Meeting of the Parliament 09 June 2026 [Draft]
There are better ways to think about that, which I will come back to later. However, the record in Europe, across decades, is that long-term economic growth has benefited the 1 per cent vastly more than the large majority of the population.
There will be those who say that all growth is good growth and that it simply does not matter that a tiny number of people become immensely wealthy while others are hungry and homeless or if growth comes from depletion of finite resources. For example, the cabinet secretary’s remarks today seem to suggest that he no longer even supports environmental impact assessments and that Rosebank should have been approved without them.
Some people might think that growth is desirable even if it continues the destruction of our ecosystem, but the world is already finding out just how self-defeating that argument is. The UK’s national security assessment on global biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse shows the scale of the crisis that has been brought about by the current economic model, and it illustrates that the economy is wholly dependent on a healthy environment and a fairly functioning society, with up to 12 per cent of GDP at risk as a result of ecosystem collapse by 2030—that is just a few years away.
A reckoning is needed with the profound failure of the old economic model, which has left us with a legacy of poverty and inequality, hollowed-out public services, public infrastructure in private hands, and a climate and nature crisis. A reckoning is also needed with the political model that enabled that system and has, for decades, handed away power that should be democratically accountable to corporations and markets. Dare I say it: it is time to take back control.
New thinking is emerging. The “Global Justice Report” that the Green amendment mentions makes the case that a global transformation that reconciles planetary habitability and high standards of wellbeing for all people is possible. However, that depends on rapid decarbonisation, a shift away from overconsumption towards efficiency and a dramatic reduction in inequality. That would certainly be bad for the billionaire class, but it would be a path to shared prosperity for the majority of the world’s population that is better than they have access to today.
We need a Government with that willingness to confront the failures of the current dominant, failed economic system and with the vision and ambition to bring new thinking to the challenge. This country has huge potential to meet the needs of all our people without trashing our life support system, and to contribute to the wellbeing of others around the world without allowing a tiny number to hoard the wealth that we all generate together.
There will be things that we need to grow: clean energy, nature restoration and efficient resource use, as well as the social capacity that improves everyone’s lives, from health and care to education and culture.
Growth in the areas that improve our lives, help people to help one another and protect the world that we all depend on is healthy growth. However, growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
I urge the Government to rediscover that understanding, which, for a few years, it was beginning to embrace. I move amendment S7M-00290.4, to leave out from “is essential” to end and insert:
“does not necessarily deliver prosperity, tackle child poverty, improve public services or achieve climate ambitions, and that only government action can ensure that economic activity helps to achieve these objectives rather than undermining them; believes that growth is needed in areas such as clean energy, housing, nature restoration, as well as social provision, including health, education and care, and that public, community and worker ownership should play an increased role; welcomes the recent publication of the Global Justice Report by the World Inequality Lab, which, it considers, is an important contribution to the debate about how high standards of living for all people can be compatible with decarbonisation and sustainability; urges the Scottish Government to ensure that its economic strategy shows similar ambition in combining these vital objectives, and rejects the failed idea that GDP growth inevitably builds a fair or sustainable economy.”
Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.