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Meeting of the Parliament 03 October 2012

03 Oct 2012 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

Scotland’s Future

Lamont, Johann Lab Glasgow Pollok Watch on SPTV

Unlike Mike Russell, I am not against universality. I just want to know how we are going to pay for it. We know that such concerns exist at the heart of the Government, but those who have them are too cynical to voice them.

I will quote another one of the SNP Government’s front bench, our Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing, Alex Neil, who said:

“It would be inappropriate to use scarce resources to provide free central heating systems for some of our retired bankers, for example, who receive substantial pensions.” —[Official Report, 14 May 2009; c 17481.]

That is a perfectly reasonable proposition, but it is at odds with the view of the Deputy First Minister, who claims that she does not believe in means testing, even though she was the cabinet secretary in charge at the time of Alex Neil’s statement.

If Nicola Sturgeon is serious about universality, I look forward to her reversing the means testing for the education maintenance allowance, which cuts off at £20,000; I look forward to her extending universality to dental treatment; I look forward to her ending hotel charges in care homes; I look forward to her withdrawing the bill that increases means testing for legal aid; and I look forward to finding out where she is going to find the money to pay for it all.

We have a Deputy First Minister who decries anyone who challenges her definition of universality and we have a First Minister who has never met a tax that he does not want to cut. We know that those things are not consistent—they are incompatible—and yet this dishonest Government continues the myth that in an independent Scotland we could have Scandinavian welfare while cutting tax to a level that would make Mitt Romney blush.

Alex Neil is right about one thing—that we have scarce resources, with £3.3 billion still to be removed from the Scottish budget. I agree with the SNP that the Tory Government is cutting too far and fast, but the reality is that those cuts will have to be addressed.

Last week, Nicola Sturgeon invented a Labour cuts commission, but what precisely did she imagine that John Swinney asked Crawford Beveridge and Campbell Christie to do? He asked, “What do we do in tough times?” and Beveridge said that we should ask not whether something is desirable but whether it is affordable and whether, in tough times, we expect those with the broadest backs to carry the heaviest burden.

Of course, Nicola Sturgeon is in complete denial, but the reality is that people out there are facing the consequences of SNP cuts every day. [Interruption.] SNP members might think that it is funny, but to care workers, mothers who are worried about the quality of their children’s education or young people who cannot access college, it is not funny or imagined—it is the real world. How will the SNP protect people and on whom will it put the burden?

Last year, the Christie commission report, which was commissioned by John Swinney, warned that

“Contentious issues such as the continuation of universal entitlements must be considered openly and transparently, rather than in the current polarised terms.”

I urge the SNP to listen to the man who responded to its request and set up that commission. It seems that, in Scottish politics, it is just not possible to consider those issues openly and honestly. The debate has been closed down because it suits some people to keep it polarised.

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Meeting of the Parliament 03 October 2012

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