be very clear about what's outlined and Scottish councils have spoken as
00:56well about how much money they need over the past couple of weeks.
00:59Expect to read much more about that at Scotsman.com, not just today, but over the next
01:05week and a half. Also, a fantastic picture on the front of that win by Scotland over
01:10Australia in the autumn test yesterday, which sets the team up very nicely for the
01:15coming six nations.
01:17Rachel, thank you for joining.
01:19I want to highlight firstly the terrific work that you did on the A9 series last week.
01:24If you want to read any of that series, you can get it at Scotsman.com, go to our
01:30politics or our transport tabs in the navigation bar.
01:34It was a full series covering how important the A9 dualling issue is, difficult
01:40sections, why it's been held up politically.
01:44There's plenty to read about there, so please check it out.
01:47But Rachel, we're going to talk about the budgets and there's confirmation that there
01:51is some extra money coming to the Scottish government.
01:55Yes, this is over employer contributions to national insurance.
01:59If you cast your mind back to the UK budget at the end of October, employer national
02:04insurance contributions were increased by the UK chancellor.
02:08There's a lot of concerns about how that's going to impact on the public sector in
02:11Scotland, not least because the public sector in Scotland is actually bigger per head of
02:15population than it is down south.
02:17So a bit of concern there.
02:19The Scottish minister is also very concerned about how they will cover these national
02:23insurance contributions going up in their own budget.
02:27Now, they had asked for £500 million to be asked for to cover this.
02:34In fact, they had confirmation from the UK Treasury that they will be supplying £300
02:39million for this.
02:41So good news that the money is coming this way and there is now a plan of how this
02:46tax increase is going to be covered by the public sector.
02:49I'm sure Scottish ministers, on the other hand, are going to be disappointed because it
02:52is £200 million short of what they asked for.
02:55I'm sure we'll hear a bit more as the days go on and I'm sure we'll hear more in the
02:59budget statement, which, as you said, Dale, is only a week away now.
03:05Interestingly enough, I think the Scottish Council's asked for £350 million alone.
03:09So the amount that the UK government's giving doesn't meet that differential, even
03:17taking into account the other requests.
03:20What are you expecting the Scottish government to say about this, Rachel?
03:25Yeah, I can imagine they're going to say that they're disappointed it's not what they
03:29asked for. Of course, they can use it as well as a tactic to try and attack the UK
03:34government and potentially austerity measures and things like that as well.
03:39There has, of course, over the past few months been this sort of narrative of trying to
03:42reset the relationship between Holyrood and Westminster, now that there's a Labour
03:46government in charge of the UK government.
03:49However, it's an SNP government in charge and Holyrood, of course, their whole
03:54narrative is that they want to be independent from the UK and from Westminster.
03:58So this will sort of set them up nicely to give an argument as to why Scotland should
04:03be independent in the budget statement.
04:05So I'm sure we'll see some of that coming up as well.
04:08There is, of course, more money for the Scottish government in this budget.
04:11It's been increased by £3.4 billion, which sounds like a lot of money.
04:16When you look at how many departments in Scotland need some more cash, that cash is
04:20going to go very, very quickly.
04:23There's a lot of expectation that a lot of that extra money will go on the NHS, for
04:26example. But like you said, there'll be POSLA councils and loads of other areas who
04:32will be clamouring for that cash as well.
04:35So it's really interesting to see how that extra money gets divvied up and what
04:38priorities are being used as well.
04:41One budget we look out for as well as the NHS, though, is housing.
04:44It, of course, has been a big problem recently within housing in Scotland.
04:48There's a national housing emergency as well as individual housing emergencies in
04:52places like Edinburgh and Glasgow as well.
04:55Last year's budget, the affordable housing budget, was hit quite severely.
05:00And at the time, the finance secretary did say if there was any more money coming
05:04along, it would be spent in that department.
05:06So I'd expect to see a bit of money being ploughed into that department too in this
05:10budget next week.
05:11Rachel, you've touched on, I guess, some of the core areas that the government's
05:16going to spend on, but we know that they're going to have to strike an agreement with
05:21WALA parties to get the budget through.
05:24The Scottish Lib Dems and Alex Cole-Hamilton have been pretty strict on saying that
05:29if there's a penny that goes towards independent spending, his party won't be
05:33backing it. Is that the biggest challenge, to actually give some ground to get
05:39someone to back the budget?
05:41That will be a big challenge.
05:42Obviously, last year, the Scottish Greens were still in government with the
05:46Bute House agreement.
05:47Therefore, the budget was always going to pass last year because they had those extra
05:51numbers. As you know, this year, that all fell apart, which brought down the downfall
05:56of Humza Yousaf along with it.
05:58So therefore, the SNP is a minority government, which means they're going to have
06:02to rely on another party to back them on this budget.
06:07It's unlikely to be the Labour Party or the Conservatives.
06:09I'm pretty sure they will probably oppose the budget.
06:12So we're then looking to the smaller party.
06:14Will it be the Scottish Greens or will it be the Lib Dems that will support the budget
06:18to get it passed? Now, the Lib Dems have said that not a single penny should be spent
06:22on the constitution. I think that was quite unlikely, given it's a national government
06:27that is in charge. So unlikely to see that.
06:30But at the same time, the Scottish Greens have put out quite a lot of demands already
06:34as to what they would like to see done and what their red lines are.
06:38And they have also been saying that they'd like to see a bit more emphasis on Scottish
06:42independence in the coming months from the nationalist government.
06:46So the question of independence and independent spending is really going to be
06:52shaped by which party do we want to try and partner up with here?
06:55Is it going to be the Lib Dems or is it going to be the Scottish Greens?
06:59So they're very small parties, both parties in single digit numbers.
07:04But they could end up being quite influential when it comes to this budget next week.
07:07So it's going to be interesting to see what they do over the next week.
07:11You'll be able to read some analysis from Rachel about this very subject at Scotsman.com
07:16shortly. Rachel, thank you for joining us.
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07:33Pick up a copy of The Scotsman in print tomorrow for all the very latest news.
07:38Thanks to everyone. Cheers.