Meeting of the Parliament 16 March 2016
I do indeed think that we have such a UK Government at the moment, and I will come to what I think about that immediately.
Out of the 1980s and 1990s came the idea that we could have a devolved democratic institution that would allow us to stand strong and make our own decisions about the kind of Scotland that we want. That saw this Parliament conceived, campaigned for and then created.
We now have a UK Government that is hellbent on wrong-headed austerity—on cutting futures rather than investing. The Scottish Parliament was made for a time such as this. The new powers that will flow from the legislative consent motion and the legislation that follows will ensure that we can choose a different way.
Let us look at yesterday’s statistics on inequality and poor health in teenagers. They need us to choose a different way. Let us think of our children in care, who still have more chance of finding their way to prison than to university, or our fellow citizens living with disability, whose support is being cut and cut again. It is the choice to do better for them that is coming our way.
A legislative consent motion on a wet Wednesday morning—we could not get more mundane than that. However, any of us who are not excited by the opportunity that this moment presents should ask whether they are in the right place. I say to Mr Stewart in particular that anyone who sees the powers over tax and welfare and only asks themselves, “Why don’t I have more?” rather than “What am I going to do with this incredible opportunity?” should ask whether they are in the right place.
The truth is this: after this parliamentary session, we will not leave the Parliament as we found it. However bumpy the ride, we have transformed the Parliament—Mr Swinney elaborated on how much that has dominated our time and attention in the past five years. However, if that was the achievement of the session that is ending, surely now the obligation is on us to use the Parliament to transform our nation and the lives of its people. The Parliament is indisputably big enough now to do that. The question is: are we big enough to make it happen?
There is no excuse for timidity now. There is no excuse to accept cuts that we say are unacceptable, no excuse to fail in making the investments that we say are critical and no reason to say that there is another way but then fail to take it. The hard negotiations to empower the Parliament are done. Now we must make the hard choices to use its powers to stop the cuts, to protect our people and to make their future what we know that it can be.
09:22