Meeting of the Parliament 30 October 2024
I would normally, but the member has to appreciate that this is a very short debate.
If the SNP had managed to keep Scotland’s economy in line with the economies of other parts of the UK, it would now be £8.5 billion larger.
I find it fascinating, however, that we now have a failed Tory Party calling out a failing SNP Government on finances, and that the Tories have not learned about the impact of prioritising unfunded tax cuts over efficiency and fairness in fiscal policy. We in the Labour Party will be getting on with fixing the horrendous mess that has been left behind.
Today, the Office for Budget Responsibility set out in fine detail the financial hole that the Tories drove us into with their incompetence and the mess that the UK Labour Government has inherited—a mess that has made some difficult choices necessary.
As the Prime Minister made clear on Monday, every single choice has been made to fix the foundations of our economy with working people in mind—people in Scotland and the rest of the UK, who have been working harder and harder but are still just standing still. Some of the choices are hard, but they will mean an employment bill that will finally make work pay, contribute to growth and raise living standards for working people. It will mean a direct response to the cost of living crisis that we were elected to tackle.
The budget will stabilise, invest in and grow the UK economy, with £63 billion-worth of investment secured from business two weeks ago creating tens of thousands of good-quality jobs in every corner of our country. It will also deliver the largest budget settlement for Scotland in the history of devolution with an extra £3.4 billion of funding. Labour is clearly delivering for Scotland.
Today’s historic budget has shown that only Labour can get on with getting our economy back on track, boosting economic growth, ending austerity and making work pay.
I move amendment S6M-15061.1, to leave out from “the Scottish Ministers” to end and insert:
“while taxpayers in Scotland are paying more than their counterparts in the rest of the UK, almost one in six people in Scotland are on NHS waiting lists, the latest PISA statistics show that Scotland’s education system is falling further behind other countries, and local government services are under severe financial pressure; believes that people are not seeing the necessary improvements to their public services; regrets that the incompetence of the Scottish National Party administration has led to chaos in the public finances, with emergency in-year budgets for three consecutive years, and calls on the Scottish Government to end 17 years of waste and incompetence in the management of Scotland’s finances.”
17:16Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.