Greenock Telegraph article

Written by Ross Finnie on Fri 5th Feb 2010

Ross Finnie MSP

The Scottish Budget was the big debate of the week. The Government had more to spend in real terms than ever before but considerably less than was planned before the recession bit. It was, therefore a tight settlement but the SNP Government chose to portray it as somehow all the fault of the Westminster Government for running up a huge public sector deficit in which Scotland played no part. As a matter of fact the Government at Westminster had to inject £45.5 billion and provide guarantees of £282 billion on toxic loans to save the Royal Bank of Scotland from going bust. The notion that Scotland has not contributed to the country's debt burden simply doesn't stand up to close examination.

Apart from the obvious need to protect front-line services in a time of economic downturn, two issues at the top of the Liberal Democrat agenda have been: the need for fairness in public sector pay settlements; and the need to recognise the employment difficulties facing our young people. That is why we argued for a freeze on the pay and bonuses of the top earners in the public sector. We also argued, on the grounds of fairness, that within a general policy of pay restraint there should be flexibility to deal with the low paid.

Faced with rapidly increasing levels of youth unemployment, young people are seeking more college places to improve their chances of getting a job. In the absence of additional funding most colleges are turning down applications in record numbers. That's why the Liberal Democrats argued that the money saved by curbing the pay of top earners should be used to provide much needed additional college places. The recession simply cannot be allowed to stigmatise our young people.