Meeting of the Parliament 24 September 2024
Well, what the Deputy First Minister is tempting me to do is congratulate the Scottish Government on not breaking the law, because the law says that it has to balance its budget. If the height of the Deputy First Minister’s ambition is that we should congratulate the Government on not breaking the law, it will have to do better than that.
As we know, the deficit the last time Labour left office was far greater than the current deficit. Labour talks about the fabled £22 billion black hole, yet we know from all the independent analysis that £9.4 billion of that total has come not from the previous Conservative Government but from the above-inflation pay deals that have been agreed by Labour since it came to power.
It is no wonder that Labour is confused about its sums. As the cabinet secretary reminded us, the new Secretary of State for Scotland is in total confusion about the amount of money that is available to him. With regard to the fabled £150 million, which his Scotland Office was supposedly going to get, he accused journalists of making up that figure, but it turned out that he misspoke and that that was indeed his figure.
That is not surprising—after all, this is the man whose first major intervention in his new office was to diss Larry the cat, the nation’s favourite feline. How did Ian Murray describe the nation’s favourite pussycat? I could not use that language in a speech in Parliament. That is the mark of the man. Alister Jack would never have said such things about Larry the cat, but Ian Murray did.
What do we see now from Labour? We see a shameful attack on pensioners, with the removal of the winter fuel allowance. Nearly 900,000 pensioners in Scotland will be affected by that—it is no wonder that Labour’s ratings are plummeting. Of course, it is correct to say that the Scottish National Party Government could do something about that if it wanted to.
Let us look at the choices in the Labour budget. The Labour Party has said that it will not increase VAT, income tax or national insurance. What taxes are we going to see increased? Are we going to see fuel duty increased, which would hit people who have to rely on their cars to travel around? Are we going to see capital gains tax increased? When Jeremy Hunt reduced the top rate of capital gains tax from 26 per cent to 24 per cent in the spring budget, the estimates at that point were that such a move would actually increase revenue, because it would stimulate activity. An increase in capital gains tax will hit entrepreneurs and those who want to invest in businesses and sell them on. Is that going to help to stimulate economic growth?
Will it be inheritance tax that is increased, which would hit those who have built up savings over their lives and want to pass them on to their families? Will the energy profits levy be extended still further? According to energy experts, the levy risks more than 2,000 jobs—it is a reckless attack on the oil and gas sector, which is so important to the economy of Scotland and of the north-east in particular.