Meeting of the Parliament 03 October 2023
No, I will not.
The Sewel convention is working. To characterise it as at risk or collapsing is ludicrous. Week in, week out, we consent to Westminster legislation.
I return briefly to the issue of levelling up. Again, we have heard a few attacks on that. I have said before and I say again that at no point in the decades in which we were a member of the EU did the SNP ever complain about the EU injecting funds into local communities. However, now that the UK Government is doing the same, the SNP feigns outrage. The UK Government’s ability to directly invest in devolved policy areas is part and parcel of devolution. Such investment happens in Germany, Canada and Australia. If it is commonplace in those countries, why is Scotland the exception? Why is it positive for the German Government to invest in policy areas overseen by the Länder, but somehow negative for the UK Government to do so in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? I am talking about a ferry for the Fair Isle and £140 million announced this week for seven Scottish towns—£20 million each for Clydebank, Coatbridge, Dumfries, Elgin, Irvine, Greenock and Kilmarnock. Money is being provided to the relevant local authority where the UK Government intends to work with it and the Scottish Government. That is the latest in a long line of projects that have created jobs and rejuvenated parts of Scotland that have been forgotten about and overlooked by the SNP. Some £2.4 billion has been invested by the UK Government, but the SNP objects.
Yet again, we are failing to debate the important issues that people in Scotland care about. The constitution is far down the list of the Scottish people’s priorities, but the SNP cannot find anything else to talk about. It could have come to the chamber to talk about ferries and to say why the two vessels that are sitting in a dockyard on the Clyde are another £24 million over budget. It could have come to the chamber to talk about why councils are being forced to cut vital public services. It could have come to the chamber to come clean about reinstating its cut to Creative Scotland’s budget of £6.6 million. However, week after week, month after month and year after year, it is all about the constitution, more grievance and more pandering to the nationalist base.
We will use our debate time to focus on Scotland’s real priorities.
I move amendment S6M-10703.1, to leave out from “notes” to end and insert:
“recognises that the UK Government is investing directly in Scotland and is working with local authorities and other partners to enable people across Scotland to benefit from this investment; urges the Scottish National Party administration in cooperation with the Scottish Green Party to work collaboratively and constructively with the UK Government, as demonstrated by positive joint working on programmes, such as growing the Scottish economy through the City and Growth Deals and Green Freeports, and believes that the Scottish Parliament should focus its time on addressing the issues that matter most to people in Scotland in their day-to-day lives.”
Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.