Hansard

I am not sure whether the cabinet secretary is a fan of fantasy football, as I am. If he is not, I encourage him to become one, because he would be better spending 10 minutes of a weekend playing that fantasy game than subjecting the rest of us to hours of today’s exercise in fantasy politics.

Hours of valuable parliamentary time have been taken up with a debate about a paper that few have read and even fewer are interested in. Such papers do not focus on the priorities of the people of Scotland, are a waste of taxpayers’ money and do not even convince the SNP’s supporters. It is therefore a further waste of parliamentary time to debate such a paper today.

Members do not need to take my word for it. Even the former SNP cabinet secretary Alex Neil said recently that the Scottish Government needs to

“ditch the crap”

and

“Get focused entirely on the people’s priorities by delivering better services and supporting the Scottish people”.

He said that the SNP should stop

“constantly contemplating our navels”.

I agree with him on that.

The debate is a transparent and desperate distraction from the SNP’s mounting political problems and from the urgent issues that matter to the people of Scotland. The truth is that the Parliament and the Scottish people do not need a made-up debate on Europe. If we are concerned, as the motion states, about what best serves Scotland’s economic, social and political future, we should be debating more pressing matters.

We should be debating the cost of living crisis that continues to afflict communities and families across our country; the winter crisis and the spiralling waiting lists in our NHS; and the outrageous and savage cuts that the Scottish Government has inflicted on local councils and the degrading of our public services.

At a time when the Scottish Government is spending nearly £2 million on the production of the “Building a New Scotland” papers, day centres for adults with learning disabilities in Renfrewshire are under threat of closure and merger as a result of the Government’s budget cuts. Our most vulnerable adults face losing lifeline services on which they rely, while the Government wastes vital resources on that charade.

Recent weeks have revealed—as Donald Cameron mentioned—this Government’s mass deletion, on an industrial scale, of WhatsApp messages. That is a clear attempt to thwart the work of the UK Covid inquiry, and a massive betrayal of Covid bereaved families and the Scottish public. Why are we not debating that?

It is not just WhatsApps that have disappeared; so, too, has trust in the Scottish Government. We know why we are not debating those issues. It is because this Government, rather than face its own record, its own failings and its dearth of ideas, seeks to engage in a transparent diversion, and in yet another desperate attempt to pretend to its own supporters that it has a plan when it does not. It is an attempt to create what we might even call a good old-fashioned rammy, in order to breathe some life into the SNP’s dwindling poll numbers.

It is disappointing. Like Donald Cameron, I have considerable respect for Mr Robertson and Mr Hepburn. I think that they are better than this, but the debate is a symptom of a party that has lost its way after 17 years in government. I worked constructively with Mr Hepburn when he was Minister for Business, Fair Work and Skills. He did an important job in that brief and, in my view, he did it well. Now, however, he is, unfortunately, in a non-job in which he prepares glorified talking points for non-debates.

Just a few weeks ago, I had a constructive meeting with the cabinet secretary in which we discussed a range of useful ideas and issues in relation to matters affecting the culture sector. That is what the cabinet secretary, and all ministers, should be doing: using their powers to effect real change now. It is a great responsibility and a great privilege to hold those positions, but doing stuff like this is a dereliction of duty.

Just a few weeks ago, the cabinet secretary was praising the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee for its unanimous report on devolution post-Brexit. He knows that the committee is, as we speak, embarking on an inquiry into the trade and co-operation agreement with the EU. If we want to debate Europe, surely we should do so on publication of the committee’s report. We should let the committee do its work and then debate the issue when we are in full and proper possession of the facts and evidence.

Nevertheless, here we are, and we should be clear: the Tory Government has made a complete mess of Brexit and of much else. Its botched Brexit has left no one—not even Brexit supporters—happy. It has burned bridges with our allies and partners, and left businesses and those who trade and deal with Europe drowning in a sea of red tape. It has presided over economic calamity and political chaos. That is a dismal and disgraceful record.

The answer, however, is not for us to have yet more years of social division, constitutional upheaval and costly economic damage. Brexit should act as a warning of the consequences of withdrawing oneself from an economic and political union for the sake of a constitutional obsession, in particular one that does not command the support of the majority of Scotland’s people.