Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 08 June 2021
If I can first make some progress, I will come back to the cabinet secretary.
As I have listened, as I have attentively, to some very powerful first speeches in the Parliament over the past two weeks, including this afternoon, it has been self-evident that rank, wealth, status, privilege and—yes—class still bedevil this society. If anyone believes that Scotland is not class-ridden, they should go and look at patterns of land ownership, they should go and look at who controls the economy, the corporations and the banks and they should go and look at who owns the media because, I tell members, ownership is power and property, capital and power are increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.
The SNP talks in its motion about the transfer of powers, but instead of limiting its horizons to the transfer of powers from one Parliament to another, why does it not use the levers that it has to bring about a bit more self-government of our land, to bring about a bit more self-government of our economy and to bring about a bit more self-government in our local government? We know that poverty does not simply stop at a shortfall in wealth; it is, as well, a basic lack of power. That powerlessness is most corrosive, is cumulative and breeds acquiescence, which leads in turn to self-reinforcing hopelessness. That poverty, that inequality and that lack of power do not diminish just those who live with them; they diminish all of us.
When we debate poverty, as we are doing this afternoon, we must therefore not simply debate its amelioration, and we must not simply limit ourselves to piecemeal reforms. Rather, we must understand that nothing less than a fundamental redistribution of wealth and power will do.
I will therefore finish with some advice from the excellent Child Poverty Action Group. Alison Garnham says in her foreword to the important report “Let’s talk about tax”:
“If we can’t talk about tax, how can we campaign successfully for an end to child poverty?”
Furthermore, David Eiser, of the Fraser of Allander institute, writes in the report that
“The Scottish Government has been somewhat conservative in its policy on property taxation and local tax reform more generally.”
He calls for a bold review of new taxes,
“for example, options for introducing Scotland-specific taxes on wealth or inheritance”.
I hope that the report is something that the Scottish Government and this new Parliament will take a serious look at, and that the Government will open the books for a transparent public debate.
Because poverty and inequality is not fixed. It is not the natural order of things, it is man-made. So it is up to us to bring about change, to extend democracy, to hold in check powers that are unaccountable at the moment and to demand economic equality as well as political democracy. My determination—my will—to pursue the causes of labour, of democracy, of justice and of socialism is stronger now than it has ever been. That is how I will dedicate my next five years in the Parliament.
16:14