Meeting of the Parliament 29 October 2024
If members saw the response of members on the Government’s front bench, they will have realised that they dealt with that intervention with the same level of disregard as I do. Fundamentally, we are here to talk about people’s jobs, livelihoods and mortgages—not to throw around cheap insults.
Fundamentally, fiscal sustainability is inextricably linked to fiscal responsibility. All too often, however, the SNP talks about how it wants to spend money, but not about how it will raise it or save it. It talks about how to raise tax, but not about how to simplify it, and I am yet to hear an SNP minister talk credibly of the case for cutting tax in Scotland. The SNP repeatedly puts barriers to investment in the way of business, rather than deregulating the landscape in which business needs to operate.
At its heart, the Government’s motion pays only lip service to the need for public sector reform and how it will deliver sustainable growth. It reveals that the Government would prefer to talk about short-term fixes and about increasing borrowing capacity to talking about long-term strategic and structural reforms.
Only a few weeks ago, Shona Robison came to Parliament to reluctantly reveal a near £1 billion in-year budget black hole. I would like to remind the cabinet secretary of what she said in May 2023 in “Scotland’s Fiscal Outlook: The Scottish Government’s Medium-Term Financial Strategy”. She said:
“I am setting out how this Government will maintain a sustainable financial position over the medium-term”,
and that she would be
“open and honest with the public”.
If she was serious about maintaining sustainable finances, how on earth did she find herself coming back to Parliament to reveal such a large in-year overspend? Why did the Government neglect to publish a clear public sector pay policy last year? Why did the cabinet secretary allow assumptions to be made for a certain rise in public sector pay when, in the end, she signed up to a far higher inflation-busting increase? Why did she not realise that, in agreeing to a settlement of that scale, she was, in effect, setting fire to her budget? She has done that not only for this year, but for future years, when there will be no ScotWind coffers to raid.
I want to delve deeper into tax, because that could well be one of the dividing lines in the months and years ahead. On the future of Scottish tax, we could do worse than look back to reforming Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson, because he did not just cut tax—he also simplified it. I agree with Kenny Gibson. Does Scotland really need six tax bands? Only yesterday, my colleague Russell Findlay opened up a discussion on removal of the 21p rate, and I welcome that discussion. Under Nigel Lawson, Britain had just two bands. His approach was simple and efficient.
The SNP likes to compare Scotland with other nations around the world, so let us do that. Estonia has a flat rate of 20 per cent.