Hansard

I absolutely agree with that. Perhaps it would be quite uncomfortable for them to hear this message.

Spending on public services is an investment, not a debt or a drain, and public servants deliver vital services in our communities and to the most vulnerable people. The current campaign of vilification of public services is all about cutting and privatising because of ideology, not because of need. It is no surprise that the Tories are pursuing that agenda, but it is a bit of a shock to many that the Liberal Democrats are aiding and abetting them. Grahame Smith has sent a message to them, too. He said:

“you have not only ripped up your manifesto you have ripped up your credibility. If you want to restore it—stop cowering behind the Tories and stand up and fight these cuts.”

He turned his sights on the Scottish Parliament and said that it must

“ensure that its priorities are our priorities—jobs, services, fair taxation and a living wage.”

Of course, we know that the Scottish Parliament’s Scottish variable rate tax powers cannot be used at present. The Finance Committee has just reported on that matter. It concluded:

“the SVR belongs to the Scottish Parliament and not to the Scottish Government”,

and urged the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth to make an immediate statement to Parliament on how the power could be reinstated. I would be grateful for a comment on that from the minister.

SVR might not be the preferred choice of many—like others, I would certainly prefer to make the rich pay more—but at least it is income based and supported by a mandate of the people in a yes, yes referendum. In 1997, Donald Dewar said of SVR:

“It is important to recognise that the power may be used to deal with some special project or difficulty.”—[Official Report, House of Commons, 31 July 1997; Vol 299, c 465.]

The time is coming when members will have to recognise that we are in a period of great difficulty. When the Tory-led slash-and-burn policies begin to impact on our communities, it might be preferable to use tax rather than watch the devastation. I have some sympathy with the Scottish National Party Government telling us that it is bound by the grant imposed by the Tories, but it is simply not true that there are no other choices. Apart from SVR, such choices could include a properly considered large business supplement, business rates on land banks and empty properties, land value tax and a review of current big project spending priorities. There are a number of choices that could better protect us from Tory cuts. The Parliament was established to do just that. It was established to act as a buffer against an attack on the working class by the obscenely wealthy public schoolboys who are now in charge at Westminster.

The Trades Union Congress is sending the Tories a message with a massive rally in London on 26 March to demand an end to cuts and to tell them that there are better ways to save money as proposed by the PCS: employ more tax collectors, not fewer, to gather in evaded, avoided and uncollected tax; dump the renewal of Trident; and end the unwinnable war in Afghanistan, which is costing £2.6 billion a year.

Of course, the Tories are spinning the line that we are all in this together. Guess what? We are not. The top 1 per cent of the population of Britain own nearly a quarter of the wealth and the bottom half own just 9 per cent. The rich just keep on getting richer while the poor get poorer. We are not all in it together and we are not all feeling the squeeze. Very little is being squeezed from the rich.

We do not get out of recession by causing unemployment and making the needy many pay for the mistakes of the greedy few. The GMB tells us that, in Lanarkshire, at least five unemployed workers are chasing every vacancy, and Unison points out that some 60,000 public sector and 65,000 private sector jobs could go in Scotland because of the cuts.

The answer to the economic crisis is to create jobs, not to cut them. We need an economic strategy that is based on public investment, job creation and tax justice. After the economic disaster that we have witnessed, we should be watching the death throes of capitalism. We should be seeing that unfair system, which benefits the minority who have power, wealth and privilege, replaced with socialism providing equality, justice and fairness for the majority.

The left is often—wrongly—accused of seeing the problem but not providing solutions. The people’s charter, which is part of the better way campaign, offers sensible alternatives. I invite everyone who is here to come along, meet leading trade unionists and the actor David Hayman, and sign up to the charter at 5.15 tonight in committee room 4.

In conclusion, the better way campaign really is a them-and-us situation. If we are not with it, we are against it, and silence is simply collaboration. In the words of the STUC general secretary:

“in the run up to the Scottish elections ... join us in targeting the constituencies of those candidates who support the policies of the UK government either actively or by their silence”

or, as Patrick Harvie mentioned, by not being here today.

The cuts amount to a cruel attack on working people and the poorest, most vulnerable members of our society. They disproportionately affect women. I fully support the STUC campaign, and I will use my public position to speak out at every opportunity against the vicious, ideological cuts, in favour of the sensible alternatives proposed by our trade unions and the people’s charter committee. I hope that many more MSPs, across the parties, will join me and support the principle that there is a better way. [Applause.]