With Greens in government, new left-wing voices are now required

For the SNP , a safety-net government majority but at the risk of alienating those on the right of the party. For the Greens , an opportunity to shape government policy, to transform radical ideas into reality, but with all the risk and challenges of being a junior party of government.

One of the benefits of the Bute House Agreement to the SNP which I feel isn’t talked about enough, however, is that by putting the Greens into government, they also removed Greens from the opposition. Mostly, at least.

The nature of the Bute House Agreement means that Greens can and do still oppose the Government on a predetermined list of “excluded matters” such as freeports, sex work and private schools, the reality is that for most major issues, the Greens will back – and be part of developing, to ­varying degrees – the Government ­position.

Being in opposition can be a powerful and underappreciated place to be. Good ­opposition can often define the ­narrative around any given area of government ­policy, setting in place the lines of ­questioning taken by the media and presenting genuine challenge to the government – not least in a proportional system like Scotland’s where a government majority is a rarity rather than the norm.

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I may be biased, but I think it’s very ­clear that the Greens were always an ­exceptionally strong opposition party. Some of the biggest flagship government policies in recent years came as a result of concessions following budget ­negotiations with the Greens, such as the free bus ­travel scheme for under 22s which came as a result of a budget agreement in 2021, or the changes to income tax in 2016 which mean ordinary working Scots pay a little less and top earners pay a little more.

The Greens were also entirely unafraid to hold the Government to account for its failings, with Ross Greer MSP being one of the most powerful voices in 2020 leading the charge against then-education minister John Swinney (below) for his handling of the SQA exam results scandal – with Greens ­helping secure the critical government U-turn and rightly voting against the subsequent ­motion of no confidence in Swinney.

This constructive opposition – which could be scathing at times when ­appropriate, but also knew when to back down and value positive outcomes for the people of Scotland over political point scoring – perfectly positioned the Greens as a clear party of opposition to the ­Government from the left, often joined by Richard Leonard’s Scottish Labour Party.

Now, a few years later, with Greens in government, they are able to shape ­government policy from the ­inside, ­bringing about policy change in a way that would’ve been much harder to score from the opposition benches, and not only helping develop the policy, but ­helping deliver it too with the party’s two Green ministers.

I wrote in The National a few months back that in any circumstance, I’d ­always want to see the most progressive ­government possible in Holyrood with the electoral calculus available, and I stand by this. I voted for the Bute House Agreement and I continue to support it.

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But with Greens no longer able to ­offer constructive opposition in the ­chamber, and with Scottish Labour having lurched to the right to appease the party in ­London, I can’t help but miss the days when the Scottish Government faced genuine, constructive, left-wing ­opposition in the Scottish Parliament.

The loss of left-wing opposition couldn’t have been clearer last week during the debate on the first draft of the Scottish Budget 2024-25.

The Scottish Government was undoubtedly faced with one of its most challenging tasks to date, with chronic underfunding from Westminster presenting a huge £1.5 billion black hole to fill. The Government should be commended for taking some small but key steps ­forwards towards more progressive taxation, increasing income tax for those with the very broadest of shoulders, raising some additional revenue with which to fund Scotland’s increasingly crippled public services. But that ­being said, last week’s Budget was certainly no cause for celebration.

The disastrous and mishandled council tax freeze and a lack of ambition to take radical action on tax reform have resulted in a Budget which will be horrendous for public services and ordinary people, and which has been widely met with disappointment from trade unions, local authorities, charities and community organisations alike.

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Cuts, cuts and more cuts were the theme of this Budget, with cuts to everything from housing to transport, from education to child poverty. Education cuts will see a significant reduction in the funds available to Scotland’s colleges. A £200 million cut to the housing budget in the midst of what is undeniably a housing crisis is unforgivable.

This was not a good Budget.

It’d be disingenuous of me not to acknowledge that it wasn’t all doom and gloom – there were a handful of positives here beyond just the income tax changes. The wiping of school meal debt, £4.7bn investment in climate and nature, and a £2400 increase in the maintenance loan for Scottish university students are all big wins, and undoubtedly the ­positive work of Greens in government. But there’s no denying the elephant in the room – the council tax freeze.

The policy was announced out of the blue at SNP conference without discussion with the Scottish Greens, Cosla or even the cabinet until hours beforehand in a blatant violation of both the Bute House Agreement and the Verity House Agreement with local governments.

Council tax is a deeply regressive form of taxation and freezing it will disproportionately benefit the most well-off, while crippling public services relied on the most by working people.

Following the announcement, the SNP kept repeating that the freeze would be “fully funded” but refused to define what “fully funded” actually meant – the ­revelation on Tuesday that it would equate to only a 5% rise was condemned by ­Cosla, who said in a statement: ­“Cosla’s initial analysis of the Budget is that the council tax freeze is not fully funded”.

And this brings me back to the lack of left-wing opposition.

Ironically, the only party to condemn the freeze were the Scottish Greens. Labour, the LibDems and the Tories all welcomed the council tax freeze, albeit with varying levels of concern as to its “fully funded” nature. The Greens have been relatively outspoken in their criticism of the freeze, yet being in government means that when push comes to shove, they will still vote for the Budget containing it.

Similarly, the lack of ambition to take tax reform more seriously and prevent cuts to public services was also met with a vacuum of progressive opposition.

The income tax increases for those in the top percentiles of earners were a welcome step forwards and were – as the First Minister himself pointed out on social media – welcomed by the STUC, the Poverty Alliance, the Child Poverty Action Group and Oxfam, but opposed by the opposition parties including Anas Sarwar’s Labour. As the STUC’s excellent Budget response pointed out, it was “disappointing to see opposition parties failing to make demands of government save for calling, impossibly, for more services but lower taxes. To this extent, the whole of the Parliament is letting people down”.

In previous years, this Budget would’ve faced calls from both the Greens and ­Labour to go further on taxation, to ­reverse the cuts and for the Scottish ­Government to take ownership of their finances to properly fund public services. While the Greens will undoubtably have ensured many of the most progressive improvements to this Budget behind the scenes, the reality of being in government means any calls to go further likely won’t see the light of day. And as for Labour, they simply have no ­excuse not to be ­demanding better.

The reality is, being in government means compromise. I have no doubt in my mind that Greens being in the room will have made this Budget better – I just wish there was someone else in the parliamentary chamber putting the pressure on to do better, to go further, to give a voice to the thousands of Scots and countless organisations whose voices ­otherwise haven’t been heard.