Meeting of the Parliament 04 November 2015
I know. Having a Liberal Democrat feel sorry for him must be painful for Alex Neil. He has been sent out to deliver stirring rhetoric, to lambast the Opposition and to pump up the ever-loyal back benchers. However, the most confused and contradictory speech that I have ever heard from him is the speech that I heard today.
Alex Neil started by saying that the SNP Government does not have the powers and by demanding that this Parliament should have the powers so that we can make the decisions. By the end of his speech, he had conceded that we have the powers after all and that he might actually take action. That was the most confused and contradictory contribution from a man whom I hold in high regard.
We should not forget that we are here today because of my former coalition colleagues in the Conservative Party. These ideologically driven cuts will directly affect 250,000 Scottish families and 300,000 children. Alex Neil is right about the financial impact that the cuts will have on those families. Someone who has an MSP’s salary could probably cope with a £1,000-plus cut, but for a family who are living on the breadline and finding it really difficult to make ends meet, £1,000 could be a lifeline. I deeply regret that the Conservatives continue to argue for such a cut.
Despite the warm words from the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, the words of the Conservative amendment wed the party completely to the tax credit cuts. Murdo Fraser finished his speech by refusing even to consider making up the difference on the tax credits when we have the powers over them here.
We know where the Conservatives stand. They sent Annabel Goldie down to the House of Lords to vote for the tax credit cuts. David Mundell, who is a member of the Cabinet, voted for the cuts in the House of Commons. Today, the Conservative MSPs will vote for tax credit cuts; we just heard it from Murdo Fraser.
The Liberal Democrats spent many years in the coalition Government cutting taxes for those on low and middle incomes. The aim was to make work pay so that people would be incentivised into work. We did not do all that work over five years just for the Conservatives to undo it all in one year with a £1,000-plus cut to people on low incomes. We did not want that to happen, and many people will condemn them for that.
I want to move towards a low taxation and high wages regime, with—in the meantime—a tax credit regime to support families who are in need. Despite the rhetoric, we know exactly where the Conservatives stand today.
Who would have believed that the House of Lords—that age-old, unelected institution that I want to get rid of—would be more representative of the British people than the newly elected Government and would speak up for working people? The new champions of working people are in the House of Lords, not the Conservative Party. That shows us what a topsy-turvy world we now live in.
We will vote against the SNP amendment. That is easy, because we have the powers and, if we choose to do so, we should be able to act on the choice to help working people. However, I urge the Conservatives in the Scottish Parliament, if they have any influence over the Conservative Cabinet—to date they have shown that they have none—to send the message out from today that the tax credit cuts should be reversed. That is the priority and that is the message. That is what we need to change.
I move amendment S4M-14688.2, to leave out from “and calls on” to end and insert:
“; notes that these cuts are being proposed by the UK Conservative administration despite them not being in its manifesto and the Prime Minister explicitly ruling out tax credit cuts if the Conservatives won the general election; believes that economic reasoning is now being used as a pretext to mask ideologically-driven welfare cuts, many of which were blocked by the Liberal Democrats in the previous UK administration; is deeply concerned that 250,000 families in Scotland and 300,000 children would be affected by the proposed cuts; believes that the priority should be blocking any proposals that leave these people, among three million on low incomes across the UK that would be affected, more than £1,000 worse off, pushing more families into poverty; urges the UK Government to listen to the House of Lords and to come back with plans to balance the books that do not attack working families already struggling to get by; welcomes that, if all else fails, Scotland will be able to use its welfare powers to assist people affected by the cuts, but believes that this course of action remains an inferior solution compared with stopping the tax credit cuts wholesale across the UK”.
Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.