Level heads prevail over Council Tax
Andy Wightman MSP, Local Government spokesperson for the Scottish Greens, welcomed tonight's vote in Parliament which enables changes to Council Tax and saw the Scottish Government forced to accept widespread concerns about their approach to local taxation.
Ministers had attempted to amend Mr Wightman's amendment to the Government motion, in a bid to delete modest criticisms of the Government.
But at Decision Time, opposition MSPs supported Mr Wightman's amendment and the amended motion was then approved after Green, Labour and SNP MSPs backed it. The Tories and Libdems voted against it.
Andy Wightman, Local Government spokesperson for the Scottish Greens and MSP for Lothian, said:
"This minority Government must expect their record to be challenged, and Greens will always seek to do this in a constructive way. At no point have we ever stood in the way of the changes to Council Tax as they are better than nothing. It has been bizarre to see SNP Ministers threatening to vote down their own policy simply because they don't like fair criticism.
"Level heads prevailed tonight and educational attainment will be boosted by £100million. But what has also prevailed is an agreement by all Holyrood's five parties that the current system of local taxation is broken and that in this five-year Parliament we have an opportunity to fix it."