Meeting of the Parliament 07 May 2014
I welcome the opportunity to debate wealth and income inequality and I thank Patrick Harvie for bringing the subject to the chamber. I welcome very much the approach that he has taken. Labour will support the motion at decision time because he has made the debate about political will and doing what is right and not about constitutional change. I respect him for doing that.
I share the aspiration that is expressed in the motion for
“a fair and successful society”.
I recognise that, to achieve that, we need progressive policies that make work pay and seek to redistribute wealth.
The Labour Party was founded on the principle of sharing wealth to create a more equal society, and that is very much at the heart of all that we do. We are putting in place bold policies to tackle inequality. We have proposals for a progressive system of taxation that would enable those with the broadest shoulders to bear the biggest burden. We propose a freeze on energy prices, as we recognise that struggling families should not have to choose between heating and eating. We also support the introduction of a living wage because we need to make work pay. None of those progressive policies is supported by the Tories—as we would expect—or by the SNP.
We know that costs are rising and wages are declining. A recent Joseph Rowntree Foundation report on minimum income standards tells us that the price of a basket of essential goods has risen by a staggering 25 per cent in the space of five years. Increasingly, people who are in work, as well as those who are out of work, are not making ends meet. I am told that many of the people who are now appearing at food banks are not unemployed but are in low-paid jobs and are struggling to cope before their wages come in.
The SNP’s only answer—as evidenced by the minister’s speech today—irrespective of the question that it is asked, is that independence will cure all ills. It is genuinely disappointing that the minister is not prepared to do anything, but one could say that that is consistent as well as totally lacking in ambition for people in communities throughout Scotland. Like the First Minister, she does not want a Labour Government. At the most recent election, the First Minister suggested that people vote Liberal instead—I am sure that Willie Rennie was grateful for that. What is it about the SNP that means that it does not want to see positive change, not just in Scotland but across the United Kingdom?