Meeting of the Parliament 16 December 2015
The first point that Jackie Baillie raised highlights the atrocious lack of communication within the Labour Party, because this is not the first time that a financial statement has been redacted. It was redacted last year by agreement among the business managers of Parliament so that I was able to announce straight to the Parliament the tax rates that were being put forward.
I cannot actually remember who Labour’s finance spokesperson was last year—I have gone through so many over the years—but if Jackie Baillie had talked to whoever it was last year, she would have found out that the information was redacted last year. That is just a basic illustration of how lacking in detail Jackie Baillie is on the handling of these issues.
In the several minutes of her contribution to Parliament, there was not a single alternative proposition from Jackie Baillie. Of course, that is a character trait of Jackie Baillie. All that she and the Labour Party deliver is abuse and hectoring of other people. They do not produce an alternative to show what they would do differently.
The budget process is Jackie Baillie’s opportunity to redeem herself. Now that I have published hundreds of pages of financial information on the choices that we have made, she can look through that and decide what she would do differently, what taxes she would put up, what budgets she would change and what other alterations she would make to my financial plans.
I have submitted a budget that protects the incomes of the lowest-income households. That is the most effective way that we can use the powers available to us today to secure the best interests of the people who we are elected to serve in this Parliament.