Bridging the gap at Holyrood

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By John Knox Political reporter, BBC Scotland

"A narrower bridge!" Everyone wondered what Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson was suggesting. Some sort of Himalayan-style rope bridge across the Forth?

There were more gasps of surprise as he went on to announce that the new Forth Road Bridge was going to be half the price, paid for up-front out of the Scottish Government's own budget and there would be no tolls.The new Forth bridge is due to open in 2016

Belief was suspended, like a suspension bridge itself, when he went on to announce that the present bridge was being kept open indefinitely.

The rust in the cables is apparently not as bad as we all thought and the bridge will remain suitable for public transport for its designed lifetime of 120 years.

It means the new bridge can be smaller - with just two lanes in each direction - and can be built for between £1.7bn and £2.3bn. It's due to open in 2016.

"It's a value for money solution", said Mr Stevenson.

Labour's Des McNulty said the fact that it's not to be funded by the new Futures Trust was a "humiliation for the finance secretary John Swinney who has been forced to admit that his big idea is not fit for purpose".

It also emerged, at first minister's question time, that the expenditure of so much money on a capital project would need approval from the Treasury in London.

'Capital cover'

Liberal Democrat leader Tavish Scott said: "The real SNP priority here is to create a war of words with the Treasury."

He asked what priority was being given to the bridge compared to the other 28 projects in the transport programme... the Dundee by-pass, cutting rail journey times between Edinburgh and Glasgow, the dualling of the A9 between Perth and Inverness.

There is no priority list or timetable, other than the overall 20 years of the programme.

But Alex Salmond said it was "entirely sensible, given the excellence of the proposal we are putting forward for the Forth crossing, to ask for capital cover (from the Treasury) to make sure we can follow through on our transport plans for all of Scotland."

When it came to Labour's question, Iain Gray was interested in a more pressing problem... the 700 graduate teachers who have still to find permanent jobs.

He gave the example of the McAllister sisters, Lynne and Cara, both newly-qualified teachers who are thinking of going abroad because they've been unable to find teaching posts here.

"Next year won't be the year of Homecoming for them," said Mr Gray.

"It will be the year of giving up on Scotland."

Gordon Brown claimed his government had "saved the world"

Mr Salmond replied that last year, 93% of probationary teachers had found a post by the end of the year.

He also pointed out that the education budget had increased by 6.8% this year, compared with 0.6% during the last year of the Labour/Lib Dem administration.

Conservative leader Annabel Goldie reduced the chamber to some welcome laughter when she used her first formal question to ask: "When does the man who thinks he's saving Scotland hope to meet the man who thinks he's saving the world?"

A reference to Gordon Brown's slip of the tongue in the Commons on Wednesday.

Mr Salmond replied: "Like everyone else, I am in awe of the prime minister's talents and self-proclaimed ability."

After crossing the bridge, the government's next balancing act was to announce next year's proposed funding for the 32 local councils.

The finance secretary said he was giving them £11.7bn, an increase of 5% on this year.

It includes £100m extra for items such as free personal care (£40m), the police and fire services (£42m), teachers' pensions (£18m) and urban regeneration (£12m).

'Fig leaf'

On top of that, councils are to get a previously announced £70m extra in order to freeze the council tax.

Labour's Andy Kerr described the settlement as a "fig leaf for failure". He said it disguised real cuts in local services.

One example Labour gave this week was kinship carers payments.

On Thursday it won a vote of censure on the government, by 58 to 49, claiming that the promise to pay kinship allowances from 1 April this year was not being honoured by local councils.

Children's minister Adam Ingram said it was a three year programme and £12m was being given to local councils to begin rolling it out.

Twenty councils had made payments, though he admitted that not all of them were paying the full amount of between £119 and £198 a week.

When it comes to slicing the cake, none did it better this week than the Mayor of Villarreal, Juan Jose Rubert.

He cut into a large cake in front of a group of Celtic supporters from this small town in eastern Spain - yes, there are several hundred of them back there, apparently - who visited the Scottish Parliament on their way to the big match in Glasgow on Wednesday.

The group of 30 or so, both men and women dressed in yellow jerseys, cheered both teams...until, that is they took their seats in Celtic Park.

Then, for 90 minutes, they cheered their home team...to no avail.

They had at least tried to bridge the gap between home and away, between dream and reality, between policy and practice, between a bridge and plan for a bridge.