Robert Brown supports borrowing powers for the Scottish Parliament

12.00.00am GMT Mon 9th Feb 2009

The Scottish Government's Budget has passed through the Scottish Parliament with the support of the Liberal Democrats after key agreements were made on ways to tackle the economic and financial crisis which is currently causing so much worry. The Liberal Democrats, Labour and the Greens had previously voted against the Budget which was criticised as inadequate to the times.

Glasgow Liberal Democrat MSP Robert Brown said that the agreement between the SNP minority Government and the Liberal Democrats contained a number of specific arrangements which would bring benefits to Scotland as the fight against the economic depression continued. The Scottish Parliament later supported a Liberal Democrat motion calling for the Scottish Parliament to have appropriate borrowing powers.

In the debate, Robert Brown said that borrowing powers for the Parliament was "an idea whose time had come." There was, he said, "potentially a powerful coalition of the major political parties in Scotland for change through the Calman Commission process."

Robert Brown said:

"The outcome to the Budget discussions was satisfactory at the end of the day. The SNP minority Government have recognised that they need to talk to other political parties to get wider sign up to the Budget, and the Liberal Democrats have succeeded in refocusing the Government on more effective ways of dealing with the fall out from the banking crisis.

I think it is particularly worthwhile that the Scottish Government are now going to be involved in the Calman Commission and the efforts to obtain borrowing powers for the Scottish Parliament. This was one of the omissions from the original scheme for the Scottish Parliament and it is high time it was put right. Major projects like the Forth Road Bridge should be paid for over 30 years in the same way as people pay their individual mortgages over such a period.

The Liberal Democrats also secured the setting up of a Financial Sector Jobs Task Force to take forward action to secure financial services jobs. The Scottish Government was also forced to concede support for a resumption of the school building programme which has been winding down since the SNP came to power. We will continue to press the Scottish Government on the school building programme which is also important in helping to secure the futures of construction workers."