– in the Scottish Parliament am ar 11 Ionawr 2024.
Clare Haughey
Scottish National Party
6. To ask the Scottish Government how its budget will support household incomes in the Rutherglen Constituency. (S6O-02955)
Shona Robison
Scottish National Party
T he heart of our budget is the social contract between the Scottish Government and the people of Scotland. People in Rutherglen will continue to benefit from our long-standing commitments to free prescriptions, free access to higher education and the game-changing Scottish child payment. The Scottish budget commits a record £6.3 billion in social security benefits and payments to deliver on our national mission to tackle inequality. It sets aside £144 million to support a council tax freeze for this year, protecting household incomes across the country.
Clare Haughey
Scottish National Party
The Scottish Government’s budget ensures that a Majority of people in Scotland pay less income tax than elsewhere in the United Kingdom. In the midst of a Westminster cost of living crisis, the budget will freeze council tax, as the Cabinet secretary has said, and increase the Scottish child payment. It will also provide the most generous early learning and childcare package across the UK, saving families thousands of pounds each year. Does the Minister agree that the UK Government must now step up to protect incomes, and that it should do so by tackling rising food prices, mortgage payments and energy prices?
Shona Robison
Scottish National Party
I do agree with that. Our values-based budget prioritises what matters, supporting people through the cost of living crisis and investing in our front-line public services.
The oversight and regulation of mortgage lenders is a reserved matter. We have repeatedly called on the UK Government to increase support for those who are being most impacted by increasing inflation, interest rates and living costs. In June 2023, Scotland became the first nation in the UK to publish a plan to work towards ending the need for food banks. That includes a new £1.8 million programme to improve urgent access to cash in a crisis. We continue to repeat our calls on the UK Government to provide more targeted support for vulnerable consumers. That includes pressing for the urgent introduction of a social tariff mechanism as a much-needed safety net for priority energy consumers—which, unfortunately, the UK Government has so far chosen not to progress.
In a general election, each Constituency chooses an MP to represent them. MPs have a responsibility to represnt the views of the Constituency in the House of Commons. There are 650 Constituencies, and thus 650 MPs. A citizen of a Constituency is known as a Constituent
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.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
The term "majority" is used in two ways in Parliament. Firstly a Government cannot operate effectively unless it can command a majority in the House of Commons - a majority means winning more than 50% of the votes in a division. Should a Government fail to hold the confidence of the House, it has to hold a General Election. Secondly the term can also be used in an election, where it refers to the margin which the candidate with the most votes has over the candidate coming second. To win a seat a candidate need only have a majority of 1.
