Chamber
Meeting of the Parliament 07 May 2014
07 May 2014 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament
Item of business
Wealth and Income Inequality
It will have come as no surprise to the Green Party that we are not going to support its motion and that our amendment is of a completely different flavour. We do not agree with the thrust of what Patrick Harvie has said or with what he is attempting to do.
Nevertheless, I will say this for the Green Party: it is very clear about what it wants to achieve, and it is equally clear about how it would achieve it. It would introduce a completely different tax system and there would be a large increase in most taxes to pay for its proposals. In that sense, the Green Party’s position stacks up; we simply disagree with it for political reasons.
I take issue with Patrick Harvie’s categorisation of the welfare system in the UK as being designed to bully and demean. Although he did not use the same words, he repeated in spirit what the Scottish Government has said, which is that the welfare system is being dismantled by the coalition Government. Patrick Harvie did not specifically say that, but I believe that he alluded to it.
In the same item of business
The Deputy Presiding Officer (John Scott)
Con
The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-09926, in the name of Patrick Harvie. 16:16
Patrick Harvie (Glasgow) (Green)
Green
Green politics begins with a recognition that the ecological and social crises that we face both stem from the same broken economic system, so the Green Part...
Gavin Brown (Lothian) (Con)
Con
Does the member not acknowledge that the spend on welfare is almost £200 billion out of a budget of about £670 billion, and that it accounts for far more exp...
Patrick Harvie
Green
I think that it is far more important than more or less anything else we spend money on to ensure that human dignity is protected and that all people are abl...
The Minister for Housing and Welfare (Margaret Burgess)
SNP
There is not a lot in what Patrick Harvie has said that I would disagree with. All of us in the Parliament are concerned about the growing gap between the ri...
Gavin Brown
Con
Income tax is clearly important in all of this. What changes would the minister’s Government make to income tax were we to become independent?
Margaret Burgess
SNP
There has been lots of evidence about that. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that one way to define a tax system is to base it on principle. The bes...
Drew Smith (Glasgow) (Lab)
Lab
Will the minister give way?
John Finnie (Highlands and Islands) (Ind)
Ind
Will the minister take an intervention?
Margaret Burgess
SNP
I give way to John Finnie.
John Finnie
Ind
We all have a lot in common on this subject. To what extent does the minister believe that cutting corporation tax and giving breaks to firms such as Amazon ...
Margaret Burgess
SNP
That will help because it will make us competitive and get more than 27,000 additional jobs into Scotland, and because we support the living wage and have a ...
Drew Smith
Lab
Will the minister give way?
Margaret Burgess
SNP
I am sorry; I have taken two interventions already. We have introduced the living wage across the public services that we are directly responsible for. We a...
Jenny Marra (North East Scotland) (Lab)
Lab
Not from a Labour Government.
Margaret Burgess
SNP
We do not have a Labour Government and, given how Labour is behaving, we are unlikely to get one. In addition, the Deputy First Minister has announced propo...
Drew Smith
Lab
Will the minister give way?
The Deputy Presiding Officer
Con
The minister is in her last 20 seconds.
Margaret Burgess
SNP
It is clear—Patrick Harvie is right—that the welfare system is broken and cannot work for Scotland. I hear that I am in my last 20 minutes—Interruption. I m...
Jackie Baillie (Dumbarton) (Lab)
Lab
I welcome the opportunity to debate wealth and income inequality and I thank Patrick Harvie for bringing the subject to the chamber. I welcome very much the ...
John Mason (Glasgow Shettleston) (SNP)
SNP
Will the member give way?
Jackie Baillie
Lab
No. We have heard enough from the SNP. There is no guarantee that changing the constitution would deliver the progressive change that would ensure a fairer ...
Margaret Burgess
SNP
Jackie Baillie is well aware that we are doing everything that we legally can and that we, as a Government, support the living wage.
Jackie Baillie
Lab
That did not sound like a “yes” to me. The SNP is again setting its face against that policy. The minister’s amendment removes the final sentence of the Gre...
Gavin Brown (Lothian) (Con)
Con
It will have come as no surprise to the Green Party that we are not going to support its motion and that our amendment is of a completely different flavour. ...
Patrick Harvie
Green
I am saying it now.
Gavin Brown
Con
Patrick Harvie must, as must everyone in the chamber, accept the basic facts about what is spent on the welfare system in the UK. I put the statistics to him...
Annabelle Ewing (Mid Scotland and Fife) (SNP)
SNP
Can Gavin Brown clarify what is spent on pensions?
Gavin Brown
Con
As Annabelle Ewing probably knows, something in the region of about 46 per cent of the £200 billion figure that I gave is related to pensions, which leaves m...
Patrick Harvie
Green
I am grateful to Mr Brown. I point out to him that the figure of £100 million that he has arrived at is not exactly eye-watering. It is what we would spend o...