Salmond talks to Greens over Budget

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The talks with Mr Harvie, whose party's two votes helped send the budget crashing to a 65-64 defeat in Holyrood, are taking place in an atmosphere of growing SNP confidence that the minority administration will get its budget through at the second attempt.

Talks involving Mr Salmond, finance secretary John Swinney and other party leaders and finance spokesmen started on Thursday at Holyrood.

During those talks, Labour offered to back the SNP's budget in return for a scaled-down concession on apprenticeships.

Labour had originally sought, and had been refused, a budget commitment to an extra 7,800 apprenticeships a year for each of the next three years.

Labour leader Iain Gray said his party would accept a commitment to 7,800 for each of the next two years and an "indication" that this would continue for a third year, at a cost of between £45 million and £90 million over three years.

Alex Salmond told Mr Gray in a letter he would complete a series of meetings with all party leaders before arriving at a budget "which is in the best interests of Scotland".

"Given the nature of the discussions that I have already had, I am extremely confident that this will be possible," said Mr Salmond.

Greens voted against the budget on the grounds that an offer of a £22 million home insulation scheme - later upped to a possible £33 million - was not enough.

Mr Harvie, whose party had wanted a £100 million a year, 10-year programme, has said he wants a better offer, and that the £11 million extra must be new government money not already allocated to environmental projects.