Meeting of the Parliament 15 December 2022
The focus of the budget is on eradicating child poverty, on making practical and possible the transition of the economy to net zero, and on ensuring that we have sustainable public services. That is the approach that I have put into the budget, to ensure that the delivery challenge that Daniel Johnson puts to me can be addressed.
On public sector pay, as Mr Johnson knows—he and I have rehearsed the issue a few times—we ministers have spent much time over the past few months trying to get to a position whereby we secure deals that increase the pay of public sector workers, and we have made significant progress. At First Minister’s question time, the First Minister made the point that, today, there is industrial action in the national health service in every other part of the United Kingdom. That is not happening in Scotland, because of the dialogue that we have taken forward.
I welcome very much the trade union support for the pay deals that we have put forward. Each of those deals—whether for local government or for the health service—has been specifically focused and targeted on improving the position on low pay. Those on lower pay have had higher increases than those who are on higher pay. Those investments and priorities of the Government are designed to strengthen the position of people who are on low pay.
Daniel Johnson talked about delayed discharge. The Government accepts the undesirability of delayed discharge. The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care and I, and other ministers, spend a huge amount of time working with local government and partners to secure reductions in that. However, we keep being told that the key thing is the challenge of being able to recruit staff. The challenge of recruiting staff is about the folly of Brexit and the loss of the freedom of movement of the population. Through our work to improve pay, we are taking the necessary steps to overcome that disadvantage.
Mr Johnson asked me about wage growth in the Scottish economy. He will not have had time to see what is in the Scottish Fiscal Commission report today. It says that the commission predicts
“a period of catch-up in Scottish earnings over the next five years”
relative to the rest of the United Kingdom. I hope that that gives Mr Johnson some reassurance. That will be driven by the implementation and delivery of the national strategy for economic transformation, which was set out earlier this year by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy and is now being taken forward in order to deliver that improvement in economic performance.
We come to the question of tax. I have never in my puff heard such an equivocal explanation of the Labour Party’s position on tax. Throughout his question to me, Daniel Johnson was sat well and truly on top of the fence on the issue of taxation. The Labour Party must decide whose side it is on—is it on the side of investing in public services or on the side of trying to have it both ways, which is what Daniel Johnson tried to do today?