Meeting of the Parliament 04 June 2019
The critical issue is the distribution of economic benefit from economic growth, which is one of the fault lines in our society.
We say to the Scottish Government that the last thing that we need is yet another referendum on the creation of a separate Scottish state. Let me say to the ministers and their party that the people of Scotland do not want yet another referendum on the creation of a separate Scottish state. The figures that the Scottish Government produces tell us that Scottish exports to the European Union were worth £14.9 billion in 2017, whereas our exports to the rest of the UK were worth £48.9 billion in 2017. In other words, our exports to the rest of the UK are worth three times more than our exports to the whole of the European Union put together, which is why we want to remain in the European Union as well as in the United Kingdom union. There are too many national boundaries, not too few; we should be breaking down barriers, not building them up.
The long-term structural weaknesses of the Scottish economy—slow growth and poor rates of investment, a narrow export base, too narrow a concentration of research and development spending, an overreliance on foreign direct investment, endemic low pay and low productivity—do not remain unaddressed because we do not hold the powers in the Scottish Parliament. They remain unaddressed because the current Scottish Government has failed to use the powers that the Parliament has got.
We could have a Scottish industrial strategy in which the Scottish Investment Bank does not just respond to market failure but is a proactive catalyst of economic change. Led by a Government that is prepared to act and not just react, we could have a properly resourced Scottish economic development agency, as well as one for the Highlands and Islands and the south of Scotland. We could have the institutional and investment firepower to diversify our export base and boost R and D.
We could use the powers of public procurement and skills development to better plan our economy in co-operation with trade unions and businesses. We could make the just transition to the sustainable economy that we need to make in the face of the climate emergency. Finally, with an alternative economic strategy, we could spearhead a radical reduction in inequality. That is something that the Government’s own poverty and inequality commissioner has today chastised it for failing to do. In his words:
“very little has changed”
to stop
“the rising tide of in-work poverty”.
It is time for a wholly new approach. It is time to end the low pay economy and the failed policies of neoliberal economics. It is time for us to develop a policy that is based on economic diversification and economic democracy, which promotes new forms of ownership as part of a new economic strategy and plan—an economic strategy that puts people first and an economic plan for real change.
I move amendment S5M-17504.4, to insert at end:
“; recognises concerns that Scotland’s economy would be further impacted by uncertainty from another referendum on independence; considers that any such referendum would be a distraction from the issues facing the people of Scotland; believes that the failure to create a Scottish industrial strategy has resulted in low earnings and stagnated economic growth, in particular failing to deliver the much-needed green jobs promised to Scotland, and therefore calls on the Scottish Government to deliver an industrial strategy to a create well-paid jobs and to grow and sustain viable enterprises.”
16:01Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.