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Meeting of the Parliament 26 January 2011

26 Jan 2011 · S3 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

Budget (Scotland) (No 5) Bill: Stage 1

Brownlee, Derek Con South of Scotland Watch on SPTV

There are things in this budget with which we agree, such as the pay freeze on salaries of over £21,000, to protect jobs; the protection of the national health service budget; the funding for additional police; the maintenance of the cuts in business rates for small and medium-sized businesses; and the council tax freeze. They are all Conservative policies, but I am sure that members will agree that there is always room for more Conservative policies.

Like other parties, we have been in dialogue for some weeks now with the Scottish Government over the budget, and we have outlined our main concerns around where the Government needs to act to improve the budget and provide a greater focus on job creation in the private sector to support and rebalance the Scottish economy, and on reform of our public services, to enable them to be protected as budgets fall. We have not reached agreement with the Government, nor are we yet convinced that sufficient attention has been directed to either area. We will continue to press the case for greater emphasis on reforming public services and private sector job creation, and we will review the Government's response on that before we take a final decision on how to vote at stage 3.

With regard to tax, alone among the Opposition parties, we have supported the council tax freeze and, just as we made it clear that we would not support a budget that increased council tax this year, so we would not support one that seeks to do so next year. If we are not in government after the election, whoever is will have to look elsewhere for support if they want to hit Scottish families with higher council tax.

The tax on which more attention has been focused is, of course, the one on retail. It is a shame that, when the debate on the budget should have been about how to help create jobs, it has instead been about how to stop the SNP from destroying them in the retail sector.

Last week, the Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism, no less, defended the tax increase, saying that it is

“an opportunity for the supermarkets to align with the people of Scotland”

—whatever that means. He claimed that that “redefinition of profit”—by which I think that he meant the extra tax—would allow retailers to

“move forward and to do even better in the future.”—[Official Report, 20 January 2011; c 32440.]

We are used to hearing Matherisms in Holyrood. I had expected that they would depart with the minister when he retires at the election, but Mr Swinney has clearly inherited the mind maps, as was obvious last week when he refused to tell us what business rates income is forecast to be in the current financial year. He said that

“information of this type can sometimes be misinterpreted and misconstrued by the forces of darkness”.—[Official Report, 20 January 2011; c 32438.]

I do not know who “the forces of darkness” might be, but I think Mr Swinney meant, “I am currently sitting on £89 million more than I expected this year, but if I mention that I will undermine the case for the extra tax on shops.”

I am grateful to the financial scrutiny unit of the Parliament for confirming what the cabinet secretary would not: that the Government is likely to get three times as much as it wanted to raise from the retail levy as a windfall in this current financial year from other businesses, through business rates.

Devolved fiscal powers should be used to make Scotland more competitive, not less competitive. I agree with Andy Kerr that we need to focus on how to help to create jobs in the private sector.

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Meeting of the Parliament 26 January 2011

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