Meeting of the Parliament 27 November 2013
The matter is at the heart of the debate. We have demonstrated that, through an expansion in childcare, a transformation in the opportunities for children and an increase in the participation rates of women coming into the workforce, revenues would flow into the Scottish treasury under independence, which would enable that transformational plan to be funded.
What we want the unionist parties to tell us is how that will happen under devolution without the dramatic cuts in things such as free personal care—concessionary travel and student fees would undoubtedly also be in the target line—that Johann Lamont’s cuts commission is considering.
So far, the assumption has been that, if we do not have independence, everything will continue much as it is, but I point out that we can see that that will not be the case. In the most recent United Kingdom general election campaign, Alistair Carmichael—who is now the Secretary of State for Scotland—said on STV:
“We do want to see Barnett scrapped.”
Last weekend on “Sunday Politics”, he went even further when he said:
“There will be no action taken on the Barnett Formula until the economy has stabilised again.”
Given that George Osborne tells us that the economy is stabilising, we must think that that will happen sometime soon.
I will quote what Ruth Davidson told The Sun, not about the Daleks, Dr Who and the BBC but about Barnett. She said that it was
“only supposed to be temporary ... I do think that there will be a review of Barnett after 2014. The ground has shifted since devolution.”
We know that Labour will not fight for the current funding levels for Scotland. Just two days ago, a report was published by the Westminster all-party parliamentary group on taxation, which recommended:
“In the case of a ‘No’ vote, the Barnett Formula must be replaced as a priority, with a needs-based formula ... the best alternative, using the seven indicators of relative need identified by the Holtham Commission”.
We now know exactly what the all-party group that is supported by all the Westminster parties has in mind, because we know exactly what the Holtham commission recommendations would mean for Scottish spending, as it published that in an article in the Financial Times in July 2010. It would mean a cut in Scottish spending of up to £4,000 million a year.
Of course, we could say that that is just one proposal. The Scottish Trades Union Congress, for example, estimates that the cut might be £2,000 million a year. The UK Government will not give any commitments or indications about what will happen to the Barnett formula if we remain in the UK, but that stance of keeping it quiet until after the referendum is unsustainable. The Government has set out our case for an independent Scotland. What we want to hear from the unionist parties—the better together campaign—is how big the better together raid will be on the Scottish budget if Scotland votes no. That is reality.
There are certain things that we agree on. We agree and we know that, over the past 30 years, Scotland has contributed far more, in relative terms, to the UK budget than we have received back. We know that, in the past five years, that has amounted to £12,000 million, which is more than £2,000 a head for every man, woman and child in the country. We know that Scotland contributes 9.9 per cent of the UK’s taxation and gets back 9.3 per cent of the spending, but the reality is that that 9.3 per cent will be targeted by the better together campaign. It will cut Scotland’s budget without reflecting on or understanding the massive contribution that Scotland has made and will continue to make to UK finances.
When we have the debate about the vision of Scottish society that is laid out in the white paper, it will no longer be contrasted against a silence from the better together campaign. It will be contrasted against a future in which it sees low growth in the population and in the economy, and in which Scotland will be subjected to the severest cuts in political history, over and above the retrenchment of the past few years.
Willie Rennie rose—
Ruth Davidson rose—