Meeting of the Parliament 06 March 2024 [Draft]
When the Conservatives lodged the motion, last week, it was clear what they wanted. They wanted a big bust-up, a big debate and big dividing lines. Let me try to strike a note of consensus, however. I think that we can all agree on one thing this afternoon: Douglas Lumsden desperately needs Jeremy Hunt’s phone number. One text message is all that it would have taken: “Should I lodge this motion? Is it a good idea?” That would have spared the blushes and the rather awkward argument that we heard in the debate’s opening speech this afternoon. Of course, Douglas Ross does not need Jeremy Hunt’s mobile phone number, as he communicates with the leadership via letters from the whip’s office, if reports about him intending to vote against his own Government’s budget are true.
Although Douglas Lumsden tries to talk about economic growth, the simple truth is that, through the mini-budget, which the Scottish Conservatives enthusiastically backed, we got market chaos, the pound tumbling, interest rates soaring, the biggest ever one-day drop in 30-year gilts and half of mortgage products pulled. It culminated in the Bank of England intervening to prevent the collapse of pension markets. Chaos and incompetence are the true hallmarks of economic governance under the Conservative Government.
There have been 14 years of erratic economic decision making. Is it any wonder that the UK is blighted by low growth and high inequality? The Resolution Foundation describes the UK as a stagnation nation. The country has undergone 15 years of economic decline. Since the Conservatives entered Government, the UK’s GDP growth has been in the bottom third of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries. If the UK had grown at just the OECD average, our economy would be £140 billion bigger. That has real-world consequences. It is the equivalent of £5,000 per household every year. That is the real cost of economic chaos under the Conservative Government.