• John Mason (Glasgow Shettleston) (SNP):

  Does the cabinet secretary share my frustration that after he has spent hours and hours setting a budget with an overall budget cut of 9 per cent since 2010 and the Finance Committee has spent hours and hours—as have other committees—looking at it, we face this in-year reduction of £107 million? Surely no organisation, be it a charity, a company or a Government, should be making cuts like that in the financial year.

• John Swinney:

  Bluntly, I think that it is bad practice. It leads to Governments having to review and reconsider priorities that have been carefully evaluated by not just the Finance Committee—I say that with the greatest of respect, because the Finance Committee carries out that process diligently—but other committees, which look at different portfolios into the bargain. I have made it clear that we object to it and I assure Mr Mason that we will do all that we can to mitigate the effects of such actions.

– See more at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/report.aspx?r=10022&i=92004&c=1840065#sthash.ns4vagqt.dpuf