Holyrood passes Swinney’s £28.3bn Budget

9 Feb 12
MSPs have approved Scotland’s Budget Bill, which includes a £382m boost for education, transport, housing and health over the next three years.

By Keith Aitken in Edinburgh | 9 February 2012

MSPs have approved Scotland’s Budget Bill, which includes a £382m boost for education, transport, housing and health over the next three years.

Finance Secretary John Swinney said the extra capital funds would support 5,000 jobs. ‘I have listened to views from across Scotland and this is a Budget for growth that puts the interests of our economy, our public services and the people of Scotland first,’ he said.

The Budget was passed last night without the support of Labour or the Conservatives, who opposed the scale of the cuts in housing and further education. Swinney went some way to meet these concerns, reversing an £11.4m cut in college bursaries, and finding an extra £8m for other college spend, £45m for affordable housing and £42m for housing loans and equity.

But Labour shadow finance secretary Ken Mackintosh said these concessions did not go far enough, with real-terms spending still due to fall overall by 5% to 2015.

With 200 Scots losing their jobs every day and one in five young people now unemployed, this Budget does not recognise the scale of the jobs crisis Scotland is facing,’ Mackintosh said.

‘There is no sign in this Budget of a government grabbing the economy by the scruff of the neck.’

Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie welcomed the concessions, but Tory shadow finance secretary Gavin Brown said that rising costs for business would make Scotland less competitive.

The new money, largely consequential on the additional £5bn capital spend announced by UK Chancellor George Osborne in the Autumn Statement, will also provide an extra £94m for local government, £72m for road projects, £60m for NHS capital maintenance, £28m for broadband, £13m for sustainable and active travel, £20m for prison modernisation and £5m for culture.

Swinney also announced a halving of the £30m Public Health Supplement, due to be levied on large retailers who sell alcohol and tobacco products. Following discussions with the trade, he has agreed to reduce the level and timescale of the charge for individual retailers, and will plug the gap with increased business rates.

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