Portfolio Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament am ar 19 Mehefin 2024.
To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact of inflation on health and social care services in Scotland. (S6O-03600)
Spiralling United Kingdom inflation has had a devastating impact on all public services, including health and social care. In spite of that, we have provided more than £19.5 billion for the health and social care budget, which gives our national health service a real-terms uplift.
Despite that investment, the system is under extreme pressure as a result of the on-going impacts of Covid, Brexit, inflation and the UK Government’s spending decisions. Therefore, hard choices, greater efficiencies and savings will need to be made. We regularly assess inflation and the impact on health and social care services, and that features in the development of the Scottish public sector pay policy.
Later this summer, we will publish our health and social care portfolio medium-term financial framework, which sets out expected inflation levels, linked to the gross domestic product deflator rates, and that will be updated annually as new information becomes available.
Not just inflation but years of UK Government spending cuts have continued to have a detrimental impact on the Scottish Government’s ability to provide the level of funding that our health and social care services deserve. The cabinet secretary highlighted the impact of the UK Government cuts to our budget. Does he envisage that we can protect our public services, such as the NHS, from increased privatisation and future cuts?
Gordon MacDonald is right—a decade and a half of Tory austerity has had a clear impact, and it is becoming harder and harder for us to continue to mitigate that. The UK Government has ignored the calls from this Government to prioritise investment in public services and infrastructure. Although I welcome the additional resource funding that was received at the spring budget, the £237 million that was provided is only around half of the £470 million of consequentials from 2023-24, which have not been baselined in full into 2024-25.
That is clearly a disappointing situation, which sets a challenging fiscal context. It also serves to illustrate the continued short change that the Labour Party has offered, of just £134 million in additional health funding for the Scottish Government.
The UK Government’s figures show that Department of Health and Social Care funding for 2024-25 is 0.2 per cent less in real terms than it was in 2023-24, while we have provided a real-terms increase of 3 per cent. That is just one example from a resource perspective. I could also point to the capital side and show why Wes Streeting was absolutely right when he said that the pressures in Wales are because
“all roads ... lead ... to Westminster”.
Question 5 is from Bob Doris, who joins us remotely.