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Meeting of the Parliament 22 January 2013

22 Jan 2013 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

Budget (Scotland) (No 2) Bill: Stage 1

Brown, Gavin Con Lothian Watch on SPTV

I merely make the point to reflect that a £2 billion increase can hardly be described as “savage cuts”, as Kenneth Gibson and most of his colleagues try to put it.

College cuts also featured heavily in speeches across all parties in the chamber, apart from the Scottish National Party, whose members all seem to be very happy and satisfied with those cuts.

Chic Brodie was particularly helpful to the Opposition cause when he said that those who complain are simply “bleating” about cuts and shouted out, “I say this”—with some kind of pseudo-profundity—“any country that does not change and manage efficiency will die.” If the cabinet secretary listens to Opposition members and increases the colleges budget, will Mr Brodie go along with that and welcome it at stage 3 of the budget, or will he criticise Mr Swinney for listening to those who were bleating during the course of the debate?

Let us return to the NPD model and to capital spend. This Government has talked a very good game about capital spend for the past couple of years, but it has not been quite so strong on delivery. In September, when the budget was announced, the cabinet secretary not only failed to tell us that things had been delayed—not by months, but by years—but he actually said that he was “accelerating” NPD. Not only was the NPD pipeline delivering but he was accelerating what the pipeline was achieving, which is a curious interpretation of “accelerating”.

The cabinet secretary went on to say that he is “not disappointed” at all with the results and that the NPD model is so good that others want to copy it.

In response to the Finance Committee yesterday, the Scottish Government quite rightly made the point that an

“additional £100 million of capital spending supports around 1,400 jobs in the Scottish economy”.

How does that compare with the figures on the ground? In 2011-12, the Scottish Government said that £50 million to £150 million would be spent through the NPD pipeline. How much was spent? Absolutely nothing. I ask the cabinet secretary: based on his £100 million figure, how many jobs did the inactivity and sloth-like performance of the Government cost the Scottish economy?

In 2012-13, the Government said that approximately £350 million would be spent. It turned out that that figure would not be £350 million but £20 million. Of course, last week the Finance Committee heard that it might not be £20 million in practice—it remains to be seen. If we get £20 million instead of £350 million, how many jobs will that cost the Scottish economy?

We have had every excuse under the sun for that inactivity: allegedly, it was the Aberdeen western peripheral route but, from the Government’s response to the Finance Committee yesterday, that turns out not be correct. We heard Kenneth Gibson say that everybody knows that it takes 18 months for an NPD project to come on site—everybody apart from the Scottish Government, it would seem. The NPD pipeline was announced in November 2010, which was 26 months ago. In that time, we saw nothing in the first year, we saw £20 million in the second year and next year it is predicted that, at best, we will see about half of what the Government projected.

That is not good enough. This Government has some significant movement to make over the next couple of weeks before stage 3.

16:39

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Meeting of the Parliament 22 January 2013

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