Meeting of the Parliament 22 January 2020
Absolutely. I am reminded by my colleague of PFI, which was an utterly failed attempt by Labour to invest in schools across the country, and one that we will continue to pay for, for generations to come.
We are certainly not complacent and we need to think about the future. Last year, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Scottish Parliament, which provided us with a useful opportunity to think about what next for the governance of Scotland and to consider where power should lie, how we empower our communities and what needs to change to ensure that governance in Scotland is fit for purpose for the next 20 years and beyond. That shared endeavour between the Scottish Government and COSLA has included significant work by my colleague Kate Forbes to look at fiscal empowerment for local government and providing it with more fiscal autonomy.
Our commitment to that can be seen in the changes that we are making to the local taxation landscape, which are giving greater fiscal autonomy to our partners in local authorities. We have introduced the first primary legislation on non-domestic rates since devolution and our commitment to a package of measures on local taxation, including providing new tax powers to local authorities, will, if supported by Parliament, be the biggest empowerment of local authorities since devolution.
However, as I said at the start of my remarks, all of that partnership work and focus on outcomes and wellbeing faces enormous challenge. Our resources have been constrained by a decade of United Kingdom austerity, and the UK spending round announcements in September did nothing to reverse that damage. Our discretionary resource budget from the UK Government will in real terms be around 2.8 per cent lower in 2020-21 than it was in 2010. That is why it is absolutely unacceptable that the UK Government has failed to adequately engage with the Scottish Government on the budget timetable.
On top of that, I remind Mr Rowley that we are trying to tackle poverty with one hand tied behind our back and against a backdrop of callous and cruel social security cuts, which stymies our efforts to deliver positive outcomes for the most vulnerable. Analysis published in 2018 found that UK Government cuts would reduce social security spend by up to £3.7 billion by 2020-21. Those are brutal cuts that leave us trying to mitigate their worst impacts by mitigating the bedroom tax and providing crisis grants but, as United Nations special rapporteur Philip Alston said,
“mitigation comes at a price and is not sustainable.”
As we debate where and what we should spend our money on and how we should ensure positive outcomes in the communities that we are elected to represent and serve, members must hold us to account and scrutinise the choices that we make. However, let us not forget the hurt and pain that has been caused by austerity and welfare reforms, and let us not forget to point the finger of blame fairly and squarely at the UK Government.