Yesterday, Rachel Reeves announced the first Labour budget in 14 years. After 14 years of Tory chaos, division and decline, it was a transformative and game-changing budget for Scotland. It delivers on the promises that were made in the election—[ Interruption .]

Let us hear Mr Sarwar. [ Interruption .] Are members quite finished? Can we please hear Mr Sarwar? No one else has been called to speak.

After 14 years, the budget delivers on the promises that were made in the election, ends the era of austerity, provides vital new investment for our public services and prioritises economic growth. It includes the largest block grant settlement for the Scottish Parliament in the history of devolution: £1.5 billion of additional funding for the Scottish Government this year, and a further £3.4 billion next year. That means that the block grant will be £47.7 billion next year—a Labour Government delivering for the people of Scotland. Will the First Minister welcome the transformative budget, welcome the end of the era of austerity and welcome the new investment for Scotland?

I do not think that any of us is surprised that Mr Sarwar is so excited in asking his questions in the Parliament today. Let me provide a calming influence in this afternoon’s parliamentary discourse. The budget is a step in the right direction. I accept and welcome that.

The increased funding for this financial year largely accords with the Scottish Government’s expectations with regard to dealing with the issues of pay and inflation pressures, which the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government has shared with the Parliament.

The funding for next year is welcome. The budget delivers an increase in funding for Scotland as a result of the Barnett consequentials for health and education, but we must be conscious that negative consequentials will arise as a result of the budget’s financial implications for areas such as culture, environment and transport. Therefore, we need to consider the net implication of the budget for Scotland’s public finances.

Significant uncertainty remains about the impact on public spending in Scotland of the increase in employers’ national insurance contributions. We have to publish a budget on 4 December, and there is currently uncertainty about whether our finances will be compensated in full for all that is involved in that regard. The cost of the change to national insurance contributions is not an insignificant sum; it is a £500 million question.

We will engage constructively with the United Kingdom Government on those questions. I suppose that my regret comes from the fact that, in the financial estimates that the Chancellor of the Exchequer set out yesterday, she indicated that, over a three-year period, there will be a £10 billion surplus in the budget. That is encouraging, but she was unable to find a single penny to lift the two-child cap, which is forcing families into poverty in our country today, and I deeply regret that.

The Scottish public accept that we cannot fix every problem with one budget. John Swinney was desperate to be disappointed with this budget, and it is very much through gritted teeth that he is having to welcome the record level of investment in Scotland and the fact that this is a historic budget rise for the Scottish Government, delivered by a Labour Government. On top of that, the budget delivered a £1.4 billion investment in Scottish infrastructure; a pay rise for 200,000 of the lowest-paid workers; an extension to the fuel duty cut, which will benefit 3.2 million Scots; massive investment in the publicly owned Great British energy company, which will be headquartered in Aberdeen; a Covid corruption commissioner to get our money back from dodgy Tory deals—[Interruption.]

Let us hear Mr Sarwar.

The budget also delivered compensation for the infected blood victims and the victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal and an end to the pension injustice for miners. There is just so much for Scotland in this budget—I could go on.

Does the First Minister therefore accept that this change is possible only because Scotland voted to get rid of the rotten Tory Government and elected a Labour Government that ended the era of austerity and is changing the lives of people across Scotland?

Mr Sarwar is very, very excited today. I have the sense that he doth protest too much. There are many welcome measures in the budget. I am particularly pleased that a reliable source of funding is being made available for the victims of the infected blood scandal—both those affected and infected—because I have constituents who have demonstrated tenacious leadership in ensuring that that injustice was corrected. I think of my constituent Bill Wright whenever I think of this issue. I am very pleased—and it is to its credit—that the Labour Government has done that.

There are many welcome measures in the budget. For example, I argued that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had to change the fiscal rules. During the election period, she said that she would not do that, but I have obviously been very persuasive in getting her to change the fiscal rules so that we can get more investment—the very investment that Mr Sarwar talked about. It is important to invest in our infrastructure and our housing stock and to ensure that this country’s competitiveness is enhanced by that investment.

I welcome all those things. However, Mr Sarwar will have to try to convey some of his enthusiasm to people other than me—people who are living in poverty and the children of families who will move into poverty because the two-child cap has not been lifted. The Resolution Foundation estimates that, by next April, an additional 63,000 children will be affected by the failure to lift the two-child cap. There will be pensioners who have lost their winter fuel payment who will not be greeting with enthusiasm the points that Mr Sarwar is making.

Mr Sarwar has to recognise that—

Briefly, First Minister.

—although there are welcome steps in the budget, there are issues that will prolong the agony of individuals in our society. A Labour Government should address those and right the wrongs that it is presiding over now.

I have always been clear that we cannot fix every Tory mess in one budget; of course we want to make further progress over the course of the Labour Government.

However, let us come back to this Parliament, which will get £1.5 billion of additional money this year and £3.4 billion of additional money next year. That is more money for Scotland’s national health service, schools and other vital public services. More money is one thing, but how the Scottish National Party Government chooses to spend it is another. The fact is that this is an incompetent SNP Government that is bad with taxpayers’ money, so more of the same will not cut it.

With almost one in six Scots on an NHS waiting list, with Scotland’s education system falling down the international league tables and with record levels of homelessness and 10,000 children living in temporary accommodation, we need a change of direction. Will the First Minister finally end the blame game, end the SNP’s financial mismanagement, incompetence and waste, and ensure that Scots benefit from yesterday’s transformative budget?

I will go back and look at the parliamentary record of what I have said so far today, but I do not think that I have blamed anybody for anything. Mr Sarwar has blamed the Tories—quite fairly. Actually, to correct the record, I did blame the Tories—I blamed them for 14 years of austerity. That is correct; I agree with Mr Sarwar on that point.

However, let us take a couple of the examples that Mr Sarwar talked about. On schools, when this Government came into office, 63 per cent of pupils in Scotland were educated in good or satisfactory school buildings. That figure is now more than 90 per cent, because this Government did the heavy lifting of investing in the school estate of Scotland.

Yes, there is a housing challenge, and far too many families are living in temporary accommodation, but this Government has presided over more affordable housing being built per head of population than in any other part of the United Kingdom—and, crucially, more than was built when the Labour Party was in government in Scotland before we were. [ Interruption .] My dear friend Christine Grahame gives me some prompted comments from the side, which I shall pick up on. The Labour Government that was in power before we came into office was so incompetent that it could not even spend the money that was available to be spent on behalf of the people of Scotland.

We will continue to do what I have always done as a minister: we will deliver careful stewardship of the public finances to deliver for the people of Scotland, we will balance the books and we will deliver value. That is what people get from a Swinney Government.