Chamber
Plenary, 29 Mar 2007
29 Mar 2007 · S2 · Plenary
Item of business
The Future of Scotland
It might be unwise for me to comment on the entire occasion, but I welcome the fact that there was no trouble, for which I congratulate the organisers of the march.
It is no surprise that the SNP wants to pretend that it is about something other than separation but, when it does, its policies fall apart at the slightest scrutiny. On a Scottish currency—with three policies in a week—on student finance and on income tax, it has ducked and dived, but it cannot hide. It certainly cannot hide from its plans to make Scotland the highest-taxed part of the UK. Its plans for an extra income tax ran at 6p in the pound, so it capped them at 3p in the pound. That left a black hole in spending, so it told local authorities that they will lose their right to set a rate, which would be a fettering of local democracy that even Margaret Thatcher never dared to contemplate. There is nothing local left in the SNP's income tax plans—it simply proposes 3p in the pound extra income tax for every Scot, which would make Scotland the highest-taxed part of the United Kingdom.
When we ask questions, the SNP accuses us of scaremongering, but the people of Scotland are entitled to ask about borders, citizenship, the currency, European Union membership, pension funds and broadcasting, because all those would need to be resolved in the nationalists' plans for separation.
Scotland faces a choice. There are two possible periods of 100 days starting on 4 May. The first 100 days, as the nationalists confirmed again last week, would see uncertainty, chaos, tax and turmoil. The alternative 100 days will see work begin again to give Scotland the best education system in the world; a legislative programme to tackle climate change, improve sentencing in our courts, and give every Scot an entitlement to culture; and a future of constructive partnership in the United Kingdom.
The future of Scotland is a matter that is close to my heart because I am a patriot. However, I deny that, to be a patriot, one has to be a separatist. When I sit at Hampden park, as I did last Saturday, or when I go abroad and see the saltire flying, my heart is moved and my emotions are stirred because of the country that I love. It is my profound concern for Scotland's future that causes me to urge the people of Scotland against choosing separation on 3 May.
In the 21st century, we can continue to atomise our world into more and more states so that every one of the hundreds of peoples in the world has its own state, or we can say that it is both legitimate and desirable for peoples to co-exist and work together. Scotland's partnership with the UK does not mean that we are left behind by history—far from it. It makes us a model for the future of the world. Today, we lead the UK, not just with the smoking ban, which we celebrated this week, but in employment, in our economic progress and in our education system.
I might not agree with every member who is sitting in the Parliament today, but I respect them for the fact that they are here. I respect their courage in staying here and sticking at the job rather than walking out on Scotland when the going got tough. I will not stand here—or campaign throughout Scotland for the next five weeks—and let someone who did not stay here destroy the work of those of us who had the guts to stay here and build a better Scotland. I am proud of what the Parliament has achieved and I will not allow our work to be undone by someone who chose to turn their back on it. The Parliament has saved lives by introducing a smoking ban, built hundreds more schools and created 200,000 jobs. In the next five weeks, we will be fighting not for our jobs but for those jobs, for the people we represent, for the people of Scotland.
Today, we stop the formal process of governing Scotland and start to campaign for the right to govern Scotland again. For four years, I and all of us in the Parliament have been doing the difficult work of making Scotland a better place. On the opening day of the new building at Holyrood, we said that it had to be more than a building. It had to be a place to build Scotland. I believe that we have been doing that—building education, building our national health service, building our economy, building our justice system to tackle crime, building a more tolerant and inclusive society, and building a bigger population for the 21st century.
As we take our case to the people of Scotland in the next five weeks, I will fight with all that I have to protect what we have achieved and to win the chance to achieve yet more for Scotland. I believe in a Scotland that is cleaner, greener, fairer and more prosperous for more families, where partnership, tolerance, respect, and working together matter more than grievance, bitterness and dispute. I believe in a Scotland where the Parliament makes its contribution to economic growth but also to improving the public services on which our people rely. I believe that changing people's lives is about doing, not talking; about hard work, not easy words; and about being here, not quitting.
The fight for Scotland in the next five weeks is a fight that I will relish. Scotland is a country that is more successful than it has been for decades and a country that can be built up even further. That is what our challenge should be in the third session beginning in May.
It is no surprise that the SNP wants to pretend that it is about something other than separation but, when it does, its policies fall apart at the slightest scrutiny. On a Scottish currency—with three policies in a week—on student finance and on income tax, it has ducked and dived, but it cannot hide. It certainly cannot hide from its plans to make Scotland the highest-taxed part of the UK. Its plans for an extra income tax ran at 6p in the pound, so it capped them at 3p in the pound. That left a black hole in spending, so it told local authorities that they will lose their right to set a rate, which would be a fettering of local democracy that even Margaret Thatcher never dared to contemplate. There is nothing local left in the SNP's income tax plans—it simply proposes 3p in the pound extra income tax for every Scot, which would make Scotland the highest-taxed part of the United Kingdom.
When we ask questions, the SNP accuses us of scaremongering, but the people of Scotland are entitled to ask about borders, citizenship, the currency, European Union membership, pension funds and broadcasting, because all those would need to be resolved in the nationalists' plans for separation.
Scotland faces a choice. There are two possible periods of 100 days starting on 4 May. The first 100 days, as the nationalists confirmed again last week, would see uncertainty, chaos, tax and turmoil. The alternative 100 days will see work begin again to give Scotland the best education system in the world; a legislative programme to tackle climate change, improve sentencing in our courts, and give every Scot an entitlement to culture; and a future of constructive partnership in the United Kingdom.
The future of Scotland is a matter that is close to my heart because I am a patriot. However, I deny that, to be a patriot, one has to be a separatist. When I sit at Hampden park, as I did last Saturday, or when I go abroad and see the saltire flying, my heart is moved and my emotions are stirred because of the country that I love. It is my profound concern for Scotland's future that causes me to urge the people of Scotland against choosing separation on 3 May.
In the 21st century, we can continue to atomise our world into more and more states so that every one of the hundreds of peoples in the world has its own state, or we can say that it is both legitimate and desirable for peoples to co-exist and work together. Scotland's partnership with the UK does not mean that we are left behind by history—far from it. It makes us a model for the future of the world. Today, we lead the UK, not just with the smoking ban, which we celebrated this week, but in employment, in our economic progress and in our education system.
I might not agree with every member who is sitting in the Parliament today, but I respect them for the fact that they are here. I respect their courage in staying here and sticking at the job rather than walking out on Scotland when the going got tough. I will not stand here—or campaign throughout Scotland for the next five weeks—and let someone who did not stay here destroy the work of those of us who had the guts to stay here and build a better Scotland. I am proud of what the Parliament has achieved and I will not allow our work to be undone by someone who chose to turn their back on it. The Parliament has saved lives by introducing a smoking ban, built hundreds more schools and created 200,000 jobs. In the next five weeks, we will be fighting not for our jobs but for those jobs, for the people we represent, for the people of Scotland.
Today, we stop the formal process of governing Scotland and start to campaign for the right to govern Scotland again. For four years, I and all of us in the Parliament have been doing the difficult work of making Scotland a better place. On the opening day of the new building at Holyrood, we said that it had to be more than a building. It had to be a place to build Scotland. I believe that we have been doing that—building education, building our national health service, building our economy, building our justice system to tackle crime, building a more tolerant and inclusive society, and building a bigger population for the 21st century.
As we take our case to the people of Scotland in the next five weeks, I will fight with all that I have to protect what we have achieved and to win the chance to achieve yet more for Scotland. I believe in a Scotland that is cleaner, greener, fairer and more prosperous for more families, where partnership, tolerance, respect, and working together matter more than grievance, bitterness and dispute. I believe in a Scotland where the Parliament makes its contribution to economic growth but also to improving the public services on which our people rely. I believe that changing people's lives is about doing, not talking; about hard work, not easy words; and about being here, not quitting.
The fight for Scotland in the next five weeks is a fight that I will relish. Scotland is a country that is more successful than it has been for decades and a country that can be built up even further. That is what our challenge should be in the third session beginning in May.
In the same item of business
The Presiding Officer (Mr George Reid):
NPA
Good morning. The first item of business is a debate on the future of Scotland.
The First Minister (Mr Jack McConnell):
Lab
There is a particular resonance to debating the future of a nation when one is that nation's First Minister. Like every Scot, I grew up proud of my country—o...
Alex Neil (Central Scotland) (SNP):
SNP
On a point of order, Presiding Order. Is Mr McConnell speaking as the First Minister or as the leader of the Labour Party? He has been billed to speak as the...
The First Minister:
Lab
The Scottish National Party calls for debates, but it does not like them when they happen.We will make leaving school at the ages of 16 and 17 conditional on...
Mr John Swinney (North Tayside) (SNP):
SNP
The First Minister mentioned the child poverty statistics and his ambition to relieve child poverty by 2020. Has the journey towards achieving that ambition ...
The First Minister:
Lab
The child poverty figures that were published this week should encourage us to redouble our efforts. Tackling child poverty should be a priority for the Scot...
Phil Gallie (South of Scotland) (Con):
Con
On independence, will the First Minister join me in congratulating the organisers of last Saturday's march for the union in Edinburgh? Some 12,000 people mar...
The First Minister:
Lab
It might be unwise for me to comment on the entire occasion, but I welcome the fact that there was no trouble, for which I congratulate the organisers of the...
Nicola Sturgeon (Glasgow) (SNP):
SNP
Jack McConnell makes cheap jibes about Alex Salmond, but when Alex Salmond is First Minister, no one will forget his name. We relish the debate about Scotlan...
Mr Brian Monteith (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Ind):
Ind
If the SNP is so committed to reducing business rates, why, on the two occasions on which I sought an annulment of the increase in business rates, did the SN...
Nicola Sturgeon:
SNP
The SNP's commitment not only to cutting business rates but to abolishing them for 120,000 small businesses is well known and will make a huge difference. Th...
Karen Gillon (Clydesdale) (Lab):
Lab
If the SNP wins the election, we will have a referendum in 2010. What happens if the people of Scotland say no?
Nicola Sturgeon:
SNP
The difference between Karen Gillon and me is that I want to give the Scottish people the right to choose and she wants to deny them that right. If she wants...
Miss Annabel Goldie (West of Scotland) (Con):
Con
The future of Scotland is indeed now in the hands of the Scottish people. There are two stark choices: devolution or isolation. Those are the only two games ...
Jeremy Purvis (Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale) (LD):
LD
Miss Goldie has repeatedly said that, under the Conservatives, people would serve the entire length of their sentence. Why is it that, under Conservative par...
Miss Goldie:
Con
It is predictable that Mr Purvis, a representative of the desperately failed pact that has presided for eight years over the disintegration of our criminal j...
Mike Rumbles (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD):
LD
Will the member take an intervention on that point?
Miss Goldie:
Con
I want to make progress.The Executive has also failed in its stewardship of the economy and our transport infrastructure. I cannot help noticing that those t...
Mike Rumbles rose—
LD
Miss Goldie:
Con
My party has a comprehensive manifesto of fully costed proposals to revitalise the economy, including an imaginative and positive scheme for business rates r...
Nicola Sturgeon:
SNP
No, I said that we should not just judge a party by the sum of its policies.
Miss Goldie:
Con
Ah well—a revised view from the SNP benches. Either way, the SNP's sums still do not add up, and there is nothing it can do to hide that. People in Scotland ...
The Deputy First Minister and Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (Nicol Stephen):
LD
It has been an interesting debate thus far. As I look around the chamber, I wonder who the floating voters are whom we are trying to influence. It is more a ...
Phil Gallie:
Con
Following Nicol Stephen's comments about the collapse of the eastern bloc, will he join me in congratulating Margaret Thatcher and her Governments on playing...
Nicol Stephen:
LD
I congratulate those nations and peoples on the success and power of their democracies for the future of those countries.Scotland's past has not been as desp...
Malcolm Chisholm (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab):
Lab
I congratulate Nicol Stephen on not setting a rate of local income tax of 3p in the pound, which would result in devastating cuts in local government service...
Nicol Stephen:
LD
I am happy to confirm that the Liberal Democrats support the abolition of the unfair council tax and that we support a genuine local income tax, which is not...
Fergus Ewing (Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber) (SNP):
SNP
In his party capacity, the Deputy First Minister has said that the Lib Dems are committed to scrapping red tape. Can he explain why representatives of his pa...
Nicol Stephen:
LD
The more important question is why the Scottish National Party voted to introduce a third-party right of appeal. Why did the SNP want to place that burden on...
Mr Mark Ruskell (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Green):
Green
Will the minister give way on that point?