Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 25 May 2022
This is a hugely important debate for communities right across Scotland. Community wealth building provides opportunities for delivering a prosperous society for all our citizens, and I am pleased to open the debate on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives and to reaffirm our party’s support for the ambitions that community wealth building seeks to achieve. Although those ambitions are laudable, the Government must ensure that, where public money is to be allocated, it represents value to the public purse and substantial outcomes for our people.
The Scottish Conservative amendment recognises the importance of community wealth building and seeks to ensure that constitutional differences are put aside and focus is given to working collaboratively with the UK Government to ensure that our collective ambitions are realised for the whole of Scotland. I find it strange, however, that the devolved Government has brought the debate to the Parliament at this time. Yes, it is important, but the issue is only one part of growing our economy and, without a proper coherent strategy and economic growth, I am afraid that the debate will not bring the required changes.
The Scottish National Party’s report card on the economy makes for grim reading. Alex Salmond’s promise of 28,000 green jobs by 2020 has failed miserably; it is yet another broken promise from the SNP Government. We have also seen much public money being pumped into Burntisland Fabrications, for example, with little or nothing to show for it. Communities have been failed.
We have the smelter at Lochaber, where millions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash have been put at risk—perhaps illegally—and thousands of jobs were promised. However, once again, we have very little to show for it. Communities have been failed.
We also have the ferry fiasco, where millions of pounds have been pumped in to purchase two ferries with no guarantee, no design, no windows, no end date, no liquefied petroleum gas storage and no proper procurement trail. Furthermore, delivery is years late. Communities have been failed.
Now we have the SNP’s latest pet project, ScotRail. When we discuss transforming local and regional economies, let us think about the damage that is being caused by having no transport system at certain times of the day.
The rail dispute is causing havoc across Scotland and having a huge impact on the events and hospitality industry just at the time that it is trying to recover from more than two years of disruption. The dispute will cause businesses to fail and jobs to be lost. How will that help our local communities?
Today, the Scottish hospitality group has called for an urgent review of the temporary train timetable. I say temporary, but nobody in the Government can seem to define what “temporary” means. The group has said that the revised timetable is a threat to public safety as customers and staff will struggle to get home at night.
There is little use in creating good well-paid jobs if people cannot get to those jobs because of poor or non-existent public transport, as might be the case now, depending on the time of day. We are now living in a society in which people are being forced to drive to work. However, if people cannot drive or cannot afford a car, I am not sure what they are meant to do.
The rail dispute is costing jobs and this devolved Government needs to act. How ironic it is that we now have the Greens in Government at a time when rail fares are increasing and services are being slashed. No wonder Green MSPs do not want to comment on the mess in which they are complicit.
In my region, we have the oil and gas industry. That was once seen as the cornerstone of the independence argument, but the industry is being thrown under the bus by the SNP-Green coalition. How will that attitude help those communities in the north-east of Scotland, which are seeing their opportunities swept away by the hostility that this devolved Government is demonstrating?
Perhaps the minister will focus on that list of economic failures when he is summing up. Those failures are damaging our communities, but no doubt that will be glossed over as the Government congratulates itself. It needs to get its head out of the sand and see the damage that it is doing to the economy as a whole.
The principles of community wealth building have the potential to be transformational for many communities up and down the country. It is strange, however, that the Government’s motion makes no mention of the huge elephant in the room: the funding of local government.
The briefing note from the Improvement Service states that local government has a huge role to play as an anchor institution; as a strategic partner of other anchor institutions that might already be a part of local community planning structures; and as a partner of the Scottish Government, developing policies and enabling measures. Local authorities have a huge role to play in economic growth and community wealth building. They are closest to our communities and they understand local needs best of all. However, this year, local government had a real-terms cut of £251 million to its core budget.
Of course, economic development is not a statutory service for councils. Because statutory services are protected, it is vital functions such as economic development that must shoulder the bulk of the cuts. That seems to be the way of this centralising devolved Government: short-sightedness that will have a detrimental effect on all our communities and a negative impact on our long-term economic prosperity.
The Scottish Government talks about partnership with local government, but it is not a partnership; it is a dictatorship.