Scottish Government Priorities: Investing in Scotland’s Public Services

That the Parliament welcomes the Scottish Government’s continued investment in public services and shares its commitment to maintaining high-quality services that people in Scotland need; recognises the key role that the workforce plays in delivering public services and welcomes that public sector pay is higher in Scotland than other parts of the UK; acknowledges the importance of a socially just and progressive approach to public service design and delivery, underpinned by fair work and a progressive tax policy; agrees that the UK Spring Budget fell far short of what Scotland needs to deliver further investment in public services and infrastructure, and will result in a cut in the Scottish core block grant of around £0.4 billion in real terms in 2024-25 compared with 2022-23; is concerned that significant, real-terms spending cuts, assessed by the Institute for Fiscal Studies as being up to £20 billion by 2028 across the UK, will be needed as a result of the economic plans of either a Labour or Conservative UK administration; calls on the incoming UK administration to bring forward an emergency budget to restore the £1.3 billion cut in Scotland's capital budget, and notes that, for as long as the Scottish Government remains on a fixed budget under the current devolution settlement, there are limits to what it can achieve in terms of investment in public services.