Scottish Greens prepared to vote against SNP budget

His party voted against the Scottish Government budget in 2009 in a row over funding for home insulation but has voted for each one since 2016.

The key demands of the Greens is £4.7 billion for climate and nature action, fair funding for councils, including the removal of a council tax freeze and any cap, and a commitment to advance policy work on independence.

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"If the budget doesn't include at least £4.7bn for climate and nature. If there is not a fair deal for local government. If there is absolutely no spending on independence, we would certainly struggle to support it," Mr Greer told The Herald.

"We are certainly prepared to vote down a budget. We have done so before when the SNP were in a minority government."

He added: "We have laid out a whole range of ways in which the government can raise more money, support public services, to the betterment of people and planet.  If the government doesn't take up those options and we are left with a budget that doesn't necessarily take us back but which fails to meet the needs of people and planet then of course Greens MSPs could vote against it....The option of voting for, against or abstaining is live."

Finance secretary Shona Robison (Image: PA) At Holyrood, the SNP currently governing as a minority administration following the end of the Bute House Agreement (BHA) with the Scottish Greens in April.

It means the government must rely on another party to support or abstain for the legislation to be passed. A vote in Parliament is due to take place in February next year.

Support has most often come from the Greens, but following the acrimonious end of the BHA some in the SNP Holyrood group would prefer the party become less dependent on their former allies - blaming the deal for a decline in the SNP's popularity and defeat to Labour at the general election in July.

The Greens reject this argument saying the decline in the SNP's lead in the polls coincided with the resignation of former First Minister, a turbulent leadership contest to succeed her and a long running police operation into SNP finances.

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Under First Minister John Swinney the government has dropped some policies agreed with the Greens including the axing of peak rail fares, and plans to bring in free school meals for all pupils in primary six and seven. It also cut £5m of nature restoration funding, redirecting the money to help fund wage settlements in Scotland’s local authorities. The decisions were announced as part of in year spending cuts.

Amid the political fall out of the end of the BHA and the shift in government thinking the SNP and Lib Dems have been embroiled in budget talks.

Both parties told the Herald on Sunday "there are areas of great communality" between them with suggestions being made that a deal between the two could be close.

Mr Greer said he was pleased to see the Lib Dems engage in the budget talks but insisted a SNP deal with his party would be of greater benefit to Scots.

"I have no doubt there are people in the SNP who are adamantly opposed to doing a budget deal with the Scottish Greens, just as there are people in the SNP who are adamantly opposed to a budget deal with the Liberal Democrats," he said.

"The problem for the SNP is they did not win a majority at the last election and the mandate they have from the public is to work in a loose coalition for their party to agree a budget for Scotland.

"The Greens have put forward a budget which would continue to move forward on climate action, would lift children out of poverty, ease the cost of living crisis, for example by capping bus fares at £2. We have a long list of proposals set out as "a menu". The government would need to choose a sufficient number of them for us to feel we have got a reasonable value out of the budget."

He added: "The Scottish Greens have an incredible position of potential influence right now. It is not nearly the same as we had in government.

"We would all acknowledge we have less influence over public policy than when we were in government.But we still have the potential to make this budget fairer. I have no doubt that a budget deal agreed with the Greens would lift more children out of poverty and reduce emissions quicker than a budget deal agreed with the Liberal Democrats."

The Greens are also seeking a mechanism in any deal they could make with the Scottish Government to ensure ministers could not later drop commitments they had made.

"The SNP's actions over the last year made trust very challenging for us, therefore we believe we need some kind of mechanism to give us confidence that what we've agreed would actually be delivered," said Mr Greer.

"We don't want to be in a position where we vote for the budget and then the first in year cuts that are made are made to the Green elements of the budget and at that point we no longer have direct leverage over it....It's for the SNP to come up with the mechanism. They are the government. They need to convince us that we can trust them and propose a mechanism through which that can be delivered.

"Some kind of shared oversight mechanism to ensure that either what we agree is delivered or if there are genuinely unforeseen events throughout the year that require the budget to be adjusted that is done by mutual agreement because typically those in year adjustments are made unilaterally by the government not by parliament." 

The Herald asked Mr Greer if he thought the Greens would secure a budget deal with the Scottish Government.

He replied: "I find it very hard to judge their intentions at the moment. It is no bad thing that they have multiple options."

Meanwhile, the First Minister has pledged to prioritise the NHS in the Scottish Budget.

Mr Swinney said he had "thrown the weight of the Scottish Government behind tackling some of the key challenges" faced by the NHS in Scotland since he took on the role.

Ahead of the publication of the Budget on Wednesday, the First Minister said he wanted to see a "healthier population".

Mr Swinney said: "All of us have used Scotland's National Health Service at different points in our lives, and we all know what a precious institution it is.

"Under this government, Scotland has had the best-performing core accident and emergency units in the UK for nine years, we have more GPs per head than anywhere else in the UK and we have prevented the disruption of strike action by settling fair pay deals for frontline NHS workers.

"But we know that health services everywhere face huge pressure in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, and ours is no exception."