Scottish Government wins key Budget vote

MSPs voted by 64 to one for the Nationalists' first ever budget, with 60 abstentions.

First Minister Alex Salmond had threatened to resign if MSPs had rejected his administration's spending plans.

But it did not come to that, after the Scottish Government got its proposals through Holyrood with the support of the Tories and independent MSP Margo MacDonald.

Meanwhile the two Greens announced that they while they would not support the budget, they would not block it either.

To win the support of opposition parties finance secretary John Swinney made two dramatic last minute announcements – a promise of bigger than planned business rate cuts to woo the Tories, and an extra 4 million in bus grants in a bid to entice the Greens.

In the end only one Labour MSP, Cathie Craigie, voted against the budget – by mistake, said Labour – with the rest of Labour's MSPs, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens all abstaining.

After the vote Mr Swinney taunted Labour for what he said was their failure in their opposition role.

He said: "They have a lot of thinking to do about how to handle the position of opposition and on this first crucial test in relation to the budget process the Labour Party has spectacularly failed in that respect."

He went on: "We have succeeded as a minority government in getting a budget through the Parliament where everybody said from the outset it would be our biggest challenge.

"And we have just passed our biggest challenge in getting that programme through Parliament."

Labour put forward an amendment to the budget, calling on the Scottish Government to look for ways to expand skills training programmes and to secure a minimum standard of services for vulnerable groups.

This was backed by MSPs – but Labour then abstained in the main budget vote in what Mr Swinney said was "truly a bizarre situation".

But Labour finance spokesman Iain Gray said: "Because of the approach we took tonight, the SNP government will now have to come back to Parliament and say how they will address issues around vulnerable groups and skills but they cannot claim that we endorsed their flawed budget."

The passing of the budget tonight paves the way for the SNP's proposed freeze on council tax.

Mr Salmond said it would have been a "disaster" for councils if it had not been approved.

"No council would have been able to set a budget," he said.

"Instead of looking at a council tax freeze there would have been a 20% rise across Scotland.

"Vital services would have been put at risk but luckily Parliament has done a good job for Scotland, an historic first budget for the SNP has passed."

See Thursday's Scotsman for full budget analysis and reaction.