Hansard

Given the cost of living crisis, I am happy to accept the proposal for a superannuation.

However, the key proposals are about efficiency of investments and return on investments. There are huge, endless opportunities to increase revenue and get public investments to raise more money for Scotland. There are innumerable opportunities to outline that. Instead of having multinational utilities, the Scottish Government and councils could be making big, bold moves to aim to be the main supplier of heating to all households and businesses in Scotland, with a mass roll-out of publicly owned and developed district heating networks. There is no state entrepreneurship. That is just one example that I give John Mason to take into consideration. In his constituency, in Dalmarnock, there are district heating schemes that are not being expanded and, currently, social housing is being built with gas boilers fitted into the properties. That is introducing and seeding a cost of living crisis in our midst, when we could be doing something different.

I take no pleasure in pointing out those facts, because I want nothing more than for Scotland’s economy to be prosperous, thriving and providing a solid foundation for the improvement of people’s lives. Of course I want that, but the fact is that it is not happening. Scotland’s economy is underperforming, and the Scottish Government needs to take its share of the blame. Yes, external factors have played a role. Brexit, Covid and global inflationary pressures cannot be ignored, but the problems that I have outlined existed well before any of those external factors came in, and have left our economy less resilient in the face of those shocks. The reality of what the poor economic forecasts mean in practice is stark. Last week, the cabinet secretary outlined the Scottish Government’s spending priorities. Health and social security budgets were protected, but everything else was raided. The Scottish Fiscal Commission says that, in 2023-24 and 2024-25, spending on all other areas is expected to fall in real terms. In 2025-26, only the net zero and energy and transport portfolios are expected to increase. There we have it in black and white: austerity, the very thing that the cabinet secretary spent the bulk of her speech criticising in withering terms. For the next three years, the budgets that are afforded to local government; education and skills; the economy and finance; justice and veterans; the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service; net zero, energy and transport; and external affairs and culture will be hammered, and the consequences could not be clearer.

Further cuts to local government will mean further job losses, drastically reduced services, cuts to education and skills, the further widening of the attainment gap and the sacrifice of the life chances of our children. Decimated transport budgets will result in even poorer services, which will push people away from public transport—and increase the costs and subsidy dependence—at the exact time when we should be encouraging them back.

Perhaps the worst consequence of all is the admission of scathing cuts to the number of public sector jobs in Scotland. That point is perhaps the most illustrative of the short-sightedness of this Government when it comes to the economy. Instead of investing, retaining, skilling up and increasing the wages of public sector employees, it sacks them, with the profound personal and financial consequences that that decision will have on families across Scotland. It is a symptom of a Government that is run by accountants, not economists.

It does not take an accountant or economist to see the perilous state that the Scottish economy is in. People can feel it in their pockets and in their pay packets every day. Unless something fundamentally changes and the Scottish Government finally takes its head out of the sand, we will continue on that managed decline and, before we know it, it will be too late to reverse the downward spiral that we are in.

As our amendment today states,

“the failure to grow Scottish wages will also mean that hard-working people are more exposed to the pressures of the cost of living crisis.”

That needs to be at the forefront of our minds. Squabbling about constitutional arrangements, firing figures across the chamber, blaming the Tories and cutting vital budgets will not help ordinary, hard-working people. Everyone needs to be laser focused on improving their lives in the coming years. All the evidence that I have seen so far suggests that the Government is incapable of providing that focus.

I move amendment S6M-04815.2, to leave out from “is deeply” to end and insert:

“notes the recent findings of the Scottish Fiscal Commission and is deeply concerned by many of the trends identified, including that productivity growth in Scotland has stalled since 2015 and earnings growth is lagging behind the UK’s; is further concerned, in particular, by the revised downward growth estimates and decline in real earnings, and that the Scottish Government has imposed higher tax rates on Scotland without increasing revenues, compared with the block grant adjustment, due to the ongoing issues relating to weaker productivity and inflexibilities within the Scottish labour market, with the result that net Scottish income tax receipts in 2022-23 are forecast to be £428 million less than if income tax had not been devolved; considers that this is a consequence of the Scottish Government’s failure to use the taxation, borrowing and investment powers of devolution to support and grow the Scottish economy; notes that this has directly resulted in less tax revenue available to invest in Scottish public services, and is further concerned by the real-terms cuts of more than £1 billion announced by the Scottish Government, which will affect local government, the police and higher education, among key services; calls on the Scottish Government to ensure that policies to deliver long-term growth, including collaborative projects with the UK Government such as city deals, are a priority within Scottish Government spending plans; further calls for a finance bill mechanism to be introduced to evaluate the effectiveness of public spending; calls for plans for a second independence referendum to be taken off the table, and believes that the failure to grow Scottish wages will also mean that hard working people are more exposed to the pressures of the cost of living crisis.”