Cathie Craigie MSP said:

"Cumbernauld and Kilsyth can't be left behind during the economic crisis. This budget is just not good enough. It is damaging for our country. It does not respond to the economic challenges we all face.

"It's not good enough for young people looking for opportunities in the face of job losses, because it would leave a young person in Scotland with less than half the chance of an apprenticeship as a young person in England. South of the border, Labour is delivering 250,000 new-start apprenticeships every year. In Scotland, the same figure should be nearly 25,000 - but the SNP will provide just 10,000.

"We must never return to the youth unemployment of the Eighties, so I will not stand by and watch young Scots have just a tiny chance of getting a better future - and a better life.

"And it's not good enough to come forward with a rushed town centre plan at the very last minute. I welcome other parties in the Parliament finally wakening up to the fact that investment is needed to support our town centres. I am only sorry that it has taken them two years to accept Labour's argument.

"Such important discussions between the parties on budget matters, and especially on the annual Budget Bill, were never left to the last minute and conducted in this way with the Labour Scottish Government. There is a real responsibility on Scottish Ministers to treat the Parliament and the country with more respect. I hope the decision last night might make the SNP administration reflect on that a bit more in the future.

"The SNP need to invest new funding to retrain and help people made redundant. They need to help rebuild our town centres and rejuvenate our high streets. They need to fund local hospitals and health services properly - instead they are holding back millions to find ministerial announcements.

"Every measure Labour has proposed is achievable. But the political will is simply not there. Our door remains open in the sincere hope that the SNP will act in the interests of the Scottish people and the economy."