Meeting of the Parliament 26 October 2022
I only have four minutes and I am conscious of the time. [Laughter.] I only have four minutes.
We need to rejoin the EU at the earliest opportunity. The only way to do that is through independence. People would expect an anti-EU stance from the Tories, but from Labour and the Lib Dems—really? Many times, we have heard Willie Rennie stand up and support the EU, but now he does not do that because he cannot.
Over the past couple of months, up and down East Lothian, I have met businesses that are suffering from rising energy prices and Brexit. My office carried out an extensive survey over the past four months. Of the businesses that I have spoken to, more than a third are considering having to make redundancies, more than half said that the situation has affected their training plans, and three quarters said that rising energy costs are affecting the viability of their business.
A similar picture is being painted by my constituents. Many families were already struggling to get by on stagnant incomes, but a poll that was conducted this month found that 72 per cent of East Lothian residents fear being unable to pay their energy bills. To put that in context, it represents 70,000 people. Some 43 per cent fear being unable to pay their rent or mortgage, and a quarter are worried about homelessness. In August, East Lothian Foodbank reported that the number of people who are using a county charity to help to put food on the table has jumped by 77 per cent compared with last year.
Whether in regard to heating homes or ensuring that people have enough to eat, the UK Government is failing. That is the price of a broken UK financial system. Rishi Sunak called the mini-budget “a mistake”, and although he called it out during the Tory leadership campaign, the Liz Truss Cabinet endorsed the moves. Indeed, we heard choruses of Tory MSPs—including Liz Smith, who is in the chamber just now—demand that the Scottish Government follow the Tory party tax cuts. Imagine if John Swinney had listened to those demands.
All of that has been imposed by a Government that we did not vote for. Surely Labour agrees that to take democratic decisions here in Scotland is our only hope—decisions that are made by the people of Scotland for the people of Scotland.
16:30