Highland MSP Kate Forbes credits First Minister Nicola Sturgeon with giving her confidence to deliver budget
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DESPITE sweaty palms and indicating to her dad that she was terrified, Highland MSP Kate Forbes’ impressive handling of the Scottish budget helped secure her new role as finance minister.
The SNP politician – whose patch includes the Black Isle – is on the rise.
She was drafted in at the eleventh hour to replace Derek Mackay, who resigned after it emerged he had been messaging a 16-year-old boy over a period of months.
Previously, Ms Forbes held the junior ministerial remit of public finance and digital economy and was elected in 2016.
In what was a make-or-break moment for any ministerial career, it was widely considered that her assured performance, not just in delivering the budget but responding to MSPs questions attacking the budget, was a success.
“It was announced just after 8am that I would be delivering the budget, which gave me only a matter of hours to familiarise myself with every line of the budget, the format of the budget statement and the substance of the speech,” said the 29-year-old.
“I took a big breath, sat down and told myself that I had to focus on one task. It was obviously a huge surprise that came completely out of the blue but I couldn’t afford to think about anything apart from the task ahead.
“There is obviously a lot of scrutiny on the budget – the press, both national and international, take an interest in the budget. Other news that day had probably heightened interest, so I was very mindful of how many eyes would be on the afternoon’s event.
“The first thing I did was get a hold of the budget document and start poring over every page of it. Lots of highlighters and scribbled notes later, I had a folder that I hoped would get me through. The second thing I did was text my dad with a few terrified face emojis.”
With the budget statement prepared for Mr Mackay, Ms Forbes found there was some rewriting to do. “Obviously, the statement had not been written for me and so I had to deliver a speech that I was comfortable with,” she said. “As such, I rewrote significant elements of it. The budget statement is also a very technical speech so the core messages and facts remained the same.
“Walking into the chamber, I was convinced I’d forgotten something – I had to pass lots of TV cameras, so I put on my best game face.
“The best thing that the First Minister said was that she believed I could do it. That gave me the confidence to ignore doubt and worry. But I was far from calm. On at least one occasion, my sweaty hands meant I also dropped a page of notes.
“The statement itself is really challenging. OK, nobody can interrupt and I could look at my notes, but speaking confidently for 30 minutes without a break isn’t easy.
“There is an hour of questioning which is obviously tough, particularly with everybody watching and other parties keen to land a few blows. So, it would be unusual not to feel a little bit nervous.”
Asked how she felt afterwards, Ms Forbes said: “I have never been so relieved. I felt a bit emotional, because I hadn’t allowed myself to think about anything other than facts and figures all morning and so it only really hit me afterwards how high the stakes were.”
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