Meeting of the Parliament 27 January 2016
I congratulate the Liberal Democrats on bringing forward this extremely important debate on a subject that, I think, has become a bit of an Achilles’ heel for the Scottish Government. Its amendment and its contributions so far have been pathetic and have told a feeble and lame tale of a Government whose record in this area is genuinely poor. That is not just political speak; objectively speaking, its record has been poor.
It is absolutely clear to anyone who can count that we will miss this target; it is absolutely clear that we will miss it by a considerable distance; and it is absolutely clear that this Government has no plan for rectifying that failure. It is simply business as usual, with no hint of regret from the Scottish Government. It wants us to “recognise” its “commitment”; it wants to blame the UK Government and the energy companies; and it makes it clear in its amendment—this is my favourite bit—that
“if fuel prices had only risen in line with inflation”
in every single year
“between 2002 and 2014”
the target would still have been missed, just by not as much as we are going to miss it.
The Government also has the audacity to refer, at the end of its amendment, to
“a long-term commitment to tackling fuel poverty head on.”
If this is the Scottish Government tackling the matter head on for the long term, I would genuinely hate to see what it is not tackling head on. We will probably hear Nicola Sturgeon at First Minister’s question time either tomorrow or next week say that the Government is not going to fail to meet the target; it is simply going to reprofile it and, by doing so, meet it quite carefully.
It is perfectly fair to say, as Mr MacKenzie has said, that the Scottish Government does not have direct control over certain areas of the target; for example, it does not control energy prices or wages. However, when this Government came to power in 2007, it accepted the target in its entirety. It did not make any excuses; it did not say, for example, “We’ll accept the target as long as energy prices do not rise and as long as wages rise in line with inflation.” It accepted the target, and it has accepted it in every year since coming into Government. It has taken responsibility for it, and it is therefore ultimately accountable for failing to meet it. With only a few months to go, it cannot blame its failure to meet the target on the increase in prices, when it has been apparent for some time now that it was not going to meet it.