Meeting of the Parliament 07 May 2025
Listening to the Deputy First Minister open this debate and the debate yesterday and the First Minister’s statement, one would think that today was day 1 of a new Government. I am disappointed that the First Minister is not in his place, because I enjoy making him feel old, but some of us in the chamber had just left secondary school when he started delivering programmes for government. The reality is that what we have seen today is yet another attempt by the Scottish National Party Government to reinvent itself, but we have had 18 years of it, and we know that its record speaks for itself.
In today’s debate, we are focusing on the economic challenge. I recognise much of what the Deputy First Minister has said about international headwinds and the challenges faced by the UK and Scottish Governments, but the reality is that she always seems to want to point to UK policy and blame the UK Government for the circumstances in which the Scottish Government finds itself. Is it not the truth that Scotland lags behind the rest of the UK on 10 out of 13 productivity indicators, including business investment and business research and development spend? Is it not the truth that after 18 years, the Scottish National Party has built a low-growth, low-pay economy, and that all of Scotland is paying the price for that?