Official Report 966KB pdf
The next item of business is a debate on the programme for government 2024-25. I would be grateful if members who wish to speak in the debate were to press their request-to-speak button. I call Douglas Ross, who has up to 11 minutes.
15:28
Today, we have seen the publication of the final report into the appalling tragedy that saw 72 people die in Grenfell tower seven years ago. The inquiry chair, Sir Martin Moor-Bick, said that the residents were
“badly let down”
by organisations that should have protected them. The report found that
“the fire at Grenfell Tower was the culmination of decades of failure by central government and other bodies in positions of responsibility”.
We all have a responsibility to learn from the lessons of that tragedy and ensure that it can never happen again. The First Minister said in his statement that he would look at the report. I hope that his Government will give members an early opportunity to debate and discuss the report and how the 58 recommendations will be implemented, should they affect us in Scotland, and to provide an update on the cladding remediation programme.
In responding to this year’s programme for government, we cannot ignore the fiscal context in which the Scottish National Party Government finds itself. Yes, there are pressures brought by the new Labour Government, which—within weeks of taking office—stripped millions of pensioners of their winter fuel payment. That is a shameful decision that is being replicated by the Scottish National Party Government at Holyrood. However, the nationalists have only themselves to blame for the mess that they find themselves in.
Yesterday, the finance secretary said that
“All members of Parliament must face up to that challenge”—[Official Report, 3 September 2024; c 30.]
but it is SNP MSPs who should follow her advice. Even their own budget forecaster has said that
“much of the pressure comes from the Scottish Government’s own decisions”.
There is no one left to blame and there is nowhere left to hide. What we got yesterday and in the programme for government today are SNP choices. What we got yesterday were SNP cuts that will have an impact on delivering the programme for government, so let us just remember where those cuts were. Yesterday, we had a cut to the economy budget—a budget that is held by the Deputy First Minister, but she is accepting that her budget will be cut. The justice budget—cut. The rural affairs budget—cut. The transport budget—cut. The education and skills budget—cut. The health and social care budget—cut.
It seems that the only area that was protected was Angus Robertson’s portfolio—the constitution. That money is being used by the SNP Government to promote independence, which is more important to it than the vital public services that the people of Scotland expect to be delivered by this Government.
For years, the SNP Government has patted itself on the back for its policies and decisions, but now the public can see that they are paying the price for those SNP choices. For years, the SNP has praised itself for running a balanced budget. Let that claim never be uttered in this chamber again. The SNP has lost control of the budget here in Scotland. It is filling the gap time after time—
Will the member give way?
I will give way in a moment, but let us be very clear: it is decisions and choices that the SNP has made that have led to a huge black hole in the Scottish Government’s budget.
Can the member confirm that the Scottish Government, by law, is not allowed to overspend its budget? Can he name one year in the past 17 years when the Scottish Government has overspent its budget?
If it had not overspent its budget, it would not be pulling in hundreds of millions of pounds from the ScotWind budget. [Interruption.] That money is coming in to fill the gaps that the SNP has created in its own budget. Choices made by SNP ministers, year after year, are having an impact.
The SNP also promised that if we paid more in taxes in Scotland, that would fund better public services. Instead, the Government is cutting the budget of almost every department that delivers those public services. With the SNP, people pay more and they get less.
Time and time again, the Scottish Conservatives warned against raising taxes and the impact that that would have on people and businesses across Scotland and on our economy. That warning was ignored; because of that financial mismanagement, what we are getting now is the threadbare programme for government that has been published today.
This was John Swinney’s big moment: his chance to reset the SNP Government after 17 years and to boldly launch his premiership as First Minister. Has he really been waiting 25 years to deliver the speech that we have just listened to? What we got was a programme of tired old promises that should have been delivered years ago.
In so many areas, we see any suggestion of bold action being watered down or abandoned in favour of restating existing commitments. The First Minister is basically trying to make it impossible for his Government to fail by promising nothing. Under John Swinney, the SNP is admitting that it is out of ideas and out of ambition for Scotland.
Let us just look at some of the proposals that we have heard today. On eradicating child poverty, we all want to see that happen. We all want to do that. I can see that the First Minister is leaning forward and I know what he is going to ask about, but why has it taken 17 years? He has been in government ?for 16 of those years. Why is it only now, in 2024, that eradicating child poverty is finally a priority for this Government? [Interruption.] I am about to allow his intervention—will he accept that the level of child poverty has gone up since the SNP came to power in 2007?
I point out to Mr Ross that the Government of which I have been a member—although I had a year out of government—introduced the Scottish child payment, which is the boldest and biggest intervention to tackle child poverty in Europe since the 1980s. The reason why we had to do that was that child poverty was spiralling because of the austerity that Douglas Ross voted for in the House of Commons. Now, child poverty in Scotland is significantly lower than it is in the rest of the United Kingdom—
It is higher!
It is higher than it was when we came into office because of Tory austerity.
Briefly.
That is why it is higher.
Finally, what position is Douglas Ross in to lecture me about child poverty when he voted for the two-child benefit cap and is proud of it?
John Swinney speaks about legislation that he and the Governments that he was part of introduced, but what about the legislation that was introduced in 2017 that set the targets for reducing child poverty? Those targets have failed to be met. They will not be met because the SNP’s governance of Scotland has seen child poverty increase rather than decrease or be eradicated.
I will turn to some other important issues in the programme for government, such as the national health service. It is crucial that we focus on our NHS, because every one of us will have cases, which are articulated weekly in the Scottish Parliament, of patient suffering. However, we did not get any proper, new information on that from the First Minister or the Government today; it will be more of the same. Those changes will be delivered despite a huge cut to the NHS budget, which was announced yesterday. I do not think that any patient or family of a patient who was watching the programme for government statement will have taken any comfort from what they heard from John Swinney.
We welcome John Swinney’s proposals to change ministerial investigations. I wonder whether that is a belated recognition from him that he got it wrong in supporting his friend Michael Matheson. That shameful episode brought shame not just on John Swinney as a person, but on the office of First Minister. I wonder whether that is why he has decided to allow the independent adviser on the ministerial code of conduct to be involved. Clearly, John Swinney got it wrong by backing his friend rather than doing the right thing for the people of Scotland. [Interruption.]
There is an awful lot that is being chuntered from members on the front benches. In the 30 minutes of the First Minister’s speech, there was not a single mention of drugs or alcohol; that did not register once. That is not a priority for John Swinney or the SNP Government, just a month after we heard that, in 2023, 1,172 people in Scotland died from drugs, which was an increase of 121 on the year before. It is going to be a priority and a defining mission of his Government to end those deaths, but they do not even get a mention. That is shameful from this SNP Government, which took its eye off the ball with drug and alcohol deaths, and it is still doing that by ignoring the situation as it is right now.
The programme for government is yet another wasted opportunity from the SNP Government—and there are not many opportunities left for it. As well as things that have been included in the programme for government, there are other things that have been excluded. There was one small reference to the A9, but where was the commitment to fully dual the A96 from Inverness to Aberdeen? The First Minister has had a lot to say, and I will take his intervention. Does his Government still support the dualling of the A96 from Inverness to Aberdeen, and when will that crucial road to be fully dualled?
He has nothing to say.
Nothing. He had plenty to say a minute ago.
The A96 is a crucial link between two of Scotland’s biggest cities, Inverness and Aberdeen. It goes through communities that have been promised a full upgrade and a dualling of that road by the SNP for decades, yet there is not a single word on that in the programme for government, and now there is not a single word from the First Minister about it. The communities of the north-east can see that they are not a priority for this SNP First Minister.
This would have been an opportunity—[Interruption.] I am sorry, I thought that someone wanted to intervene, but SNP members are just wondering why their First Minister had nothing to say about that. The programme for government could have been an opportunity to focus on education, health and improving public services, but instead we got more of the same.
[Made a request to intervene.]
Do I have time to take an intervention?
No.
I am sorry—I am sure that we will hear from Keith Brown later.
These are the same failings, the same incompetence and the same focus on the wrong priorities. This was the time to change gear, to turn things around and to focus on the priorities of the Scottish public. Instead, we have continuity from a First Minister who is the embodiment of continuity. The SNP has already lost control of the public finances, and it will soon lose control of the Scottish Government. It has let the people of Scotland down, and it deserves to pay the price for that.
I advise members that we have no time in hand, so any interventions will have to be accommodated in the time allocations.
15:40
I start by acknowledging today’s powerful and important inquiry report on Grenfell tower. The fire was an absolute tragedy for all the families who lost loved ones, and we all have a duty to stand with those families—families who were ultimately failed—in their demand for justice. I hope that the Government will, at the appropriate time, give a response and set out the lessons that we can learn in Scotland.
We were promised that the programme for government was meant to be the great relaunch. We were promised a new focus, a new direction and a new plan. Instead, we have more of the same—the same sticking-plaster approach, the same rehashed announcements and the same level of denial from the third First Minister in three years.
Scotland needed a programme for government that recognised the scale of the challenge that our country faces: stagnating growth, record-long NHS waiting lists, falling education standards, rising levels of drug deaths—the First Minister did not even mention that issue, which is supposed to be a priority for the Government—and a housing emergency. Instead, we have an SNP Government with no vision, no strategy and no plan. That is why it is getting clearer by the day that Scotland needs change.
All the signs are that the SNP is simply running down the clock on the last 18 months of this parliamentary session. Year after year, programme for government after programme for government, we see the same pattern. Long lists of pledges are made—a lot of them are well intentioned and well meaning—but, immediately after the headlines have been grabbed, things start to fall apart. Many of the promises that are made by SNP First Ministers in these speeches simply never see the light of day. For those that do, implementation is often so haphazard and incompetent that it undermines the intentions of the Parliament and what people across the country want and demand.
I am wondering about Labour’s definition of change. Labour promised that energy bills would be reduced by £300, but they have gone up by 10 per cent. Is that really the kind of change that Scotland wants?
I am glad that the Deputy First Minister, who was meant to be the change candidate but who never actually stood in the end, wants to try to blame a Government that has been in power for eight weeks rather than take responsibility for a Government that has been in power for 17 years.
Worse still, many of the Government’s plans pile yet more pressure on Scotland’s public services and leave working people paying more and getting less.
Will Mr Sarwar give way?
I have just started my contribution.
However, we can break through that managed decline and demonstrate that we can have an effective Government in Scotland that delivers for the Scottish people. [Interruption.] That is why, unlike the gloom of John Swinney and Shona Robison, I am optimistic about the future of this country and believe that Scotland’s best days lie ahead of it. [Interruption.]
Mr Sarwar, could you resume your seat? I have allowed a bit of leeway for reactions to comments, but the on-going brouhaha—particularly, let it be said, from those on the front benches—is unacceptable. We will listen with some respect to the person who has the floor and, at the moment, that is Anas Sarwar.
The SNP said that it would learn the lessons from the verdict of the Scottish people. Clearly, it is not learning the lessons of the verdict of the Scottish people.
On that point, will Mr Sarwar give way?
The First Minister had 30 minutes to speak, and I have barely had three minutes so far.
What I have said requires a Government that is honest about the scale of the challenge that it faces and that focuses on tackling those challenges. That is the test that the programme for government needed to pass, but it has failed. We need a Government that gets on with the job of reversing the damage that has been done by the SNP Government—a party that has lost its way, is incompetent in government and is bad with people’s money.
The First Minister leads an Administration that raises revenue and can grow the economy and make laws here in Scotland. It has control of our NHS, schools, housing and justice, but more often than not—as we have heard again today—it would rather talk about what it cannot do than what it can do. It is always making excuses, and there is always somebody else to blame. To be frank, as the election in July showed, Scots are sick of it.
We need to build an NHS that is fit for the future and is there when people need it, so that we can have a genuine catch-up plan and clear the backlog, which now sits at 864,366 Scots. That is one in six Scots on an NHS waiting list, and those numbers continue to grow.
It is the same story across the NHS—brave staff are trying to deliver services in impossible circumstances, all while the Government ignores the problem. The number of operations that are being scheduled remains at well below pre-pandemic levels. There are still more than 3,000 nursing and midwifery vacancies. Delayed discharge rates continue to rise but, despite that, nothing in the programme for government will tackle the record numbers of long waits in our NHS and get our healthcare system working for patients again.
The First Minister declared that this was a programme for government for Scotland’s children, but it is clear that this incompetent Government, yet again, has no plan for Scotland’s young people.
Just yesterday, his Government cut mental health support to young people. Nearly one in six children and young people who need support with mental health are forced to wait more than four months to get help. Shamefully, one in four children who ask for help with a mental health crisis are turned away. Families are abandoned by the SNP Government, and his plan does nothing to help them.
It is the same story in education. The SNP has broken its promise on the attainment gap, with results showing its widening on John Swinney’s watch. Let us not forget that this is the same man who attempted to downgrade the exam results of working-class kids during the pandemic. On his watch, Scotland is falling in the international league tables.
For all the talk of teacher numbers, more than 400 teacher posts have been cut in Glasgow alone, all while violence in our schools is on the rise. Despite that, nothing in the programme will get to grips with the crisis in Scotland’s schools.
In the past 12 months, there have been record levels of drug deaths in this country, but nothing in the programme for government attempts to deal with that crisis.
Scotland’s housing crisis is getting worse. Hard-working Scots, who are looking to buy their first home, are priced out of the market, and too many are struggling to make ends meet while rents rise and rise. A shocking 10,000 children are in temporary accommodation without a home to call their own.
Across Scotland, communities are left feeling unsafe because, on the Scottish Government’s watch, our justice system is broken and we have a crumbling police estate and a huge court backlog. Again, there is nothing in the programme for government to address that.
The programme for government is not up to the scale of the challenges that face Scotland, but change is possible. In 2026, we can elect a Government that is optimistic and positive about the future for Scotland; a Government that is about service, not party; a Government that is about delivering for the people of Scotland, not seeing politics as a game; and a Government of decency, integrity and honesty, not defending our pals.
We have a First Minister who wants to announce a change to the ministerial code today but forgets his behaviour in the Alex Salmond inquiry or, indeed, the Michael Matheson scandal.
We can elect a Government that gets on with strengthening and reforming our institutions in Scotland, which 17 years of SNP Government have left weaker. We can elect a Government that wants to change our country for the better and realise the hopes and aspirations of the people of Scotland; a Government of service for Scotland; and a Government that will reform our NHS and make it fit for the future.
We can elect a Government that will get our education system back on track and make it, once again, the envy of the world. We can elect a Government that will partner with business to jump start economic growth and deliver prosperity for Scotland; a Government that will take head-on the housing emergency and realise the dream of home ownership; and a Government that delivers change.
Scotland needs change. It is sick of the failing SNP Government, and Scottish Labour is ready to deliver that change.
15:49
I associate myself with colleagues’ remarks about the tragedy of Grenfell tower.
Today’s programme for government is billed as prioritising future generations, but the decisions that the Scottish Government made this week do exactly the opposite. We cannot take today’s programme for government on its own without looking at the context of yesterday’s fiscal update.
The slashing of public spending, particularly on our journey to net zero, is selling out the future of our young people. The suggestion that we can continue with business as usual to deliver all the same things while spending less money is, to be frank, delusional. Some clarity about what the Scottish Government will not be able to deliver would be welcome.
The Scottish Greens support the First Minister’s vision to eradicate child poverty, but the shelving of plans to roll out free school meals for all primary school children, as appears to be set out in today’s programme for government, will make that worse, not better. In addition to funding and programmes, ensuring our children have a future that is worth living—a future full of opportunity and hope—also requires us to make the tough decisions that are now required to prevent catastrophic climate breakdown.
We cannot grow a green economy without substantial investment, and more of that investment needs to come from the private sector. That is exactly what the ScotWind funding was. It was supposed to be our green sovereign wealth fund, to invest in solutions to the climate and nature emergencies, including community-owned renewables and training the next generation of engineers. What we saw yesterday was the Scottish Government emptying the pot, spending the last remaining ScotWind funding while slashing net zero investment, and continuing to give handouts to big business.
On the planned climate change targets bill, the Scottish Greens have reluctantly accepted that, although the 2030 net zero target is now out of reach, that is due to 15 years during which Governments fixated on targets while failing to make the big changes needed to drive down emissions. The Scottish Greens can only support a change to climate targets if it is accompanied by a significant ramping up of action—a climate reset—where we finally stop building new roads and new fossil-fuel power stations, put climate change at the top of the political and public agenda, and significantly ramp up the decarbonisation of our homes and public buildings.
I am also deeply concerned by the failure to include in the legislative programme a bill to ban conversion practices. The proposal for a bill started out as a petition to this Parliament more than four years ago from campaigners whose lives had been impacted by the trauma of so-called conversion therapy. The Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee concluded more than two years ago that Scotland-specific legislation should be introduced as soon as possible, and although the Scottish Greens would wholly welcome an eventual United Kingdom-wide ban, we in Scotland have the mandate to deliver a watertight ban now, which would end this cruel and inhumane torture that is going on behind closed doors in Scotland. The Scottish Government should confirm when it will press the button on that draft legislation, and it must ensure that we have legislation in place before the next election. Now is the time to show boldness, not to cower to the reactionary forces of the right.
This is the first programme for government in four years that the Scottish Greens did not co-design, and it shows. Continuing to hand out tax breaks to private companies while scrapping free bus travel for asylum seekers is not something that the Scottish Greens would ever have agreed to. Emptying out our green sovereign wealth fund while cutting overall funding for net zero by £23 million is a betrayal of future generations and an abandoning of our responsibility to tackle the climate emergency. Shelving vital legislation on equalities and human rights cannot be blamed on budget cuts and can be put down only to cowardice from the SNP Government.
We have 18 months left of this session of Parliament to build a fairer and greener Scotland that leaves our society—
You need to conclude.
—and our planet in a better shape for future generations. The SNP might have given up on that mission, but the Scottish Greens never will.
15:54
The Parliament reconvenes this week for the first time since the UK general election. In many ways, the public—the people of Scotland, whom we are here to serve—used that election to render their judgment on the focus and the priorities of the SNP Scottish Government. It was a brutal night for the SNP, but it was an historic night for the Liberal Democrats. We overtook the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party, we came within touching distance of the number of SNP MPs returning to Westminster and, viewed from space, we now represent more geographical territory north of the border than even the Scottish Labour Party. People place their trust in us, and we will repay that trust in full.
As we return to the chamber, we are faced with brutal spending cuts that are set to cause untold damage and pain to public services and households across Scotland, and they will define the remainder of the current session of Parliament. Some of that pain is the residual legacy of the economic damage that the previous Conservative UK Government caused, but that does not tell the whole story. Much of the pressure comes from the Scottish Government’s own decisions. That is the judgment of the Scottish Fiscal Commission, and it paints a bleak picture of the Government’s management of our finances.
It is not hard to see how we got here. The Scottish Government has played fast and loose with the Scottish people’s money and has squandered much of our potential. There is a £1 billion ministerial takeover of social care that will strip power away from our communities. There are ferries that are millions upon millions of pounds over budget and years overdue. Scotland’s precious sea bed was sold off on the cheap. There was a time when the First Minister’s predecessor—of whom we seldom speak—called Scotland, given its renewables potential, the Saudi Arabia of the north. That came from a party that attacked Margaret Thatcher for decades for failing to set up a sovereign wealth fund for the oil beneath our sea bed. Yesterday, the SNP destroyed any chance of a long-term fund being established from the wind farms that are now being built on it. It is Scotland’s wind, but the SNP has blown it. The Government has still not been entirely clear, but it now looks as though all that one-off revenue is fully committed. In that case, yesterday’s announcement might plug half the hole that the Government has created in our national finances, but the question remains: what on earth will plug that gap next year?
The SNP claims to be “stronger for Scotland”, but the facts do not bear that out. In the programme for government, there is no mention of drug deaths, which are still at record highs; of reducing teacher contact time; or of recruiting 3,500 teachers or assistants. There is no reassurance on culture. Most criminally, there will be a £19 million cut to mental health budgets. The First Minister has reset the target to clear down child and adolescent mental health waiting times—the new target is December 2025—because the Government missed the original one of March 2023.
The First Minister likes to talk about conducting politics in a more grown-up fashion. In grown-up politics, however, politicians must listen to what the country is telling them. The SNP was humbled at the ballot box, and people are speaking. It is now self-evident that his party is incapable of listening. The country is tired. It is tired of feeling that nothing works any more, of working harder and of falling further behind. As we debate the priorities of this Government for the parliamentary year ahead, let me spell out the messages that we have heard door to door and street by street from the people of this country.
We need to fix our health services, with fast access to GPs, dentists and mental health services. We need to deliver world-beating education and a green jobs revolution to get our economy growing again. We need to insulate homes so that the pensioners whose winter fuel payments are being removed by the Labour Government have a chance of staying warm this winter. That is what the Liberal Democrats want to do. We also want to fight for a fair deal for carers. There are thousands of people with long Covid who the Scottish Government has ignored for years. We want to support small businesses, protect local authority funding and stop sewage being dumped in our rivers.
Scottish National Party infighting has sucked focus and dedication away from the central mission of public service that should define Government of any stripe. The SNP remains divided, but Scotland has signalled that it wants to move on from that division. A house that is divided cannot stand. In 20 months’ time, there will be young people casting their votes for the first time who have only ever known SNP rule. It is well past time that they knew a Scotland that is not weighed down or held back by a Government that is so out of touch.
We move to the open debate.
16:00
I am sure that the First Minister wishes that we, like independent Ireland, had the issue of how to spend a surplus of around €8.6 billion. Little Ireland, disdained by the UK commentariat after some property exuberance pre-credit crunch, has come back with bigger tiger teeth. Taking the opportunity to replace the UK as a gateway to Europe and pitching well above its weight in the world, it is unique in wrestling with a surplus challenge. Meanwhile, the UK economy, which is one of the hardest hit of all the large advanced economies and the slowest to recover from the credit crunch, was economically badly prepared for the Covid pandemic and has struggled since.
No optimism can be seen coming from the new UK Labour Government. That it has adopted the Tory fiscal rules, which are made up anyway, underpins the fact that austerity is a policy choice. The Labour Government has fully embraced the idiocy of Brexit, and the only thing that we can be certain of—contrary to what we heard when Labour was last in power and told us that things could only get better—is that things will absolutely get much worse.
We should never forget that that is the backdrop against which we are required to operate in Scotland, where we must be grateful for the capital expenditure crumbs that represent a 20 per cent reduction in the moneys that are available to invest and grow our economy, and where the revenue budget has not taken account of the height of consumer prices index inflation, which reached 18.9 per cent over the past three years.
What of today’s programme for government? I am very aware that it has been drawn together in the most difficult of times. The UK budget will not come out until the end of October, and the final amount that will be available for the Scottish Government will not be known until February 2025, so I celebrate what I have heard today is in it. I am pleased that it targets key areas rather than taking the broad-brush approach that was adopted previously. I am especially pleased to see its focus on economic growth. I welcome, of course, the signing of the Falkirk growth deal, the focus on a just transition for Grangemouth and the fact that the resources will now be made available to allow Creative Scotland to open the open fund. The investment in the Techscaler programme is also very important.
However, what is most pleasing to me is the £600 million for affordable housing and the further £100 million for mid-market rent homes. I note with interest the comments on stage 2 of the Housing (Scotland) Bill, which make me optimistic as they recognise the need for developers to have a clear line of sight on future margins and their return on investment. I really welcome that.
Returning to Ireland, I note that the intention of the Government there is not to spend its surplus—it plans to save for the future. On that note, I again gently express my concern about ScotWind funds being used for revenue. I fully accept that the finance secretary will protect as much money as she can, but I note that the imperatives of moving to net zero and of growing the economy both hinge on using that money, ideally by crowding in private investment and potentially by the Scottish Government taking a golden share to reach the £1.5 billion that is set out in the statement.
16:03
In her statement yesterday, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance said that she felt that Opposition members should put on the table what we would do differently with the nation’s finances. I agree with her on that, and I look forward to taking up that challenge in the next three months.
Before I do that, however, I will say something about what I think has happened this summer. First, there has been confirmation from independent analysts that the fiscal predicament in which the Scottish Government finds itself has resulted largely from decisions that have been taken in Holyrood. Secondly, we are nowhere near the level of public service reform that we would like to be at, and we are therefore not delivering the efficiencies and greater savings for which the Finance and Public Administration Committee has been calling for quite some time. I think that there has also been recognition in quite a few quarters that it is time to examine, with evidence, the case for some of the universal payments. I noted carefully that the cabinet secretary acknowledged that yesterday.
I know that it is difficult to take away all the constitutional debate about how to interpret the “Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland”—GERS—statistics but, if we do that, we find that the current demographic trends and the fact that we have a very high incidence of economic inactivity, which is true elsewhere, plus the fact that the Scottish economy has been seriously lagging behind the UK economy for at least a decade, mean that we are not in any way producing the growth that we desperately need to pay for an increasingly dependent population.
One of the issues that Liz Smith has championed in her time in the Parliament has been that of migration. She has been very open-minded about the benefits of economic migration to Scotland. I wonder whether, in her analysis of the economic situation that we face and the importance that is attached to population growth as a driver of economic growth, she will reaffirm her support for some of the measures that I announced today, such as that on a rural visa pilot, to encourage and motivate greater migration into some parts of our country.
Yes, I will. I have said that before and I will repeat it again. I have also said that about student visas. I do not want devolution of migration policy, but I think that there is a case for those proposals, so I am happy to put that back on the record.
I come back to what businesses are saying. They worry greatly about the increasing tax burden that is on them and the effect that that is having on middle to high earners, who we desperately need for some of the industries that the First Minister talked about. We have to attract them to Scotland. In financial services, energy, technology and food and drink, Scotland has latent potential, but we need to develop that and develop it fast.
I will say what I think needs to happen. First, the budget choices, as well as the rhetoric, must reflect economic growth. That did not happen last February, when, for some inexplicable reason, the Scottish National Party Government made an 8.3 per cent real-terms cut in the economy portfolio. I did not understand that at the time and I do not understand it now. Not surprisingly, that budget was met with considerable dismay across the business community.
Secondly, as the Finance and Public Administration Committee has been highlighting for quite some time, there has to be meaningful public sector reform that will make the public sector more efficient, because we are nowhere near being able to do that just now. Based on the evidence that the committee has taken and from the analysis that accompanies that, it is just not an option to go on as we are. In fact, I suggest to the First Minister that that issue should also be a considerable priority for the Scottish Government. In terms of delivery, it is all very well to pay public sector workers more, as we would obviously all like to do, but we cannot go on doing that without getting better services in return, because the public will not wear that at all.
On tax, the very last thing that we should be doing is making Scotland uncompetitive with England, but that is exactly what is happening now. Yesterday, I flagged up the fact that the Deputy First Minister and the First Minister have very different opinions about tax policy.
You need to wind up.
I will finish in a minute. This point has to be taken on board by those in Government, because they are giving out a mixed message about what has to happen. I will finish on this point: can we please get clarity about tax policy and how it is supposed to help economic growth?
16:08
This programme for government is necessarily both realistic and robust, as a prolonged era of austerity imposed on Scotland by successive Labour, coalition and Tory UK Governments over the past 16 years limits Scottish Government actions and the fiscal context in which it operates. I whole-heartedly agree with the finance secretary’s response to last week’s Prime Ministerial speech, when she said:
“The political choices being made by the new UK Government will fundamentally damage our”—
that is, the Scottish Government’s—
“ability to deliver public services in Scotland.”
It is a rerun of 1997 all over again. Back then, new Labour’s first budget cut public spending. As a Glasgow city councillor, I saw cuts and mass redundancies imposed, leading to demonstrations in George Square and councillors being sneaked out the back door. There are other parallels from Labour’s déjà vu playbook. Despite there being no mention of the issue in Labour’s 1997 manifesto, immediately after the results were in, it announced the introduction of university tuition fees, cynically calculating that that would not impact on it electorally four or five years later.
This time, it is the winter fuel payment. There was no inkling of that in the Labour manifesto and, no doubt, Labour hopes that voters will simply forget. No impact assessment was undertaken on withdrawing the payment from 10 million UK pensioners. Labour’s manifesto did not mention rising energy bills, prisoner releases in England, or cuts to artificial intelligence development in Scotland, and no one believes that the chancellor did not know about the financial black hole bequeathed by the Tories. All shadow ministers routinely meet civil service heads and Treasury officials in the run-up to a UK general election, even if it had not been telegraphed by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
The new UK prospectus forces Scottish ministers to make tough decisions and reallocate limited resources after years of working to offset the worst excesses of UK austerity and welfare cuts.
Does Kenneth Gibson recognise that the Office for Budget Responsibility has noted that many of the issues that were bequeathed to Labour in the budget were a massive black hole, particularly issues around asylum seeker and refugee homelessness in the UK? It has written a letter dictating that.
It was a black hole that everyone knew about.
This year, the mitigation of UK welfare cuts will cost this Government £133.7 million. I believe that cuts telegraphed by the chancellor mean that those resources must be redirected into devolved areas. According to Anas Sarwar, Labour will
“put Scotland at the heart of Government”.
That includes the Secretary of State for Scotland, Ian Murray, who frequently criticised SNP mitigation, stating:
“The only sure way to get the bedroom tax repealed will be to elect a Labour Government.”
Labour should now scrap the bedroom tax across the UK, eliminating any need for mitigation. Indeed, if the Labour Government also mirrored the £26.70 per child per week Scottish child payment across the UK, it would free up £429 million a year for the Scottish ministers to invest in further anti-poverty measures and public services, but do not hold your breath.
For Scotland to escape the cycle of UK Government cuts and the emergency reallocation of funds mid-year, we must widen our tax base by growing our economy. Resources must increasingly focus on innovation, research and development and start-ups, and I was pleased to hear the First Minister’s commitment to that.
We have the talent, skills and many facilities that are essential to becoming Europe’s fastest-growing start-up economy. Scotland’s £42 million Techscaler network, mentoring and incubation space for new tech businesses has already levered in £70 million of private moneys. Scottish Enterprise has drawn up levels of innovation, internationalisation and investment, working with more than 1,300 companies and partners to enable, create or safeguard 16,700 jobs, including a five-year high in new jobs from foreign direct investment, 60 per cent of which are in energy transition. My constituency will enjoy £1.4 billion of XLCC investment into Hunterston, creating 900 direct green jobs on site by 2028.
In life sciences, which are Scotland’s second biggest export, securing investment outwith Cambridge, Oxford and London is not easy. The University of Dundee supports 9,400 jobs and generated £1 billion for our economy last year, not least through its drug discovery unit, which is unique in excellence, research scale and industrial partnerships with the private sector. Just £5 million proof of concept money from the Scottish ministers could, the university attests, lever in £200 million of further private investment.
Stimulating economic growth will enable public service delivery to the high standard that is expected by Scotland’s people. The programme for government has noble aims and objectives, and I urge members to support it.
16:12
I am pleased to speak on this year’s programme for government, because the stakes could not be higher. For too many of my constituents in the region of Glasgow—and, indeed, for people across Scotland—NHS waiting lists are too long, the attainment gap is widening, teachers are losing their jobs, disabled people are living without the services that they need, social care is on its knees and the SNP’s financial chaos means that more cuts are looming.
At a time when people needed their Government to step up, it has stepped back, grown out of touch and run out of ideas. Last week, the First Minister met Glasgow Disability Alliance, which I know will have raised concerns about reduced services such as social care. However, yesterday, the finance secretary told the Finance and Public Administration Committee that there are to be £13 million of cuts in adult social care, partly because uptake of the new independent living fund, which it delayed delivery of, was not what it should be. Those cuts will terrify disabled people. Further, the promised transition strategy does not even get a mention, despite the Government rejecting my bill on the promise that a strategy would come. That has to change.
On health, I heard nothing in today’s statement that will help my constituent who has been waiting for knee surgery for two years, while promises on mental health waits ring hollow when the finance secretary slashed £18.18 million from that budget yesterday. People in Glasgow deserve better. So, too, do the people of Scotland—none more than young people. I will use the rest of my time to talk about them and education.
The programme for government says that it includes the implementation of the delayed behaviour action plan, but there is no resource behind it to help staff and schools to deliver it. Yesterday, the cabinet secretary dodged my suggestion of ditching the centre of teaching excellence that no one wants and giving that money to schools to implement the plan. I hope that the First Minister might consider that today.
I thank the member for the opportunity to clarify matters. I did not suggest that her suggestion was ditched. I said that we need to continue to invest in Scotland’s teaching profession through the centre of teaching excellence and that I think that we need additionality. The question that I put to the member—perhaps she can answer it today—is this: when am I going to receive confirmation from the Labour Government of the consequentials that are allegedly coming as a result of VAT changes to the private sector and—
Briefly.
—the consequentials from the 6,500 extra teachers that the Labour Party was elected on? I would like confirmation of that so that I can provide—
I call Pam Duncan-Glancy.
I welcome the cabinet secretary’s intervention. She knows fine well that she will hear clarity on that after the budget. [Interruption.]
The cabinet secretary also says that delivering excellence and equity in education is her top priority but that she cannot do that with fewer teachers. However, the Government is slashing teacher numbers—just ask people in Glasgow.
The Government is also overworking teachers and stripping resources from education and local government. How can we have the highest-quality learning for all when this Government is presiding over a 17 per cent attainment gap that goes back, I am afraid, to the First Minister’s time as education secretary? The Government used to plan to close that gap, and I note today that it has revised down its ambition to simply reducing the gap.
The First Minister says that his Government will drive improvement, raise standards and ensure that the needs of learners are at the forefront of its work by implementing curriculum improvement and progressing reform of the national education bodies. However, I am afraid that a rebrand is not reform. Having no effective voice for teachers or learners is not reform, and letting the qualifications body that marked down the poorest pupils mark its own homework is not reform.
The First Minister also said much today about growth, but there was nothing there to help colleges or universities, which are essential for growth and struggling under the Government’s toughest funding settlement after years of SNP mismanagement, to quote from evidence that the Education, Children and Young People Committee received.
The SNP Government’s record on education is a litany of failure and broken promises on closing the attainment gap, class sizes, non-contact time, free school meals for all pupils and digital devices. It cannot go on. We need an end to broken promises and economic and financial mismanagement. Scotland needs hope, and my colleagues and I have it, because we believe that our best days lie ahead of us. We can turn the page on economic mismanagement and return to a Scotland where everyone has the opportunity to flourish.
16:17
I welcome the opportunity to speak in the programme for government debate. So much has been mentioned that will need to be dissected in the coming weeks. This year’s programme for government has set out clear actions to deliver real change for the people of Scotland, against the most challenging financial backdrop since our Parliament was reconvened.
Last week, the Prime Minister was clear that the UK budget that will be delivered in October will be painful. The reality is that the UK’s finances will inevitably affect the funding that is available to us in Scotland. The SNP Scottish Government will continue to prioritise action to eradicate child poverty, grasp the opportunities of delivering net zero and grow the economy by attracting business investment and bolstering our public services. Although the Scottish Government will work with the UK Government wherever it can, it will continue to urge the UK Government to drop its impending damaging austerity agenda.
I will make only two points. The first is about Labour's shameless cut to the winter fuel payment, which will hit older people in Dumfries and Galloway and the Borders particularly hard. The second is about how the programme for government will benefit Dumfries and Galloway. Labour’s plan to strictly means test the winter fuel payment in England and Wales sees the Scottish Government’s funding for this newly devolved benefit suddenly reduced by £168 million. Devolving a benefit shortly after removing almost its entire budget is disrespectful to everybody who is involved in shaping the new policy in Scotland. That cut undermines the devolution settlement and ignores the importance of the payment to Scottish households, which face harsher winters and higher energy costs.
That will hit our pensioners in rural communities such as Dumfries and Galloway and the Borders particularly hard. The fact is that the cut is coming from Labour—the party that, just six weeks ago, said that it would.
“give pensioners security in retirement.”
In June, Anas Sarwar said:
“Read my lips: no austerity under Labour.”
Given that the “read my lips” soundbite came from right-wing Republican President George Bush Sr’s 1988 address to the Republican convention, it is hardly surprising that Anas Sarwar is aligning himself with the right-wing Republican playbook. The fact that Labour’s decision was made without any consultation with the Scottish Government has undermined Keir Starmer’s commitment to establish a better working relationship. The cut to the winter fuel payment is shameful, and I call on the UK Government to reverse it.
I welcome the fact that the SNP Government has prioritised economic growth and helping businesses, including those in Dumfries and Galloway, to grow and flourish. From tourism to finance and technology to food and drink exports, the Scottish Government will work to create growth and jobs and maximise the huge economic opportunities that lie ahead.
I also welcome the fact that the First Minister has included in the programme for government items on innovation, supporting entrepreneurs, and artificial intelligence and digital technology. We know how valuable AI can be in healthcare. I remind the chamber that I am still a registered nurse.
The First Minister has made it clear that the SNP Scottish Government is a firmly pro-business Administration. Scotland is open for business. The SNP is acutely aware of the enormous pressures that face businesses across the country and is taking decisive steps to offer support, despite the fact that we have limited powers and are working within a challenging budget. That includes investing more than £5 million across the Scottish Government to grow and transform our economic landscape and using every tool at our disposal to maximise economic growth for a clear purpose.
I again welcome the programme for government, which is good for our priorities, good for our people and good for our communities.
16:21
I welcome the First Minister’s statement, but the time for empty promises is running out. Every year, the Government sets out its agenda in an attempt to improve lives across Scotland, yet when it comes to implementing that agenda, it consistently falls short of the mark. Instead of delivering for Scotland, the Scottish Government—through its own spending choices—has delivered an ever-gaping financial black hole.
It is alarming that, beyond ditching its climate change goals, the SNP would defund conservation to plug other holes that it has created through its own spending decisions. Councils and NatureScot will be left with nothing to spend on preserving our beautiful natural environment for future generations. As Conservative members, we urge ministers to reconsider, given the damage that that will cause to at-risk species, and to properly fund councils for any deals that they have struck elsewhere. Nature should not be a trivial consideration for the SNP, as the funding decision that it has taken would suggest.
As in previous years, the programme for government is nothing more than rhetoric that is designed to conceal a lack of substance and ambition. Rural communities will again be disappointed by today’s announcements. Freed from the shackles of the Green Party, the Government had the opportunity to bring forward sensible and pragmatic plans that would afford it the chance to reset, but although the Bute house agreement is over, the Government’s legacy of broken promises continues.
Rural issues were scarcely mentioned in the First Minister’s statement or in the programme for government, and farmers are still out of pocket to the tune of £46 million of ring-fenced funding. That funding was taken from the agriculture budget, leaving those who rely on that money facing uncertainty and feeling let down.
Does the member recall the time that Jonnie Hall told the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee that not a single penny of the funding that was being delivered to the agricultural community had not been spent? It was not the Scottish Government but the Treasury that confirmed that.
Jim Fairlie will remember all the to-and-fro in the chamber with the finance secretary, who promised to return that £46 million. The SNP Government’s own finance secretary has acknowledged that that money has been removed, and so has the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands, Mairi Gougeon. Jim Fairlie is confusing his recollection with his Cabinet’s account.
I welcome the First Minister’s acknowledgement that we need to build more homes. However, with only 10 per cent of new affordable homes being built in rural areas, which account for 17 per cent of the population, it is clear that the Government’s actions to date have failed to address that urgent issue, exacerbating depopulation and driving young people out of their own areas.
Does the member think it unfortunate that Tory-led Scottish Borders Council handed back £8 million to the Scottish Government because it failed to spend it timeously on building houses?
The housing budget needs to sort out depopulation across Scotland but it is not doing so, because it is driving young people out of Scotland—moreover, so is the taxation policy.
Significant inequalities in mental health care for adults and young people continue to hit rural communities. Young people in the Borders are being let down today by the Government, as they were let down yesterday, last month and last year, as only 40 per cent of those referred to child and adolescent mental health services are starting treatment within the 18-week target. I am contacted daily by constituents who struggle to access mental health support. It is simply unacceptable that my and our constituents and residents across Scotland must wait until 2025 for the Government to fix its own problems.
I will conclude. I could say so much more, but let me just say that there was fantastic potential for rural communities and for the Government to deliver for them, but it has let them down.
16:26
This debate started off as a rather sleepy affair by the Scottish Government, which is a fair reflection of a Government that has lost touch with the public after years of scandal and incompetence. It has lost its way and, as we heard yesterday, it simply cannot be trusted with the public’s money.
It is also difficult to see in the document before us, and in the First Minister’s speech, what is actually new. We should perhaps look at some of last year’s commitments. The Government failed to reduce NHS waiting lists as it promised last year, which are now at a record high, with almost one in six Scots facing those waits; it failed to improve the cancer outcomes as it promised last year, with targets that continue to be missed; it failed to close the attainment gap as it promised not just last year but many years previously, with attainment in schools dropping in the latest results; it failed to produce key strategies for industry, the energy sector and our environment; and it failed to deal with the court backlog in our justice system. It is little wonder that people are sceptical when they hear some of the promises and assurances that the First Minister and some of his colleagues have given.
I hope that the First Minister will look carefully at the example of our artistic sector and Creative Scotland funding and recognise the real concern and anger among that community about the livelihoods of people who often earn very low wages pursuing occupations that they love and who add very much not just to our economy but to our society and culture. I hope that he would recognise the great fear that the community has lived in in recent weeks; the Government’s chaotic approach to its finances and agencies has put that community in fear for their livelihoods. It is right—and it is no surprise—that protests will take place here this week by members of that sector, who very much doubt some of the assurances that the First Minister has given them today. Cuts have been made previously; the money was put back in, and then taken out and then put back in again. That is just one example of his Government’s chaotic approach.
Meanwhile, a UK Labour Government is getting on with fixing the foundations of our economy. That is the start of a long job of rebuilding our public finances and putting politics back firmly in the service of working people. I will tell members what we are doing to start that process: we have introduced legislation to establish GB energy, which will be a publicly owned energy company that will bring down energy bills; Labour’s new deal for working people is banning exploitative zero-hours contracts and other practices across our economy; and we have commissioned a task force to take a deep dive and address the root causes of child poverty.
Will the member take an intervention?
No, thank you.
We are closing loopholes in the non-dom status so that we can put more money into our public services. We are fixing those public spending issues, which is absolutely critical.
Will the member give way?
No, thank you.
If only someone had thought of the idea of looking at the resources—
Will the member give way?
No, thank you, sir—again.
If only someone had come up with the idea of looking at the resources and the spending and perhaps having a review. They might have called it the resource spending review. Perhaps the Deputy First Minister will recognise her words about having to set out a
“realistic public spending framework for the years ahead”
that
“does not ignore the realities of our financial position”.
If only—that is exactly what her colleagues went on to do.
On 13 June 2023, Shona Robison told the Finance and Public Administration Committee that the resource spending review was
“a bit of a blunt tool”
and that
“the policy needed to be more nuanced than that.”—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 13 June 2023; c 27-28.]
Instead, we have had three emergency budgets of financial chaos and cuts, presided over by the finance secretary and this Cabinet.
You need to wind up.
Little wonder the mess that has been made, and little wonder the lack of faith that people will have in the statement that has been made today.
I call the final speaker in the open debate, Stuart McMillan.
16:30
We have been presented with a programme for government that will prioritise action to eradicate child poverty, regardless of the mounting financial challenge that the SNP Government faces.
The SNP Government already has a strong track record of improving lives in challenging circumstances, but the SNP wants to go further. That is why the First Minister has made eradicating child poverty his central mission, alongside working with business and industry to grow the economy, investing in net zero and delivering stronger public services.
In Scotland, we already have significantly lower child poverty levels than in England and Wales, but that should be no cause for celebration. We can and must do more. This year, Scottish Government policies such as the Scottish child payment are keeping an estimated 100,000 children out of relative poverty. A further 40,000 children could have been lifted out of poverty if the new Labour Westminster Government had voted with the SNP to scrap the two-child benefit cap. In my Greenock and Inverclyde constituency, more than 1,000 children are estimated to be missing out on receiving vital financial support due to that abhorrent policy.
No matter whether it is Labour or the Tories, the SNP Government’s efforts to eradicate child poverty are being undermined by Westminster at every step. However, as the First Minister emphasised today, even when faced with unprecedented budgetary controls due to the constitutional constraints, the Scottish Government’s aim will be to improve people’s lives by focusing on clear priorities that make the biggest difference.
I will touch on a few of the First Minister’s announcements. I welcome the announcement of the special support for disabled people being enhanced across all local authorities by the summer of 2025; the reform of primary care to increase capacity and access to general practice, community pharmacy, dental and community eye care services by the end of 2026; and the additional £120 million for health boards to support continued improvements across a range of mental health services and treatments.
All those things will be welcomed by my Greenock and Inverclyde constituents. They have been lobbying me for those things, and I have lobbied the Scottish Government for them, so I welcome them.
The introduction of the new post-school education reform bill is aimed at tackling economic inactivity and skills shortages in the workforce and removing barriers to employment, which was one of the areas that were highlighted to the Scottish Government by the Inverclyde socioeconomic task force. I am sure that it will welcome the new bill.
Reviewing Creative Scotland will be welcomed widely. As a former member of the parliamentary committee that engaged with the body, I am sure that I will not be alone in the chamber in hoping that the review considers how the body can ensure that it is embedded in towns and villages across the country and not just in the cities.
This programme for government will assist many of my constituents, and individuals across the country, so I support it. Despite more than 14 years of austerity under the Tories and austerity 2.0, which is now under way by Labour, I was shocked by Anas Sarwar’s admission earlier that he was “optimistic about the future.” His statement:
“Read my lips: no austerity under Labour”
defies comprehension when his London boss is telling everyone that the upcoming Labour budget will be painful and that things will only get worse.
When I talk to my constituents, when folk are going to local food banks on collection days or when pensioners are struggling to heat their homes, I will ensure that I let them know that Mr Sarwar is optimistic about their future.
We move to winding-up speeches. I call Patrick Harvie to speak for up to five minutes.
16:34
We have heard a few familiar tunes this afternoon. From the Conservatives, the familiar tune that we need to be spending much more on everything but raising much less tax was no great surprise.
The Labour Party used to recognise the context of austerity being imposed by a Tory UK Government, but now that a Labour UK Government is imposing Tory fiscal rules, that context seems to be a bit less relevant somehow. Its tune might be changing a little, but not necessarily for the better.
As for the SNP, the First Minister told us that he wants to govern harder and stronger. I am not quite sure what that means, but it certainly should not mean abandoning the most marginalised people in our society. I am afraid that an element of that has started to creep into the programme for government—and not only in some of its recent decisions, such as the cutting of provision of free bus travel for asylum seekers. That policy costs such a small amount of money, but it has a massive benefit for the individuals who are affected by it.
It is also now entirely unclear what the Government’s position on free school meals will be. It would be helpful if the Government could respond on that, in closing.
It now appears that there are threats to water down rent controls. I am quite sure that the landlord lobby is working overtime to ensure that profiteering in the private rented sector can continue, but it is essential that the Government and the Parliament stand up for tenants’ rights if amendments seek to water down the provision.
I am pleased that the Creative Scotland cuts have been reversed, but the huge anxiety that was created during that period was entirely avoidable.
On the decision to abandon the commitment to legislate in Scotland on conversion practices—to which my colleague referred—I see that the Equality Network has already responded. It said:
“These benefits do not make up for the downsides of waiting for a Westminster Bill—namely, ScotGov losing control of the Bill’s content and timeline for progress.”
I hope that I am able to reassure Patrick Harvie that the Scottish Government continues to work on a Scottish bill on ending conversion practices. We hope to proceed with a four-nations approach, but if that is not possible, the work is continuing and the pace has not changed. we will continue that work, and I look forward to working with Green colleagues on it.
As an individual, the cabinet secretary is fully committed to the principle, but the Government needs to be fully committed to the principle and to the reality of introducing the bill to the Scottish Parliament and letting us legislate on it.
I will move on and talk about some of the other things that are not in the programme for government. A human rights bill is not in there, and that has also been criticised by some people outside the chamber. It causes us to lose the opportunity to legislate for the right to a healthy environment. Perhaps the Government decided that legislating for the right to a healthy environment at the same time as raiding the nature restoration fund would have lacked credibility. I remind Rachael Hamilton, who is such a fan of it, that the nature restoration fund was created by the Greens as a result of the Bute house agreement, which she is also obsessed with.
As for the climate change bill, we know that a new one will be necessary. There needs to be a moment of radical honesty of Scotland acknowledging that we are years behind where we should be on emissions reduction because there has not been the political will to change transport policy, the way that we heat our buildings, the way that we use land or the kind of agriculture that we subsidise. If a new bill is going to be tolerable and supportable, it will have to be in the context that there will be an acceleration of immediate action and not waiting until after carbon budgets are set after advice is taken and after a new climate plan is produced. That would leave paralysis for most of the rest of this parliamentary session, if not longer. If a new climate change bill is to seek political support from this part of the chamber, it will need to be in the context of a radical acceleration of climate action in the short term.
Let me just say that there have, since the SNP moved, by choice, into minority Government, been warning signs that it seems to be determined to abandon the trust of the Scots who wanted a progressive and equal Scotland—a Scotland that is willing to redistribute wealth in order to tackle austerity and that is willing to invest in bold and urgent climate action. As my colleague Lorna Slater said, there are still 18 months in which to prove those fears wrong and to commit to the bold action that is necessary. Even if the SNP abandons that project, the Greens certainly will not.
16:40
Presiding Officer, it is safe to say that it has been a long summer—one that should occasion a period of reflection for the SNP. We would, of course, expect to see recognition of that in the programme for government. The SNP went from 48 members in the UK Parliament to now having only nine MPs. That is what happens when voters think that a party has nothing to offer them. Whether it is about the disappointment for some of its members that, after 17 years, the SNP is no closer to delivering independence, or about its more recent problems with Police Scotland, or about the very real anger at the lack of competence in government, voters are angry at the failure to deliver even the most basic of services, and that anger is focused on the SNP’s record of government in Holyrood.
The lack of progress in tackling NHS waiting lists, the continuing attainment gap, the housing emergency and increasing numbers of people sleeping rough on our streets are all failures that are the responsibility of this SNP Government. People in communities across the country are being offered no hope, no vision and no ideas for making their lives better for the future. That is so depressing when Scotland and its people have so much potential. Scotland’s best days do lie ahead of it, but they will not be realised with this depressing and incompetent Government.
Let us look at the charge sheet, starting with the financial position. Yesterday, the finance secretary went through contortions to tell us that she was not to blame for any of the problems with the almost £1 billion shortfall in her budget. It is all Westminster’s fault. It is the fault of a UK Labour Government that has been in office for eight weeks. Eight weeks! It is nothing to do with decisions that she or her predecessors made. “Go and look somewhere else to lay the blame,” she said. It is a shame that she ignored what the Scottish Fiscal Commission, the Fraser of Allander Institute, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Audit Scotland all said, which was that they are decisions that she and her Government made that are coming home to roost. Michael Marra was right to call her out yesterday for diverting the £460 million of ScotWind money, because it is a one-off payment that will need to be found again in the new financial year, which will have an effect on the delivery of the programme for government.
Will the member give way?
I say as gently as I can to the health secretary that he should spend more time listening and reflecting than on trying to interrupt me. [Interruption.]
Pam Duncan-Glancy highlighted the paucity of thinking by the SNP on education—[Interruption.]
Members! Quiet, please.
—and on everything from the failure to close the attainment gap to the removal of hundreds of teachers from classrooms.
The First Minister also told us about changes that he is making to the ministerial code in the context of the secrecy and lack of transparency that he was responsible for during the Salmond inquiry. That is just beyond funny. What about the recommendation from James Hamilton KC that special advisers should be subject to elements of the ministerial code? Oh, no—there was nothing there at all from John Swinney.
Let me turn to health, where the SNP’s failures are the most stark—[Interruption.]—and Neil Gray should listen to this. [Interruption.]
Ms Baillie, could you pause, please? Thank you.
Can we all hear how quiet the chamber is now? Let us imagine that quiet continuing, with just one person speaking—the person who has been called to do so.
Thank you so much, Presiding Officer.
Waiting lists are now at a staggering 864,000 people, or one in six of our fellow Scots, which is the highest number on record, although the Scottish Government promised to bring down waiting lists in the previous programme for government—another SNP failure.
Delayed discharge is also at a record high; it was not so long ago that the finance secretary was health minister and declared that delayed discharge would end—another SNP failure.
What about cancer treatment targets? The 62-day target has not been met in the 12 years since it was introduced, and now the 31-day target is being missed—another SNP failure.
Delays in accident and emergency are now normalised and winter pressures are now all year round—another SNP failure.
The use of the private sector has almost doubled, with 36 per cent of all hip and knee operations being done privately because people cannot wait any longer in pain. I very much welcome the attitude that is taken by the SNP Government when it keeps protesting that it is not creating a two-tier health service, but that is exactly what the SNP Government is presiding over.
Let me thank the staff who work for the NHS for all that they do. They are let down by the Government. So, too, are patients, as excess deaths are up and the Government’s failure is literally costing lives. What the Cabinet Secretary for Finance really did not want to talk about yesterday were the cuts that health boards are having to make right now. Caroline Lamb, who is the chief executive of NHS Scotland, told health boards in June that the expectation was that there would be a £1.1 billion shortfall in the NHS budget. In NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde alone, the deficit is about £226 million.
Will the member take an intervention?
No. [Interruption.]
That will impact on front-line services and staff. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance said that essential staff would be protected. Why, then, are vacancies for nurses and consultants frozen? I did not get an answer from her yesterday, so maybe she can try again, because that is going on under her nose. As staff are not replaced, the pressure on those that remain increases, and they risk burnout.
There are cuts to mental health services, cuts to primary care, and cuts to services for disabled people. Does the Government have no shame? All the Government has is a sticking-plaster approach. It has no vision and no solutions. Anas Sarwar was right: it is clear that the SNP Government has lost its way, and its incompetence is failing the people of Scotland. The programme for government is a missed opportunity—but so, too, was the last one. It effectively demonstrates that the SNP’s record is one of abandoning its flagship pledges, missing its own targets and leaving every institution in Scotland weaker. The SNP is out of ideas, it is out of time and, increasingly, the people of Scotland want it out of office.
16:47
The debate is taking place in the week that the chickens have come home to roost for the First Minister and his failing Government, on whose watch Scotland has become a high-tax, low-growth economy. Public services are crumbling, unable to cope after 17 years of the SNP’s incompetence and mismanagement. The number of drug deaths—unmentioned by the First Minister—is soaring. Waiting times remain high. The pupil attainment gap is growing. Lifeline ferries have failed to be delivered. All of that combined has produced the SNP’s reverse Midas touch: a unique ability to spend more and, at the same time, deliver less.
As my colleagues Douglas Ross and Liz Smith rightly said, the Government has mismanaged the tax system, mismanaged public sector pay negotiations and mismanaged largely unreformed public services, and it has woefully mismanaged the public finances. As Rachael Hamilton has said, it is therefore no surprise that the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government was forced to come to the Parliament yesterday to reveal a £1 billion in-year budget black hole. It is a black hole that is of the SNP’s making—and its making alone—and one that Shona Robison conceded will have a profound effect on the Government’s ability to deliver public services and public service reform.
However, the First Minister confirmed this weekend that one of the only areas that will be protected from the SNP’s cuts agenda is the Scottish Government’s independence unit. The Government is still prioritising spending on party political propaganda at the expense of Scotland’s patients and pupils.
I listened carefully to SNP members, including Michelle Thomson, Stuart McMillan, Kenneth Gibson and Emma Harper, and they all played the blame game. Frankly, I do not know what is in the water on the SNP’s floors of the MSP building, but there has been a sudden and severe outbreak of delusion among its MSPs.
I merely pointed out that the macro economy resides with Westminster. Craig Hoy made a point about the Scottish Government’s budget. The Scottish Government has to operate to a fixed budget, yet the UK Government has consistently borrowed massively, to the extent that the ratio of debt to gross domestic product is now 88.8 per cent. How is that for fiscal rectitude?
That borrowing was, in part, to fund the country through the Covid pandemic and, in part, to ensure that we properly funded public services. [Interruption.]
Let us hear Mr Hoy.
Mr Swinney was finance secretary for long enough to realise that he has to balance the books. Contrary to what has been said, the budget deficit did not arise by chance, it did not arise because of Westminster and it did not arise because of Brexit or the war in Ukraine. It has arisen because the SNP Government has repeatedly made a series of bad decisions and wrong calls on the pace and scale of public sector reform, on tax—
Will Mr Hoy give way?
I will give way if Mr Swinney will answer this simple question: why are Scots being taxed more today when his Government delivers less?
That is not the case.
It is.
Well, in Scotland, people are eligible for more early learning and childcare provision than they are in any other part of the United Kingdom; young people get to go to university without paying tuition fees; Mr Hoy and his colleagues do not pay prescription fees; and free personal care for the elderly is available. That is what people get for their taxes in Scotland, which they do not get in any other part of the United Kingdom.
However, I wanted to ask Mr Hoy this question: does he believe that the shocking economic performance of the public finances in the United Kingdom has anything to do with Liz Truss’s budget, the war in Ukraine, the Covid pandemic and the spiralling inflation as a consequence of Conservative decisions? If it has, his attack on the SNP Government is absolutely fatuous.
This is John Swinney’s programme for government. These are John Swinney’s cuts, and he needs to own them. This is John Swinney’s first—and, perhaps, his last—programme for government, and it is very thin indeed. [Interruption.]
Let us hear Mr Hoy.
There are some elements that can be cautiously welcomed. There is the renewed commitment to our policy of freeports, and there is an additional £100 million for more mid-market homes, but only after the SNP slashed the housing budget last year. There is the focus on the further education sector and enhancing Scotland’s skills—something that the SNP has long neglected. The changes to the ministerial code will mean that the First Minister will no longer sit in judgment on himself, although I note that the Parliament will still have no role in that process.
I also welcome the First Minister’s renewed emphasis on reducing child poverty. Who would not? However, what is really going to change? How are we going to tackle the root causes of poverty, including poor housing, poor pupil attainment and stubborn social stains such as the effects of drug and alcohol misuse? In fact, as Pam Duncan-Glancy said, the programme for government waters down the Government’s commitment to reducing the attainment gap. In truth, one in four Scottish children is still living in relative poverty. That is light years away from the target that was set by the Government of 10 per cent by 2030. The Government’s own analysis says that the number of children who are growing up in poverty in Scotland today is broadly stable. In other words, despite all the extra expenditure, child poverty levels are the same, or even higher, than they were when the SNP came to power in 2007. Billions of pounds have been spent, but the dial is shifting in the wrong direction.
This morning, the finance secretary appeared on the radio to blame everybody but herself for her swingeing cuts. She repeatedly insisted that the SNP was investing in welfare and in public sector pay. Noble though that may be, if policies do not improve outcomes, they are not sustainable, and, if they are not sustainable, they cannot be classed as an investment. If investment in welfare is working, why are so many Scottish children still living in poverty? If investment in public sector pay is working, why has there been no improvement in productivity or service delivery?
Why has the SNP not taken on board Audit Scotland’s advice and embarked on root-and-branch reform of the public sector? Why is the centrepiece of the programme for government not a bold, urgent and wide-reaching public sector performance and productivity bill so that there is real change in the way in which we deliver public services? Instead, we get a vague commitment to a 10-year reform programme.
Why are NHS waiting lists in Scotland so long, given that, as the First Minister says, we have avoided strikes and we pay more to our NHS staff? To put it bluntly, it is because SNP ministers have failed to rebuild, reform and renew our NHS.
In truth, the First Minister is leading a Government that is simply not up to the job of delivering reform. This is not a programme for government; it is a programme for managed decline or, under John Swinney, mismanaged decline. Yesterday, we found out that the Scottish Government is out of money. Today, we find out that it is out of ideas—an intellectually bankrupt First Minister is leading a financially bankrupt Government.
16:55
The programme for government sets out our commitment to delivery and focuses on four key priorities: eradicating child poverty, growing the economy, tackling the climate emergency and ensuring high-quality, sustainable public services. It comes against a difficult backdrop of an on-going cost of living crisis, war in Europe and decisions by the UK Government to address its £22 billion funding shortfall, all of which have been studiously ignored by the Opposition in its comments this afternoon.
Michelle Thomson captured some of the other challenges that we face—inflation, the failure of budgets to keep pace with inflation and the fact that costs are continuing to rise—and that is before we talk about the self-inflicted budget decisions of Liz Truss. It looks as though the Conservatives are still not facing up to reality.
Despite that, we have set out a serious, clear and focused agenda to deliver for communities. The programme for government recognises our many strengths, on which we can surely agree across the chamber. Scotland’s inward investment projects, which are worth more than rhetoric, grew by 12.7 per cent in 2023, compared with 6 per cent growth across the UK and a 4.5 per cent fall across Europe. Thankfully, those investors are ignoring the Opposition’s rhetoric.
One of our many strengths which, as the Deputy First Minister puts it, we can all agree on, is our tremendous renewables potential—generation and otherwise. Yesterday, we saw the Scottish Government half-plug the hole in our national finances with the remainder of the revenue from licensing and leasing our sea bed. What plans does the Scottish Government have to plug that same hole in next year’s budget?
I can tell Alex Cole-Hamilton about the £500 million that we are investing in offshore energy, including £67 million this year alone; I can talk about the fact that a Japanese company has invested £350 million in a cable factory; and I can talk about the international investors who have invested in the port of Ardersier for the first time in decades. We have seen a record number of foreign direct investment projects in Scotland, which, outside London, has been the top-performing part of the UK for nine years. The point is that international investors look to Scotland, see projects that they can be proud of and invest their funding, because they see Scotland’s strengths.
I believe that all parts of Scotland, and perhaps all parties in this chamber, recognise that Scotland has a wealth of natural resources and that it has great talent and community cohesion. Building on that, the programme for government wants to deliver prosperity with a purpose. That purpose is to eradicate child poverty, to ensure that our public services are sustainable and to reach that net zero target. Those are our clear aims and objectives.
Jackie Baillie talked about the charge sheet. I agree with Anas Sarwar that we have only eight weeks to go on, but the sad thing for the Labour Party is that, in those eight weeks, we went from a position of promising change and things only getting better to a Prime Minister articulating that things will get worse. Labour was elected on a promise to reject austerity. We have already heard—read my lips—that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the only person who appears to be surprised by the black hole in the UK’s finances. As Anas Sarwar rightly said, Labour has been in power for only eight weeks, but that has still been enough time to strip pensioners of winter fuel payments and enough time to turn a promise to reduce energy bills by £300 into the delivery of a £149 increase in those bills.
Does the Deputy First Minister not recognise that the job of fixing the public finances is the first priority of the UK Labour Government? It was once her first priority, and her plan was ditched. That is why we are in the mess that we are in now. Is that not right?
On the contrary. It amuses me when the Opposition accuses us of underspending and overspending at the same time. We are very proud as a Government of having ensured that every penny is spent on serving Scotland, including by providing 1,140 hours of high-quality early learning and childcare, providing free bus travel for more than 2 million people, offering free school meals and providing five family payments to restore dignity at the heart of our welfare system. Those initiatives are not all available elsewhere in the UK, and we have pushed the spending envelope as far as possible, because of the values on which we stand of eradicating child poverty, delivering prosperity and reaching net zero.
I want to talk about how we will build on our strengths—the strengths that, I hope, all of us in Scotland are agreed on—to unlock Scotland’s potential and deliver our aims. We have set out a priority list of three areas in the economy to do that.
Will the Deputy First Minister give way?
Before I set out that list, I will take my last intervention.
I am grateful to the Deputy First Minister for giving way. She is speaking about building and priorities. Will she confirm, or otherwise, whether the SNP still believes in fully dualling the A96 from Aberdeen to Inverness? When will that be delivered? The promise was to do so by 2030.
As somebody who lives in the Highlands and who values the north, I absolutely agree with our commitment to upgrade and improve the A9 and the A96.
In relation to our programme of delivering economic prosperity with a purpose, I will talk about three areas. The first is a co-ordinated programme to attract investment in delivering net zero, building housing and improving our infrastructure. The second is to ensure that the decision-making process is accelerated and streamlined by, for example, creating a planning hub and building capacity and resilience into the system. The third is to support our people—our entrepreneurs and more women—into business, and to ensure that we embed fair work in everything that we do. With the few minutes that I have remaining, I will go through each of those individually.
On investment, we know that our public finances are constrained, so our commitment is to leverage and stimulate private investment with that co-ordinated programme, to implement recommendations from the investor panel, to improve engagement with investors, to strengthen our capacity and capability to deliver and to explore new funding mechanisms such as blended finance and guarantees to ensure that there is a national project pipeline of investment opportunities. Specifically on housing, we will invest £100 million, growing to £500 million with institutional investment, to deliver at least 2,800 mid-market rent homes, on top of the public investment that we are putting into affordable housing.
On decision making, we know from looking at the figures that people want to invest in Scotland. Our commitment is to streamline and accelerate those opportunities, to support early adopters to develop a masterplanned consent area and to front load consents, including planning permission for housing, and to ensure that there are enough planners in the system through a planned apprenticeship programme that will invest in new talent. That will sit alongside the work that we are doing with communities to create local employment through the community wealth building bill.
On entrepreneurship, we want to build on the Techscaler programme, to support more women to start and grow a business and to integrate the Techscalers into manufacturing and industry to ensure that we are not creating jobs elsewhere with our talent and ingenuity and that those jobs are coming here to Scotland. We will develop our strengths in data, in digital, in artificial intelligence, in health and in life sciences not only to create jobs and deliver economic prosperity but to solve the big problems in the health service. Anyone who wants an example of that need only look at Scottish Brain Sciences, which has recently come to Scotland with the aim of curing Alzheimer’s. It is working here in Scotland with the NHS, using that talent and ingenuity.
A number of areas in the programme for government are truly exciting. Michael Marra talked about the importance of our creative artists and our culture sector—absolutely. That is why it is great news that Angus Robertson has announced the release of £6.6 million, including £3 million for the open fund and a review of Creative Scotland, to ensure that we support that sector as much as possible.
I hope that everyone in the chamber believes in delivering prosperity. There is no greater purpose for that prosperity than to eradicate poverty, to lift the next generation of children out of poverty and to embed fairness across Scotland.
There is much to which we could dedicate time with regard to the challenges that we face and the issues that families are grappling with, but this programme for government is built on optimism and on confidence, and it has clarity of vision. We will always employ every penny at our disposal to lift children out of poverty and to ensure that we reach our other objectives.
We cannot be accused of underspending and overspending at the same time. This programme for government will use everything at our disposal to deliver for Scotland, in the service of Scotland.
That concludes the debate on the programme for government 2024-25.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer.
I seek your advice on Christine Grahame’s intervention earlier in the debate. She suggested that the Conservative-led Scottish Borders Council was responsible for an affordable housing supply underspend. That was incorrect. The council does not manage housing stock. That is managed by registered social landlords. The £8 million underspend reflected a number of development challenges that those RSLs had faced.
The member will be aware that points of order should be used to inquire as to whether proper parliamentary procedures are being or have been followed. The content of members’ contributions and the accuracy thereof are a matter for members. Members will know that a mechanism exists for correction where that is required.
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