Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 25 February 2021
When the Parliament passed the budget on 5 March 2020, we could not have foreseen the year that lay ahead. Eight days later, the first patient in Scotland died of coronavirus; today, the death toll stands at 7,084. Every one of those deaths is a tragedy and every person was a mother, father, son or daughter who is mourned by the people whom they have left behind.
I want to note those deaths at the start of the debate, because the proposals that are before us must be among our first steps in recovering from this national tragedy. Nothing can bring back the thousands of people whom coronavirus has taken from us, but the actions that we take today, if we choose well, can prevent more harm. They can prevent harm not only from the direct effects of the virus, but from mass unemployment that could drive hundreds of thousands of people into poverty. They can prevent harm from the suffering that could result from the NHS struggling to get back on its feet and to provide vital care to people who suffer from life-threatening diseases such as cancer, or who are waiting in pain for too long for operations, and they can prevent harm from the lagging effects of increased inequality that could damage the life chances of our young people for years and years to come.
We have the chance to choose a different direction of travel and to make it a budget for recovery—one that invests in our economy, gives us the best chance of protecting jobs and businesses, remobilises our NHS and rewards our front-line workers. There is much in the budget that we welcome, including the deep pockets of the UK Government, but it does not go far enough.
The coronavirus crisis might have exposed the deep inequalities in our society, but it did not create them. The truth is that when the pandemic hit, Scotland’s economy was still struggling to recover fully from the last recession. We cannot afford for the Government to make the same mistakes as it made after the last economic crisis.
We need from the Government a bolder and more ambitious budget that does not just take Scotland back to where we were before coronavirus, but builds the foundations for a better and more prosperous future. That is why we are genuinely disappointed that the Scottish National Investment Bank, which the First Minister called
“one of the most significant developments in the lifetime of this Parliament”
only three months ago, has had its budget cut. It is why we have called for more support for councils and for the Government to fill the £518 million Covid funding gap that local government is experiencing. It is why we want more funding for mental health. While England and Wales are spending 11 per cent of their health budget on mental health, Scotland is spending only 8 per cent, and the SNP Government cut services by £26 million in real terms between 2010 and 2019.