Hansard

I am grateful to the Government for lodging the motion for debate today. As always, there is much common ground between our parties on this issue. Liberal Democrats, as do other parties that are represented in the chamber, have a vision for building a brighter future that is free from discrimination and intolerance—a United Kingdom that is more equal and fair, and a United Kingdom where we all have the same opportunities, regardless of where we come from or the circumstances of our birth.

I will start by giving the Scottish Government some credit. Flicking through the latest progress report, I see that there is a fair amount of purple in its pages. I note that 19 of the 50 actions are marked as having been completed: I congratulate the Government on that. I am glad to see some positive changes among those actions, including the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 and refugee families who are settling here getting quick access to assistance. However, much of what has been completed represents the low-hanging fruit, so we now need to reach much higher and to increase the scope of our ambition.

I will take a few minutes to cover the items that are currently “in progress” for delivery by the Administration. Included among those that are marked “in progress” is the reaching 100 per cent—R100—programme, which is due to be completed by 2021, although I am slightly concerned because we are starting to hear noises from the Government that suggest that we might need to move that date. I would like to hear some reassurance in the cabinet secretary’s summing-up speech about the date by which R100 should be completed.

Reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 is also in progress. My party has called for that for years, but I am concerned that its reform might have been kicked into the long grass. The timetable to deliver that during the current session is now very challenging. There is no guarantee that it will happen, despite all MSPs having stood for election on manifestos that support that. I am concerned that every day that we do not debate the matter in Parliament it is being debated in wider society and is the subject of hyperbole and misinformation.

Also marked as “in progress” is the commitment to put an additional graduate in every nursery in more deprived areas “by 2018”. That target was missed by a huge margin in August last year, by when it was due to have been met. Only half—234—of the 435 extra staff were in place on time, and even today they are still not all in post. I cannot understand why that is not marked in red in the progress report—perhaps the cabinet secretary could illuminate Parliament on that.

That brings me on neatly to funded childcare. Liberal Democrats succeeded in persuading the Scottish Government to expand free childcare, so we are grateful to it for the steps that it has taken. We made the case time and again that that is one of the most effective ways to close the attainment gap between rich children and poor children. Our parties are in agreement on that point—on the social leveller that nurseries represent.

However, as we have heard, roll-out has encountered problems. For example, uptake for two-year-olds is nowhere close to where we want it to be. Some providers are struggling to get by, at a time when business should be good.

Liberal Democrats want to take the expansion much further: we want free high-quality childcare for every child aged two to four, for 35 hours a week, 48 weeks a year. Working parents will get free childcare from when their child is 9 months old. That would close the gap between the end of paid parental leave and the start of free childcare provision. It would also begin to help to close the gender pay gap. We all know people—the vast majority of whom are women—who, in the face of astronomical childcare fees, have opted to stay at home rather than to return to work, or who go back to work for much-diminished time, and often miss out on opportunities for career progression.

A Liberal Democrat UK Government would give the Scottish Government the funding to match that commitment, which is the most ambitious in the UK. Making that a UK-wide shared endeavour would help to promote take-up and train enough staff.

There is no avoiding the fact that the current constitutional chaos hangs over everything good that we want to do in Scotland. Independence and Brexit would both mean less money to invest in children’s education and in transforming mental health services. We are fighting to stop Brexit, and to get a £50 billion remain bonus to tackle inequality and invest in public services. We want to prevent independence and, thus, avoid a decade of SNP-inflicted austerity, which is what the SNP’s own growth commission has forecast and which has, overnight, been confirmed by the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Implementing the SNP’s general election manifesto in an independent Scotland would lead to even more cuts than are in the Conservative plans for UK spending.

Meanwhile, the head of the Scottish civil service has warned the First Minister that her referendum planning means a “deprioritisation” of domestic policy. Our education and mental health services simply cannot afford further abstraction of Government time. Just yesterday, we saw Scotland slip further down the international rankings in science and in maths, having recorded its worst-ever results. Last week, we saw the worst child mental health waits ever recorded. The Government has denied that there is even a crisis. I want that to be the Government’s number 1 priority, because those services are the cornerstones of our vision for a brighter future.

I got into politics to make our country fairer. It is so much easier to do that without the constitutional stranglehold that is being applied to this country by both of those constitutional issues.

I turn briefly to the amendments. I cannot support Jeremy Balfour's Conservative amendment, because of what it would remove from the motion. Since 2015, the UK Government has made brutal and unnecessary ideologically driven cuts to welfare. The Tories single-handedly undermined universal credit by removing billions of pounds from the system.

On Labour’s amendment, we absolutely agree that universal credit is not working and is driving people to food banks, plunging them into cycles of arrears and leaving them destitute. Labour supported the introduction of universal credit, as did many poverty campaigners at the time. It desperately needs reform, but scrapping it altogether is impractical, especially given that Labour cannot tell us what it would replace it with. That would mean huge amounts of money being spent on yet more administration. I want that money to be spent on supporting people and on reforming universal credit in order to inject dignity and respect into the system.

On the Green Party’s amendment, I am persuaded by Alison Johnstone’s argument about the review of the social welfare fund, so we will support it.

I will close, because I have run out of time.