In less than a fortnight’s time, I will set out the Scottish Government’s budget plans for the next year.

As a minority government, clearly the SNP must work with other parties to gain parliamentary approval, to find consensus and reach agreement – and that means our plans are subject to the most rigorous interrogation.

Our starting point begins with the amount of money that is determined by the block grant determined at Westminster.

The UK Government’s Autumn Budget did not represent a good deal for Scotland - far from it.

The Chancellor’s decision to cut our block grant for day to day spending on public services by over £200 million next year, down by 8.1 per cent over ten years, brings new financial challenges on top of the pressures we were already facing.

Trying to hide this cut under promises of three years of loans that the Scottish government cannot directly spend on frontline services is - even by the Tories’ standards – a pretty desperate exercise in smoke and mirrors, which didn’t stand up to five minutes’ scrutiny.

The funding settlement is also challenging for our NHS. Despite a commitment of over £300 million resource funding for the NHS in England, Scotland will receive only £8 million of this due to UK cuts elsewhere.

The UK government have also started diverting cash from services to prepare for their Brexit damage.

In addition to this, we are dealing with the challenges of an ageing population, which means reshaping our public services to be ready for the future.

When you take everything into account – the decade of Tory austerity, changing demographics, the impact of the pay cap, a worsening UK economy and an impending Brexit - it is no exaggeration to say that we are facing the most challenging budget in the history of the Scottish Parliament.

I am up for the challenge.

Our task as the Scottish Government is to protect the most vulnerable in our society, to invest in and improve our public services and to grow the economy.

We want to enable ambitious businesses across all of Scotland to prosper and scale up, to capitalise on assets across the country and build opportunities for Scotland to lead globally in the technology-driven low carbon industries of the future.

In education, our investment means our economy will benefit fully from the learning and skills gained by those who have been trained and educated in our schools, universities and colleges.

We have a proud record of delivering for our NHS, our police and fire services, and protecting the share of funding that councils receive to help them deliver key services and respond to local needs.

Public sector pay was an issue largely ignored in the UK budget, but we believe Scotland’s public sector workers deserve a pay rise.

That commitment is not an easy one to deliver.

The UK Government’s failure to lift the public sector pay cap makes funding a pay rise in Scotland harder – something the STUC recognised when we jointly pressured the Chancellor to change his plans - but we remain committed to helping public sector workers deal with the pressure of rising inflation as best we can.

This year of course, we have chosen to open a discussion about the use of Scotland’s income tax powers.

Last year we blocked a Tory tax cut for the rich.

This year, as part of our efforts to reach a consensus, we have set out options for making broader changes to the tax system that could make it fairer, support the economy, raise revenues to meet the challenges we now face, and protect low earners. We are engaging with people before our budget, in a constructive spirit.

It is easy for those who favour tax cuts to stand up every day in Parliament and call for them. But to have any credibility, they must explain what they will cut from our public services to pay for their tax cuts.

Instead the Tories demand spending increases and tax cuts at the same time - they can’t have both. Their bombastic bluster will be exposed, as people increasingly realise who the Tories really speak for.

Of course, with budget cuts landed upon us to resolve and increasing pressures ahead, no government can meet every demand -so this budget will be tough.

We will do our best, as a responsible government - but even using our tax powers, in a balanced way, cannot fix every problem the Tories’ austerity agenda and impending Brexit have created.