Meeting of the Parliament 08 October 2024
—to the high-tax, low-ambition, Holyrood consensus. We will stand up for everyone who wants their politicians to show a bit of common sense for a change. We will give people the opportunities to get themselves out of poverty, because we believe in their potential.
We believe that, given the chance, people will work their way up and find a way to succeed. All that they need is opportunity, which is what this Parliament often fails to deliver. It speaks only of giving people a hand out and not a hand up. It spends all its time talking about the problems, not providing the solutions to fix them.
There is crushing poverty out there in the real world that stops Scots from getting ahead, and it is not helped by the poverty of opportunity on their doorstep—the poverty of opportunity that this Parliament fails to tackle. It does not create the new jobs that are needed to give people a chance. It has not looked after Scotland’s education system. It has not improved healthcare. Life expectancy is falling under the SNP Government.
The Parliament has become detached from the bread-and-butter issues that people are most concerned about. All those things are barriers to people fulfilling their potential in life. I want to knock them down. I want to support people’s aspirations, not block them. Only if we achieve that will we finally make progress on tackling the scourge of poverty. That will be my party’s focus, and I believe that it should be what this Parliament as a whole spends most of its time and energy on.
I urge all parties to support my common-sense amendment. Either way, my party intends to support the Government’s motion while recognising that it cannot absolve itself of responsibility for the winter fuel payment cut.
I move amendment S6M-14820.1, to leave out from “must” to end and insert:
“and the Scottish Government must both reverse the introduction of means testing for the Winter Fuel Payment; notes that the Scottish National Party administration has failed to reduce poverty during its 17 years in power; recognises that the best way to tackle poverty is to provide high-quality healthcare and educational and employment opportunities for people across Scotland, with appropriate levels of housing, and condemns the Scottish Government’s failure to achieve any of these objectives.”
14:48Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.