Finance and Local Government – in the Scottish Parliament at on 14 January 2026.
Kevin Stewart
Scottish National Party
To ask the Scottish Government how much the United Kingdom Government’s increase in employer national insurance contributions has cost local government in Scotland. (S6O-05366)
Shona Robison
Scottish National Party
The Scottish Government has published an estimate, provided by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, of a £240 million increase for local authorities in Scotland in the 2025–26 financial year, following the UK Government’s hike in employer national insurance contributions.
Kevin Stewart
Scottish National Party
That £240 million could have been invested in public services. For example, it could have given Scottish National Party-controlled Aberdeen City Council the ability to increase its anti-poverty fund or allowed Tory-controlled Aberdeenshire Council to reverse its daft decision to stop supplying grit bins. Is the Scottish Government still pursuing and pushing the Labour UK Government to fund those ENIC rises for public services in full?
Shona Robison
Scottish National Party
I assure Kevin Stewart that we continue to pursue the UK Government on its approach to the cost of ENICs. As I have said many times in the chamber, there is a £400 million-a-year gap between the funding that has been provided and what is needed to meet the cost of the increase in employer national insurance contributions. I have regularly raised the issue with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and will continue to do so.
Craig Hoy
Conservative
Last year’s national insurance hike showed Labour’s utter disregard for jobs and economic growth. The Cabinet secretary was right to say that it has negatively impacted the public sector as well as the private sector.
However, as councils grapple with those costs, yesterday’s Scottish budget and spending review dealt them another blow. Today, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that the finance and local government portfolio uplift is only 0.3 per cent, which is far less than the 2 per cent that was claimed by Shona Robison yesterday. In future years, the local government portfolio will suffer annual real-terms cuts of 2.1 per cent. How are councils meant to meet those increased costs and deliver front-line services when this Government is intent on slashing their budgets?
Shona Robison
Scottish National Party
Local government’s budget would be slashed if £1 billion was taken out of public services, which is what the Tories have advocated. They cannot come here to ask for more money for local government if they would take £1 billion out of public services. That is a ridiculous position to take.
On the local government funding position, the budget provides a further real-terms increase in the local government settlement by delivering record funding of £15.7 billion, which includes a quarter of a billion pounds of unrestricted general revenue grant. The overall settlement is to increase by £650.9 million, which is a cash increase of 4.3 per cent, or 2 per cent in real terms, compared with the 2025-26 budget. That is the amount by which the local government settlement is estimated to increase by the 2026–27 spring budget revision. Craig Hoy should go away and read the document properly.
The political party system in the English-speaking world evolved in the 17th century, during the fight over the ascension of James the Second to the Throne. James was a Catholic and a Stuart. Those who argued for Parliamentary supremacy were called Whigs, after a Scottish word whiggamore, meaning "horse-driver," applied to Protestant rebels. It was meant as an insult.
They were opposed by Tories, from the Irish word toraidhe (literally, "pursuer," but commonly applied to highwaymen and cow thieves). It was used — obviously derisively — to refer to those who supported the Crown.
By the mid 1700s, the words Tory and Whig were commonly used to describe two political groupings. Tories supported the Church of England, the Crown, and the country gentry, while Whigs supported the rights of religious dissent and the rising industrial bourgeoisie. In the 19th century, Whigs became Liberals; Tories became Conservatives.
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
