Meeting of the Parliament 25 February 2016
Yesterday’s stage 3 debate on the budget was a pretty depressing affair. I am sorry to say that I had little expectation that today’s debate would be any more edifying. For the most part, the SNP is simply refusing to engage with the argument about raising taxes versus cutting spending, and it is trying to demonise or falsely portray what is on offer or to pretend that it has no real choice.
The cabinet secretary, who we normally—as Murdo Fraser correctly identified—find to be an eminently reasonable and personable parliamentary colleague, presented two arguments that were contradictory. As Willie Rennie said, the cabinet secretary described the settlement that was passed on to him from the UK Government as unacceptable and potentially devastating, but he has said that his proportionately larger cuts to local authorities would have “minimal impact”. I am sorry, but to say that that defies logic does not quite do justice to Mr Swinney’s attempts to face two ways at the same time.
In particular—I wonder whether he already regrets this—the cabinet secretary has tried to downplay the effect of his £500 million of cuts on jobs and the number of lay-offs that we might expect. Given that the majority of local government spend is accounted for by the workforce, it is difficult to see how large-scale job losses can be avoided.
Local authorities are certainly in little doubt about the pain that John Swinney’s cuts will bring. Unison is worried about 2,000 job losses in Edinburgh, and we heard this week that as many as a further 2,000 jobs could go in Fife. COSLA has estimated that up to 15,000 jobs are at risk. Given that the cabinet secretary has already presided over at least 40,000 job losses in local government, his attempts to minimise the effects of these huge SNP cuts will be seen as offensive to those who are directly affected and to many in our trade unions. Jackie Baillie put that point to him earlier. If he disagrees with our figures or believes that COSLA and the unions are utterly exaggerating them, I ask him—once more—to produce his own estimates, which we will work from.
Another oxymoronic or contradictory statement that Mr Swinney came out with yesterday was that he is entitled to impose conditions and limits on local government decision making, but that it is entirely up to
“individual local authorities to take the decisions that they want to take about their budget choices”.—[Official Report, 24 February 2016; c 20, 21.]
Is the cabinet secretary not aware that it is his centralising and dictatorial attitude to our local authorities that has so angered many of our locally elected representatives? We know that the SNP has already centralised our police service, our fire service and our colleges, but Mr Swinney’s interventions in supposedly local decision making are every bit as authoritarian. Yesterday, he claimed that all 32 councils had agreed with him because all had signed his letter, but he conveniently forgot that he had given them no choice. They had to sign up or face penalties of hundreds of millions of pounds.
I ask again whether Mr Swinney read any of the letters that he received. I have some of them here. The letter from Fife Council said:
“with the greatest reluctance ... I see no alternative ... given the extreme punitive sanctions you would otherwise impose on Fife Council.”
The City of Edinburgh Council said:
“in agreeing this package of measures, I need to make it crystal clear that I’m doing so under duress.”
Inverclyde Council said:
“In all my years in Local Government I cannot recall such a draconian settlement both financially and in terms of the penalties threatened ... I find it totally baffling that a Government which portrays itself at every turn as being anti-austerity would support a settlement that will undoubtedly have a devastating impact on local communities, services and jobs in the years to come when it had other levers at its disposal to avoid such an outcome.”
That does not sound like agreement to me.
We know that this is bad news for jobs and for local democracy, but what does it mean for services? Many fear that the axe will fall most heavily on the third sector and non-statutory services such as women’s aid and rape crisis centres. One group that was at the Parliament yesterday to make its voice heard was Watch Us Grow from Cumbernauld, which is a small local charity that works with adults who have a range of support needs or who are recovering from mental health challenges. It is based at the gardens at Palacerigg country park. We could not help but be inspired by the difference that it makes to so many lives; it gives people a sense of purpose, fulfilment, achievement and belonging.
Such services are not statutory funded services, but they are essential to the wellbeing of every one of us and they are under threat because of John Swinney’s cuts. Everyone who uses or relies on locally delivered public services is now under threat.
15:09