Scottish budget voted down

Tom Griffin, 28 January 2009

Subjects:

Scotland

Tom Griffin (London, OK): Breaking news from Holyrood:

The SNP's £33bn plans fell on the casting vote of the presiding officer after being tied at 64 votes to 64.

The government won the support of the Tories but the two Green MSPs withdrew their backing shortly before the vote.

Finance Secretary John Swinney said he would bring the Budget Bill back to parliament "within days". 

Labour and the Liberal Democrats voted against the spending plans, saying they were inadequate to see Scotland through the economic downturn.

The Tories, who won a £60m concession for their town centre regeneration scheme initiative, backed the budget - and blamed Labour for its rejection.

Independent MSP Margo MacDonald also voted against the budget.

High drama, but given the close margin the Scottish Government will surely be able to get an extra vote from somewhere in the coming days.

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Comments

Nick Lyon (not verified)

29 January 2009 - 6:18pm

"Independent MSP Margo MacDonald also voted against the budget."

No she voted for the governments budget. The SNP plus the Tories only equals 63 votes - she makes it 64 as one Tory member is the Presiding officer bringing their total of MSPS down to 16.

Mike Small

29 January 2009 - 7:52pm

The budget will be revised and passed. It will be a victory for the Greens and have a good effect on SNP poltical culture. The reason? There are two: 1) Patrick Harvies proposals make good sense for the economy, for those facing fuel poverty and for climate change. 2) Labour and the Liberals know if they force an election their vote will collapse further.

If Harvies plans are not accepted though it will make the Scotish Green Party have to have a very long hard look at its internal workings. The stakes for at least two parties are very high and tey can only save themselves by working together. Its a classic prisoners dilemma.

Dougthedug

30 January 2009 - 1:25pm

Mike:

I think the Green's may not get all they want out of this budget. They were promised £22 Million with the concession of funding from other sources to take it up to £33 Million for their insulation schemes but that was because they were the king-makers at the time. The SNP do not want to alienate them but I suspect if Lib-Dem support is forthcoming then the extra concession may be withdrawn with the simple message that the SNP will play ball with the Greens but the Greens also have to play ball with the SNP.

Labour and the Lib-Dems are both led by the clueless. When Alex Salmond made the perfectly reasonable point that a Government which can't get its budget through should resign they both looked into the electoral abyss and the abyss stared straight back into them. Only the SNP and strangely enough the Tories don't fear a contest in Scotland. The Lib-Dems immediate offer to forget the holy-grail of a 2p tax cut under the threat of an early election really shows how little they understood what the consequences of a no vote could be.

I suspect that both the Labour party and the Lib-Dems assumed that the Budget would go through on the strength of the Green Vote and that they could play silly buggers and vote no with impunity.

In the end it was Patrick Harvie who played silly buggers and if the Lib-Dems come in to support the SNP budget he could get left out in the cold.

Labour may be playing a wrecking game in the hope that they can get Iain Gray into the FM's post without an election if Alex Salmond resigns but I think that any hopes of that faded with Annabel Goldie's assault on Iain Gray at FMQ following the budget. Of course it may come down to the fact that the Labour Party in the Scottish Parliament has very little talent to play with and voted no without any forward thinking or Plan B whatsoever.

Since the whole Lib-Dem strategy of demanding a 2p tax cut as a prerequisite for a deal in order to stop any chance of negotiations with the SNP was driven by Tavish Scott I suspect either that he's looked at the polls and gulped or more likely that some of the high-ups in the Lib-Dems both in Scotland and in the rest of Britain have looked at the Lib-Dems standing in the polls and urged him to change his stance or continue the discussions with a piece of 2" by 4".

The Labour party and the Lib-Dems come out of the affair looking like political amateurs which is probably a fair reflection of their abilities.