Can John Swinney pass the Scottish Government budget without the Greens?

The Scottish Greens have backed every SNP budget in the last eight years – but that may soon change.

The party has said it could vote against the Scottish Government when it attempts to pass its spending plans in December.

The announcement of £500m worth of cuts this week has angered every party in Holyrood but it may have angered the Greens just a little bit more.

Co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater were part of the Government until then-first minister Humza Yousaf kicked them out in a surprise move that ultimately ended his time in Bute House.

Many of the areas facing budget cuts, such as free bus travel for asylum seekers, investment in active travel and train subsidies, were either Green policies or ones heavily favoured by the party.

But will the Greens vote against the budget in the end, and if they do, who else could John Swinney rely on?

‘Swinney’s in a bit of a bind’

As another small party in Holyrood, the Scottish Liberal Democrats may appear to be a good fit to replace the Greens as a group that could help vote through the budget.

Alex-Cole Hamilton’s party has four MSPs – enough to give the SNP majority a majority vote – and they previously lent their votes to let Kate Forbes to allow her ascension as deputy first minister.

But just as in that vote, the price for Lib Dem support may come at a cost.

Speaking to STV News, MSP Willie Rennie said mental health support, investment in housing, closing the attainment gap and preventing sewage dumping in rivers would be his party’s priorities in any negotiations with Swinney and finance secretary Shona Robison.

“We’ll be going into the budget discussions with those at the forefront of our mind,” he said, “and we’ll make sure that John Swinney understands that we have to have significant movement in order to cross that constitutional divide to support the SNP in the budget.”

LDRS

But Rennie said Swinney found himself in “a bit of a bind”.

“They have upset their closest partners,” he said, “so I suppose the price for them will be even higher because we know that the Greens are incredibly upset and they will try and extract a significant price from the SNP as well.

“So I think John Swinney is in a difficult position. He’ll have to work hard to get sufficient numbers to get the majority in the parliament to vote for his budget.

“But he’s skilled at this. He’s done it many times before so I know he’ll have a plan, I’m sure, but it’s not evident what that plan is yet.”

‘Greens won’t make deliberately impossible demands’

Whatever that plan is, Green MSP Ross Greer wants it to include his party’s top three priorities for any budget negotiation: tackling child poverty, the climate emergency and funding core public services.

But Greer said his party wouldn’t make “deliberately impossible demands just to gain politically from the whole process”.

“Unlike some other parties, the Greens take our responsibility to run this country seriously,” he told STV News.

“Funding public services is far too important for that.”

But he poured a little doubt over the success of a deal between the two parties again, saying Swinney had let a “massive gap” between the two parties’ positions grow.

He said: “They’re moving further away from what we think is really important for priorities when it comes to a budget.

“What the SNP have done even in the last week is slash, cut, U-turn on, drop and delay policies that we care about, policies that we think are important to people and the planet, and policies that we were delivering in government.”

But Greer claimed the key issue for the SNP is that while it is moving further away from the Greens “they don’t appear to be moving to any other party”.

The West Scotland MSP said the Greens will publish a series of policy proposals in the run-up to December on what they would expect to see from the Scottish Government.

“If the SNP are serious about getting our support for the budget that is going to require a massive shift in priorities from what they have spent the last week laying out,” he said.

‘Almost impossible for the Tories to back the budget’

Asked if they would consider voting for an SNP budget this year, the Tories came close to a flat-out refusal.

“The SNP have been compelled to make £500m of cuts to public services, thanks to their own disastrous choices in government,” shadow finance secretary Liz Smith said.

“Because they have presided over sluggish growth, Scotland lost out on £624m in tax revenue – and even though we have the highest taxes of any part of the UK, the nationalists have had to raid the one-off windfall from ScotWind to plug the gap.

“That’s money that was intended for long-term investment, and won’t be available in future years, though the costs created by the SNP’s mismanagement continue to pile up.

“It’s clear that the SNP have run out of ideas and money, and it is almost impossible to see any circumstances in which the Scottish Conservatives would be able to back the measures in this Programme for Government.”

Labour on the other hand said they would “engage in the budget process in good faith”.

“It is vital ahead of the budget for the SNP to open the books and be fully transparent about the mess they have made of the public finances,” MSP Michael Marra added.

“We will scrutinise the budget in detail when it is published in due course.”

Ash Regan, the former SNP minister who defected to Alba, said she would be willing to work with the Scottish Government to pass a budget.

She said: “I hope they can channel the constructive spirit of the 2007-2011 parliament to work creatively across the chamber again to deliver tangible positive change on critical matters to the people of Scotland.”

‘Water under the bridge needed before budget negotiations’

Speaking to journalists after FMQs on Thursday, Swinney said various parties have voted for SNP budgets since it came to power in 2007.

He added: “Parliament has to address the fact there has to be a budget agreed if we are to put money into our public services.

“If we don’t do that then public services don’t have the money to operate, afford pay rises – or there could be an election.

“But I don’t think members of the public particularly want politicians to be having elections when they’re not supposed to.

“But there’s a lot of water that has to go under the bridge before we get anywhere near the budget process.”

He added that the Scottish Governemnt will “engage constructed” with other parties to pass its spending plans.

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