Meeting of the Parliament 18 June 2014
Not at the moment.
More than that, we have set out how policies to boost productivity, grow our population and increase participation in the labour market could boost our tax receipts by an additional £5 billion a year.
We have also proudly produced proposals to reindustrialise Scotland, something that the Labour Party might once have found it within itself to agree with and back, and we have set out how we can use policy levers to strengthen manufacturing, promote innovation and encourage trade and investment. All of those aims should be the aims and ambitions of every party in the chamber.
That is what is so dispiriting about the Labour motion. There is no alternative plan to increase employment, to grow the economy or to grow our working age population. Labour’s only solution to the challenges that we face is to leave things to Westminster and hope for the best. That is not good enough. The most high-risk approach imaginable to Scotland’s public finances is to leave the decisions on our funding to the Treasury, knowing that the chancellor and his opposite number are planning further cuts, and to leave the Barnett formula in the hands of the Treasury, knowing that senior voices in all parties want to cut Scotland’s budget by up to £4 billion.
We are offering the alternative to that. The way to secure the resources of Scotland and our public finances is through independence; to retain in Scotland the tax raised in Scotland; and to retain the benefits of our economic policies to ensure that our investment in infrastructure or childcare results in increased tax receipts and further investment, instead of disappearing into the Treasury.
The simple fact is that this is a choice between two futures: on the one hand, hope, ambition and optimism, and on the other, a dreary, dismal and depressing outlook. Independence—in other words, not relying or being dependent on Westminster—is the best way to secure the future of our economy, our public services and the people of this country. That is why I am proud to move the amendment in my name.
I move amendment S4M-10353.3, to leave out from “recognises” to end and insert:
“notes that its record of delivery under devolution demonstrates that decisions about Scotland are best taken by the people who live and work in Scotland; welcomes the Scottish Government’s recently published proposals to use the powers of an independent country to reindustrialise Scotland, to improve Scotland’s economic growth and strengthen public finances; further welcomes the publication of the proposals of the Expert Working Group on Welfare to create a fair, simple and personal welfare system in an independent Scotland; notes that the joint statement from the Scottish Labour, Scottish Conservative and Scottish Liberal Democrat parties contains no commitment to specific further powers and that any further devolution would require the agreement of the UK Government and the UK Parliament, whatever the views of the people of Scotland, in contrast to the proposed interim constitution, which would ensure that sovereignty is held by the people of Scotland, and believes that only independence guarantees Scotland the powers to create a democratic, prosperous and fairer country.”
15:04Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.