SNP must rebuild trust with Greens ahead of Budget, warns Harvie

The SNP must rebuild its trust with the Scottish Greens if the two parties are to work together again, Patrick Harvie has said.

Mr Harvie, who co-leads the Scottish Greens alongside Lorna Slater, said the SNP broke his party’s trust by ending the Bute House Agreement earlier this year.

He told the PA news agency that relations then fractured further following the SNP’s decision to scrap a number of policies championed by the Greens.

The Scottish Government recently announced a U-turn on a scheme for free bus travel for asylum-seekers and also axed a pilot that scrapped peak rail fares.

Speaking ahead of the Greens’ conference in Greenock at the weekend, Mr Harvie said he does not want to agree to measures that the SNP later abandons.

“There is fundamentally a really big question of trust for the Scottish Government and for the Finance Secretary,” he said.

“The last six months or so have not been good.

“They’ve broken trust, not just by ending the Bute House Agreement, but then by undermining and unravelling some of the policies that they had already committed to.

“Particularly in the area of net zero, the biggest investment in climate and nature ever, while the Greens were part of the Government, and a lot of that then rode back with in-year budget changes.

“So there’s a question of trust. How can any political party really believe in what’s put on the table in Budget talks?”

Mr Harvie said the Scottish Parliament is at its best when political parties work together – but that relies on a basis of trust.

“That trust has been damaged this year and needs to be rebuilt,” he said.

Ms Slater agreed that her party is questioning whether it can rely on the Scottish Government to follow through on any commitments made during Budget negotiations.

She said: “What we’ve seen this year is Budget commitments that the Greens won last year appeared to be the first things that were cut in the middle of the year when the SNP found themselves in financial difficulty.

“We can’t in good conscience vote for a Budget if we think all of the things we negotiated for are going to get cut halfway through the year.

“The SNP need to convince us and build trust with us that they will follow through on what they promise.”

Mr Harvie also criticised a decision by the Scottish Government to withhold any ban on conversion therapy until the UK Government unveils its own plans.

Describing the practice as “a form of torture and abuse”, he said: “I can understand why at one level [the Scottish Government] might think that a single, UK-wide approach is attractive but given the state of the Labour Party on some of these issues, I have very little confidence that they’re going to come forward with a comprehensive ban that is actually needed.

“I think it would be far better if the Scottish Government proceeds with its own Bill and then maybe withdraw that if it turns out not to be needed if the UK Bill is as good as we need it to be.

“But I’ve got very little confidence that that’s going to be the case.”

He said the policy will be “an important test case” for whether the Scottish Government is committed to progressive social policies, or has been “captured by social conservatives” on the party’s “backbenches and elsewhere”.

The Scottish Government has been approached for comment.