Infrastructure Investment Plan
The next item of business is a debate on the infrastructure investment plan. I call Alex Neil.
14:57
Thank you, Presiding Officer. In the light of your announcement, perhaps I should emphasise that electricity supply is not part of my infrastructure responsibilities.
I welcome this debate on the long-term plans for infrastructure investment in Scotland. I will begin by explaining why infrastructure is so important and by putting the infrastructure investment plan in the context of our longer-term plans for the Scottish economy. As the Parliament knows, Mr Swinney published “The Government Economic Strategy” about two months ago, we published our “Infrastructure Investment Plan” about two weeks ago, and the Deputy First Minister will publish the cities strategy shortly. All those documents need to be read together as part of our overall plan to achieve long-term, sustainable economic growth in Scotland.
Part of our strategy in the GES as well as in the IIP is to increase, where we can, the overall level of capital spending. We want to do that for two reasons. First, it is generally accepted that spending on capital investment has a significantly higher multiplier impact on the economy than resource spending. Every additional £100 million of capital that is invested per year is estimated to generate £160 million-worth of economic activity and support 1,400 jobs. In the climate that we are living in, both nationally and internationally, that is a major consideration.
Secondly, I point out that, contrary to some claims that I have read about our plans for capital investment in the three-year period that starts next April, it is not true to say that we will be reducing the Scottish Government’s overall capital investment, in terms of both our direct investment and the capital investment that that leverages from the private sector and others.
There are broadly five sources from which we can raise money for capital investment. The first and most obvious one is the capital grant that we get from the Treasury every year. That was cut by Alistair Darling—a cut that was confirmed by the current Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, when he came into office. That cut represents a real-terms cut to the Scottish Parliament of 38 per cent every year. As a result of last week’s autumn statement, the cut has been reduced to 32 per cent. However, that is still, basically, a one-third reduction in the level of capital investment that can be funded from the capital grant from Westminster and means that, instead of having about £3.5 billion a year to invest, we have something like £2.5 billion a year, over the period of the current spending review. Therefore, as announced by Mr Swinney, the Scottish Government will transfer over the next three-year period a total of more than £700 million from the resource budget to the capital budget. Over the piece, taking the £2.5 billion as the base, we will increase the level of capital spending despite the cut in the capital grant from Westminster.
Does the minister plan to publish details of that resource-to-capital transfer? If so, when?
Absolutely. This is an open and transparent Government. We have nothing to hide and a lot to boast about in terms of that figure.
Mr Neil will know that the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee has requested that very information from him on four separate occasions but we still await it. Why will he not release the information to the committee when asked to do so?
I am afraid that the member is out of date. The information is en route to the committee this very minute. As I say, there is nothing to hide. We are proud to boast of the fact that we are transferring £700 million of resource to make up for the cuts that Mr Findlay’s chancellor imposed on the Scottish Government.
The second source of capital funding is the non-profit-distributing investment programme, which will invest £2.5 billion over the next few years—£1 billion on transport, mainly to fund the M8 bundle and the Aberdeen western peripheral route, when the courts allow us to do so; about £750 million on health, mainly to pay for the Royal hospital for sick children and other such worthy causes; and £750 million on education, mainly for the college sector and schools. That money is also part of our strategy for filling the black hole that has been left by the cuts from Westminster that were imposed by the Tories, Labour and the Liberal Democrats. I see that we have one Liberal Democrat in the chamber—the party’s full membership from the Borders.
The third major source is what is called the regulatory asset base—RAB—which funds our investment in Network Rail infrastructure. That will be well over £1 billion in the next few years. Two major projects alone will come to more than £1 billion—the upgrade of the Glasgow to Edinburgh link and the reopening of the Borders railway. That represents significant capital investment, funded through the RAB mechanism.
The fourth source is a variety of innovative types of funding that we are employing in order to leverage additional investment from other sectors. I will give two of many possible examples.
Two months ago, Keith Brown and I announced a £460 million programme of investment to build more than 4,300 new houses in Scotland. If members look at the profile of that £460 million, they will see that £110 million is Government money and the other £350 million will be leveraged from other sources: a combination of local authority borrowing for council houses, housing association borrowing and private sector borrowing. Four years ago, for every £2 of Government investment in housing, we got only £1 of investment from elsewhere. We have now completely reversed the situation so that, for every £1 of Government investment in housing, we get an additional £3 of investment from other sources. That is why we are able to spend the money that Shelter asked us to spend over the next three years in the housing programme, but we will get much more out of it in terms of new affordable houses over that period. We are therefore very confident that we will meet our target of 6,000 new affordable homes in Scotland over the next three years.
Mr Neil keeps mentioning 6,000 promised affordable houses, but the Scottish National Party’s manifesto referred to 6,000 socially rented houses. There is a muddling of words. Does Mr Neil admit that his manifesto was mistaken, or has he done a U-turn?
Coming from a Liberal Democrat, that surprise question really poses me enormous difficulties. The Liberal Democrats are the last people to talk about muddled words or muddled thinking. They are the prop for the Tory party throughout the country.
The other example is tax incremental funding. We have announced six pilot projects throughout Scotland that will leverage substantial amounts of private sector investment. That will help to generate economic growth in the areas concerned and contribute enormously to the infrastructure.
The fifth source from which we can raise money for capital investment is the borrowing powers that we do not currently have but will get, I hope, in the not-too-distant future. We will put those powers to good use to invest in the future: in our infrastructure, in capital investment and in sustainable economic growth for the benefit of the people of Scotland.
I took careful note of the figures and examples that Mr Neil quoted. Will he confirm that he has told us that capital spending by the Scottish Government at its own hand is down from around £3.5 billion to, according to his numbers—and including the resource-to-capital transfer—something in the order of £3.25 billion?
Mr Macdonald misses the point, which is that, despite the cuts from his chancellor, the repeated cuts from the Tory chancellor and the cuts that he has just enunciated, over the next three years we will invest between £11 billion and £12 billion in the Scottish economy because we are taking an innovative and dynamic approach that is unprecedented in the history of the Parliament.
I wish Mr Macdonald all the best when the results of the Labour Party’s deputy leadership contest are announced on Saturday. I believe that there are three candidates. Although the bookies’ choice is Anas Sarwar, I am sure that Mr Macdonald will give him a run for his money. We look forward to the results.
The infrastructure investment plan, which goes up to 2030, is about roads, railways, houses, harbours and rolling out broadband.
Will the minister give way?
I bet that this will be a question about the Scottish Borders.
That is great foresight.
Why have the A1 and other significant trunk roads through the Borders not been identified for improvement between now and 2030? Is it because those roads go to England and the rest of the world?
They may go to England, but perhaps they do not go to Europe any longer via England.
As we spelled out in the plan, which no doubt John Lamont will have read diligently, the individual projects that are listed in it are those that cost more than £20 million. Therefore, if the Borders roads are not in the list of projects in that plan, I can assure him that when we publish our transport refresh early in 2012, we will consider all the appropriate opportunities for investment in the south-east of Scotland, despite his Government’s massive cuts in our capital budget.
Will the member take an intervention?
Of course—I will cover the south-west as well.
With regard to the south-west, will the planned but currently stalled improvement schemes for the A75 now go ahead, and will the cabinet secretary consider the A76 action plan?
As the First Minister announced two weeks ago when he opened the new Stena Line link at Cairnryan, we have brought forward the Maybole and Dunragit bypass timescales, and we will deliver those projects. Labour members had 13 years to deliver those projects and did not deliver any of them.
That is what our plan is about, and we intend to deliver on all of it. No previous Government set out a plan for dualling the A9 between Perth and Inverness, on which we will make a start in January, or for dualling the A96 between Aberdeen and Inverness. When we carry out those improvements, every city in Scotland will be joined up by motorway or by dual carriageway. That is a major achievement to help to make Scotland competitive and grow in the 21st century.
I move,
That the Parliament notes the importance of infrastructure investment to delivering sustainable economic growth, managing the transition to a low-carbon economy, supporting delivery of efficient and high quality public services and supporting employment and opportunity across Scotland; notes the significant investment underway in a wide range of projects to deliver new schools, hospitals, houses, roads, water infrastructure, community facilities and improved availability of high-speed broadband across Scotland; supports the long-term commitment to continue and build on these investments; supports the Scottish Government’s use of a broad range of funding methods for investment to help offset the 32% real-terms cut to Scotland’s capital budget inflicted by the UK Government, and welcomes the publication of the Scottish Government’s Infrastructure Investment Plan 2011, setting out the Scottish Government’s intentions through to 2030.
15:11
I thank Alex Neil for his best wishes. He clearly knows more about bookies’ odds than I do, but fortunately the decision is up to neither the bookies nor Alex Neil. [Interruption.]
Mr Neil might want to switch off his microphone.
When we debated infrastructure and capital investment in June, I called on Alex Neil to publish an update of the infrastructure investment plan. He promised that he would, and I welcome the fact that he has now done so.
In September, I asked Mr Neil again about his plan and whether it would include comprehensive information on the whole-life costs of capital projects and their impact on future revenue budgets, as Audit Scotland had said that it should. Mr Neil’s answer was carefully worded. He said that he would
“include in the plan as much information as it is possible to provide at the time.”—[Official Report, 15 September 2011; c 1787.]
He was wise to be cautious then, but he has not been quite so careful in these past few days. He proclaimed last week that the plan was a £60 billion “mega-plan” for future investment, but even the most cursory examination shows that it is nothing of the sort. It appears to be mysteriously unrelated to other proposed long-term plans that are also the responsibility of the Scottish Government, and of this ministerial team in particular.
The plan declares support for high-speed rail links between Scotland and London, with Scottish Government support for the £8 billion or £9 billion of investment that is required in new rail infrastructure in Scotland itself, albeit not until 2025. At the same time, “Rail 2014”, which was published just a few short weeks ago, proposes to stop existing cross-border services at Edinburgh, which would end existing direct services to London from Aberdeen, Dundee and Inverness.
Has Lewis Macdonald not yet been able to read the document sufficiently well to understand that it is a consultation document? The example that he gave is not a proposal, and never has been. It is mentioned as an option for people to debate.
It is an interesting proposition that a document with the photographs, signatures and names of the two ministers who are before us today is not their responsibility. I will quote from the ministerial foreword to the document, which states:
“We believe that we can achieve a distinctly Scottish railway”.
That presumably means not having trains that serve Scotland’s cities under franchises that are awarded by Westminster ministers.
Indeed, it is striking that the ministers who are with us today have both attached themselves to “Rail 2014”. Presumably, by the time that the document was published the First Minister had not yet told them that his Government was so efficient that it needed only one transport minister. If they had been in the chamber yesterday, they would have heard Mr Salmond say precisely that.
Mr Neil and Mr Brown will also want to be aware that, as we speak, rail unions and rail customer groups are out campaigning at stations around Scotland calling for these proposals, among others, to be rejected. The same ministers who are proposing “a distinctly Scottish railway” during their term of office are quite happy to promise that a future Government will fund a multi-billion pound high-speed link to London in 2025.
Another document that ministers should have read is the rail industry’s initial industry plan, which was published in September and which lays out the key choices and options facing Scottish ministers in specifying the future outputs of the railway and the levels of funding required for the control period 2014 to 2019. Ministers have not yet responded to the initial industry plan, which perhaps they might have done first. However, what is remarkable is that the plan they have published in their own names seems to make very little reference to the plan that has been brought to their attention already by the industry.
The Aberdeen to Inverness railway line is a route that I know well—it is the route by which I went to school for five years. The industry proposes an hourly service and a journey time between Aberdeen and Inverness of two hours or less, with new stations at Dalcross and Kintore, at a total cost of up to £202 million. However, ministers propose a phased programme over the period 2015 onwards, but with a price tag not of up to £202 million, but in the range of £250 million to £500 million. The major improvements proposed by the industry have not yet been approved by ministers, yet here they are proposing to spend more than twice as much apparently on the same scheme for the same line.
On the Highland main line, the industry proposes an hourly service and a two-hour journey time between Inverness and Perth at a cost of £37 million to 2019. Ministers propose spending up to £600 million to 2025. Even if it wanted to, the rail industry might find it hard to spend that sum on that line over that period of time. In the circumstances, it is no wonder that ministers have not included a credible funding proposal in their plan. We call on them to do so today because so many of the numbers in the infrastructure investment plan seem to bear no relation to other proposals that are on the table.
Yesterday, the Parliament’s financial scrutiny unit added up all the capital projects in the plan to see whether they really did come to £60 billion over 20 years. They did not. The total capital value of all the projects in the plan turns out to be between £25 billion and £31 billion—barely half the sum that the cabinet secretary wanted to claim credit for in announcing his £60 billion mega-plan last week.
The figure of up to £31 billion includes precisely the items that I quoted merely as examples—the £300 million on the Aberdeen to Inverness route and the £500 million on the Inverness to Perth route—over and above the major investments that have been proposed by the rail industry itself and which still await ministerial approval.
The Centre for Public Policy for Regions offers an explanation: perhaps half the money in the plan is not new investment at all, but simply routine maintenance spending that would have to be done whether or not there was a long-term investment plan.
The Scottish Government appears to have offered the financial scrutiny unit a more imaginative explanation for its figure of £60 billion. The overall capital funding available in the three years of the current spending review period is, as Mr Neil stated again this afternoon, said to be £12 billion, including a large sum of private money. That number has then apparently been multiplied by five. It appears that this is how the Government plans for Scotland’s capital investment from 2012 to 2030: it estimates what it might spend and what others might spend on its behalf in the first three years, and then it multiplies by five.
That is a very peculiar approach to economics. Perhaps it is independence economics—it is not unlike the Government’s approach to working out the value of future oil revenues—but even apart from the apparent innumeracy, that is surely no way to run a country’s budget. Perhaps the truth is that the numbers have simply been made up and the whole £60 billion mega-plan is simply a mega-con—an exercise in mega-fantasy along the lines of “think of a big number and then double it.”
Within the plan there is also little evidence of prioritisation—other than, of course, through what is not in the plan. There is, for example, absolutely nothing in the plan about investing in housing for social rent.
There are lots of different private finance initiatives, some of which the Scottish National Party inherited, such as the non-profit-distributing model, and some of which it describes as innovative or pioneering, such as the national housing trust, to which Mr Neil referred, which involves the Scottish Government underwriting local authority borrowing to build homes for mid-market rent, which will eventually be paid for by selling the homes to the tenants. There is nothing wrong with that, but there is nothing in the plan that will build homes for social rent, which is why Mr Neil received a letter last week from a range of stakeholders representing housing providers, builders, housing professionals and construction workers calling for him to act to make social housing a Government priority. I hope that he will listen to them.
Another innovative funding approach that has been mentioned is tax increment financing, whereby councils invest by borrowing money that they then repay from the increased business rates that their development creates.
Mr Neil mentioned six projects. One of the projects that he has encouraged to go forward is in my home city of Aberdeen, where the council would like to borrow £70 million but has told ministers that the development would generate additional rates income of only £200,000 a year. It will be interesting to see how that can be justified in terms of innovative funding and what confidence it can give in the Government’s stewardship of public finances going forward.
Mr Macdonald, please draw to a conclusion.
I shall indeed.
Simply publishing a wish list of projects that it would be nice to have, with no indication of priorities, no clear timetables or detailed plans for many of them and no credible funding statement is not the way forward. That is why we are calling on ministers to accept that the document is at best work in progress, to prepare a detailed funding package to support the list of projects and to bring the plan back to the Parliament in the new year.
I move amendment S4M-01584.3, to leave out from second “notes” to end and insert:
“welcomes the publication of an updated infrastructure investment plan (IIP), but regrets the hiatus in commissioning new schools and hospitals in the last parliamentary session, the delay or abandonment of major infrastructure projects included in the previous IIP and the Scottish Government’s decision to cut the funding of new social housing in half in the next two years, all of which will lead to further loss of jobs, skills and capacity in the construction sector; believes that the aspiration to lay out long-term strategic objectives is undermined by the lack of prioritisation of projects, the absence of clear links to other proposed long-term plans and the failure to provide a credible funding plan, and calls on the Scottish Government to publish details of anticipated investment and maintenance costs on an annual basis and to make a statement early in 2012.”
15:21
Governments are often accused of being relatively short term and it is in the nature of politics that short-term decisions are the priority of the day. However, we can always trust Alex Neil. He is the man who will come up with not only the long-term proposals but the ultra-long-term proposals that disappear towards the horizon—there in the distance, we can actually see the vanishing point. The plan extends so far into the future that Alex Neil and perhaps even I have little chance of ever seeing the end of it, even if it is all successful. The plan is so long term in its objectives that it is difficult to cost and difficult to work out what can be achieved within it.
The six strategic priorities set out by the Government are ones on which I think we can all agree. Maintaining and developing a supportive business environment are crucial to the long-term future of Scotland’s economy. Driving the transition to a low-carbon economy is a justified objective, whether one takes the green point of view or whether one simply accepts that oil and gas will not last for ever, in which case a low-carbon economy becomes a necessity. Supporting learning, skills and wellbeing is also a very valuable objective to pursue, as is the strengthening of communities through infrastructure and development. Maintaining effective government and ensuring equity are also important. Those objectives have been set out in a plan that I propose to look at point by point to try, in the limited time available to me, to work out exactly what we are trying to achieve here.
On transport, the Scottish Government plans to
“have dualled the A9 between Perth and Inverness”
by 2025 and completed
“the dualled road network between all our cities by 2030”.
However, as we heard from John Lamont earlier, where is the A1 in the plan? As Elaine Murray said, where is the A75? I found the answer given to John Lamont quite intriguing. If the completion of the dualling of the A1 from Edinburgh to the border is on the list of projects that are likely to cost less than £20 million, perhaps the minister has discovered a funding mechanism to which we should all be paying rather more attention. I doubt whether it is on that list.
Is there a split in the Tory party? Mr Fraser has been issuing press release after press release demanding that the A9 be the overriding priority for road investment.
The A9 is a priority. The problem is that the minister has set his priorities in a particular light, and the omission of the A1 and the A75 indicate that he is more interested in what goes on inside Scotland than in what we do to improve Scotland’s links with the outside world and to improve trading opportunities.
On the roll-out of broadband, the Government has given a commitment within the plan, but when giving evidence—[Interruption.]
I am sorry, Mr Johnstone, but can I stop you for a moment? Could Mr Neil’s microphone be switched off now, please?
When giving evidence to the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee this week, leading players in the industry said that the Scottish Government was not yet providing the leadership necessary to see that work through.
The plan states:
“On energy and renewables—by 2020, 30% of our overall energy demand and 100% of electricity will be generated from renewables”.
Unfortunately, that can be achieved only if the cabinet secretary twists the definitions. I suggest that those targets are unachievable.
The plan also states:
“On water—through to 2030 we will continue to deliver improvements to drinking water quality, protecting the environment, and reducing leakage”
while pursuing the public sector model, which is the most expensive option for the tax payer.
Will the member take an intervention on that point?
No. I must make progress.
The Government says that its priority for education will be further and higher education, but Scotland’s colleges and their students continue to flood my e-mail in-box with complaints that the Government is ignoring their needs.
The plan states:
“On housing—through to 2030 we will deliver a step change in the provision of energy efficient homes through new-build programmes and the retrofitting of existing homes”.
However, units delivered by the national housing trust are well under target and the system might result in more people having to be rehoused in the long term as they reach the end of their tenancy.
On funding methods, the Government has outlined—in fact, the minister did so at some length—the options that exist under the Scottish Futures Trust. He talked about the non-profit-distributing method, but that method must produce profit or it will not attract investment. The Government is misleading us by taking us down that road and misrepresenting the position. There can be an effect through RAB—a great deal of resource can be brought out through that. Tax incremental financing, which has been mentioned, is also a way in which we could raise more money.
However, those methods and the others that the Government has proposed are all methods of turning revenue into capital. They are, in effect, all methods of borrowing. The Government has criticised previous Governments for borrowing too heavily. Even if the Government can justify that borrowing by saying that it will regulate the profits and margins, it is still borrowing.
The infrastructure investment plan is an optimistic list and can only ever be funded if every single funding proposal that it contains works to the maximum possible benefit. Anyone who has ever run a business or tried to regulate the economic impact of such methods will realise that we cannot expect 100 per cent success all the time.
Mr Johnstone, I have to ask you to conclude now.
The plan is a wish list. In the paperwork we can see that the Government intends not to exceed the 5 per cent cap on revenue finance investment. I do not believe that it is possible to achieve its objective while maintaining that self-discipline. I just do not believe it.
I move amendment S4M-01584.2, to leave out from “to help” to end and insert:
“and, while welcoming the publication of the Scottish Government’s Infrastructure Investment Plan 2011, notes with interest that most of the projects have been deferred till after 2016, and further calls on ministers to set out a detailed timetable of projects with allocated budgets, along with their preferred funding option for each.”
15:28
I am pleased to speak in today’s debate, given the importance of investment in infrastructure in Scotland, about which I do not think that anyone is in any doubt. I am proud of what the Scottish Government has managed to achieve in infrastructure investment, despite the unprecedented budget cut of 32 per cent in real terms from the United Kingdom Government.
I am loth to start by stating the obvious, but I believe that the financial and constitutional constraints on the Parliament and the Government are restricting Scotland’s potential. Setting out our Government’s intentions through to 2030 is no mean feat, and I congratulate Alex Neil and his team on engineering a package that is so right for Scotland that we should all welcome it.
As the cabinet secretary has already set out the main points of the plan, I will not repeat them all. Suffice it to say that we hear every day about the struggles that ordinary Scots face against the current economic backdrop. That is why I am pleased that the Government has recognised that, if Scotland is to continue to grow out of the recession and support our economy, we must have effective investment plans.
There has been nearly £17 billion of capital funding over the five years since the SNP came into government—investment that affects every aspect of our daily lives in Scotland from education, health and housing to energy, transport and communities. We have heard the commitment from the cabinet secretary to continue to invest at the heart of what matters, providing maximum value for taxpayers’ money.
I commend the forward thinking in the infrastructure investment plan. We must look to the future if we are to succeed in providing our communities with the tools and resources that they require to flourish. By spending between £3 billion and £4 billion each year on capital investment—between £45 billion and £60 billion over 15 years—we will support 1,400 jobs in the wider economy. If every £100 million of additional capital invested per year generates the estimated £160 million, our economy will stabilise, allowing people to have confidence in our home markets.
We heard yesterday that private sector employment has increased and now accounts for 77.7 per cent of Scottish employment, the highest share since devolution. In the third quarter of 2011, the number of new jobs created in the private sector once again outweighed the number of jobs lost in the public sector. However, we must not lose sight of the importance of investment in the public sector. If we develop long-term infrastructure such as hospitals, schools and transport networks, we will continue to see positive growth patterns and tangible results that will give our communities confidence in their abilities and those in our workforce the stability that they need to improve their quality of life.
In my region, I have already seen regeneration work to improve the standing of communities such as Stranraer. The £230 million redevelopment of Dumfries and Galloway royal infirmary via the NPD finance model and the new 85-bed acute mental health facility for NHS Dumfries and Galloway—on which £27.2 million is being spent—will help to reinvigorate the south of Scotland in a way that only public sector investment can. Jeff Ace, the new chief executive of NHS Dumfries and Galloway, said at a meeting of Dumfries and Galloway Council today that the new DGRI presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a world-class facility.
Future investment in transport links around the south of Scotland can only be positive for the area. Opening Stena Line’s new Loch Ryan port facility last month, the First Minister outlined the Scottish Government’s continued commitment not only to the Stranraer and Ayr to Glasgow railway line but to continuing to upgrade the vital A77 and A75. As the Deputy First Minister made clear at First Minister’s question time last week, work on the Dunragit bypass and the A77 at Maybole is due to start in spring 2012.
Given the potential to position Stranraer as a major gateway to Scotland and the rest of Europe from Ireland and Northern Ireland, it would be worth exploring the possibility of leveraging in any European Union investment to link the development of our ports infrastructure in the south-west to the development of our roads and rail infrastructure through programmes such as the cross-border trans-European network transport projects and to broadband infrastructure through the EU’s proposed €40 billion connecting Europe facility.
In this digital age, I am sure that we all acknowledge the importance of having the correct connectivity infrastructure to allow enterprises to grow. In particular, it allows rural businesses to conduct their affairs more effectively and connect with wider markets. Access to superfast broadband is therefore vital to the regional economy in ensuring that our rural businesses can expand, as well as attracting new businesses and connecting communities. I appreciate that the challenging rural geography of Scotland makes that an interesting feat but, with £144.3 million already being committed to the accelerated roll-out of next-generation broadband until 2015-16, we are well on our way to achieving the aim of having it available to all by 2020.
As I represent one of the largest rural regions in the Parliament, South Scotland, I encounter daily the issues surrounding digital connectivity. It is therefore timely for me to pay tribute to the work of the south of Scotland alliance, which has been awarded £5 million by the Scottish Government to start the procurement phase of its next-generation broadband project. Without doubt, access to next-generation broadband will help the south of Scotland to compete on a level playing field with the rest of Scotland and the wider world.
I commend the motion to Parliament. I very much hope that we can build support for the Government’s plan throughout the chamber this afternoon, given its importance to creating and supporting sustainable economic growth and jobs throughout Scotland through a positive future of investment.
15:34
At first glance, the infrastructure investment plan, which was published last week, is a very worthy document. The principle of setting down long-term plans for investment in key infrastructure projects chimes with my political and economic philosophy. I firmly believe that, in a mixed economy, when the private sector is in decline and the country is experiencing recession, the state should step in and inject cash into the economy to create growth and jobs. There are many projects across the country that desperately need such investment, and we cannot afford to leave things to the failing market.
The role of any Opposition is to hold the Government to account and, by God, we most certainly have to do that with this plan, because the truth is that it is a pretty dodgy document. If we look behind the smoke and mirrors, we find that funding still has to be identified for more than 50 per cent of the projects that are in the pipeline. Some projects are so far into the future that Doctor Who would have difficulty locating them. It is hardly speculative to suggest that many of the projects are extremely unlikely ever to see the light of day.
Let us take high-speed rail, which was much trumpeted in Mr Neil’s hard-hat, high-vis-vest press launch last week. According to the plan, although the project’s capital value has yet to be identified and finance and delivery remain “To be defined”, the timetable is apparently okay. So if someone books a ticket for the 8.45 to Manchester on 1 January 2033, it appears that they will arrive at their destination on time, because that is when the document says that the project will be finished. I think that “Thomas the Tank Engine” is more believable than that fairytale.
In short, the plan is low on detail but high on spin. It claims a headline figure of £60 billion of investment but, in reality, the capital value of the projects concerned is half that figure. In addition, the Government claims credit for maintenance investment that would have happened anyway. At Scottish Water, for example, investment was already being driven by the quality and standards process, 85 per cent of which is paid for by customer charges. Indeed, the Government has halved its loan funding to that organisation.
It is estimated that 156,000 people are on the social housing waiting list, and there is a need for around 10,000 new houses per annum to meet demand. As Lewis Macdonald said, this week six major housing organisations, including Shelter, the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians, and the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, pointed out that
“Funding for affordable housing is proposed to be one of the biggest losers in the draft Scottish budget”.
Will the cabinet secretary please be straight with us and acknowledge that they are correct in that assessment and that that budget has also been halved? When he winds up, will he commit himself to arguing in the Cabinet for any available new funds and the £57 million of Barnett consequentials that are to be released as a result of the English council tax freeze to be invested in social housing? It is one of Scotland’s most pressing issues.
What of the college sector? The plan promotes learning, skills and wellbeing and recognises that
“our people are our greatest asset, and that a skilled, educated and creative workforce is essential to creating a more ... resilient economy”,
but how on earth can we do that when college budgets are being cut by 20 per cent? I grant that some capital investment is taking place, but new buildings are of little use without a broad range of courses and quality teaching going on inside them.
In my region, there are many local infrastructure projects that desperately need funding, but I cannot find any reference to them in the plan. Will the Avon gorge link between West Lothian and Falkirk be financed through the plan? The cabinet secretary visited Armadale a few weeks ago to see the new station development, but the absence of a new school is holding back that project. Will that be funded through the plan? What of the motorway junction at Winchburgh? Will it be funded to allow the core development area there to proceed?
Does Mr Findlay agree that, if the UK Tory Government had not cut our capital budget by 32 per cent, it might be possible to do some of the projects that he rightly says are not being done?
I thank Mr MacKenzie, but assure him that I need no invitation to have a go at the Tories. All that I ask when any plan for capital spend is presented is that people be told the truth.
The preamble to the infrastructure plan states on page 4:
“As a result of”
the Government’s
“actions we can now look back on a recession which was shorter and shallower than the rest of the UK.”
That news will come as a surprise to the 204,000 Scots who are on the dole, with 25,000 added to the unemployment statistics since July alone. Scotland now has a higher unemployment rate than the rest of the UK. I ask the Government to stop the spin, stop presenting previous announcements as new projects and stop giving people false hope. That is what the infrastructure plan does.
I wanted to support the plan, but it has left me with a feeling that it is just a cynical ploy, another tactic and more spin on the road to the referendum.
15:40
The “Infrastructure Investment Plan 2011” is the third such plan to be published since 2005 and it identifies the need to accelerate investment to stimulate demand in the economy.
It is interesting to note that the foreword to the first infrastructure plan, which was published by what was then the Scottish Executive, stated:
“The background to this strategy was a perception that over the previous 30 years long-term investment has been neglected.”
Shortly after being elected, the SNP Government produced the second investment plan in 2008, which was
“the largest and most ambitious programme of capital improvement proposed by the public sector in Scotland”.
This is the third infrastructure plan, and it is published at a time when the Westminster Government is slashing the capital expenditure budget by 32 per cent in real terms. Unfortunately, the Westminster cut comes exactly at a time when we should be investing in capital projects in order to support our construction industries and protect jobs. As the cabinet secretary states in the plan,
“It is estimated that each £100 million of public sector capital spending supports around £160 million of output and 1,400 full time equivalent jobs in the Scottish economy.”
The current economic situation has also brought about some unintended benefits that should further persuade us that now is the right time to invest in our country’s infrastructure. Interest rates are at an all-time low, which creates a favourable environment for funding the renewal of Scotland’s infrastructure—although the Scottish Government cannot currently borrow, unlike local authorities. There are lower profit margins as companies face empty order books and so are bidding for work at a price that helps them to retain their core workforce. In addition, the Scottish Futures Trust has been recognised by Scotland’s public bodies as having the expertise to help them achieve greater value for money in these difficult financial times.
I welcome the infrastructure plan, as it will bring benefits to my constituency of Edinburgh Pentlands through the building of the Wester Hailes healthy living centre, improved drinking water when the Glencorse treatment works is completed, new homes at Sighthill and Harvesters Way as part of the Government commitment to build 30,000 new affordable homes, next-generation broadband, the new Royal hospital for sick children, and improvements to the Edinburgh to Glasgow rail line.
Another major benefit to my constituency will be the jobs that are generated by this £60 billion plan, whether they are with a contractor or a company in the supply chain. Jobs will also be created as a result of the multiplier effect throughout the economy, as one person’s spending becomes another’s income. The final increase in output and employment will be far greater than the initial injection of capital expenditure, provided that we can prioritise the use of Scottish goods and services. As part of the Government’s procurement policy, therefore, we must continue to promote opportunities for local employment, promote the use of the local supply chain where possible, and support the creation of skills and training opportunities.
If we are to achieve the long-term vision in the infrastructure plan and ensure our future economic growth, we must make full use of indigenous companies. Scottish companies will be able to meet growth targets and help fulfil our economic potential only when we have significantly increased our skilled workforce. Therefore, the capital investment in universities and colleges—£704 million since 2008 and a further £364 million over the next three years in providing a range of educational facilities, including new colleges in Glasgow, Inverness and Kilmarnock—is welcome.
We need to continue to make use of community benefit clauses to support young people and to enable them to take advantage of modern apprenticeships in construction, as part of the 25,000 places provided each year. That will in time help to close the age gap that is developing in some of the construction-related trades and professions.
An issue that concerns my constituents is the lack of one-bedroom homes. By prioritising the building of those properties, we could allow retired people to remain in the communities where they have a support network of family and friends, while releasing a larger family home. In addition, there is demand from single homeless people for accommodation. Again as a result of a shortage of one-bedroom homes, they are often allocated larger properties that would be better utilised for families.
The infrastructure investment plan maps out a series of 50 specific projects and 30 infrastructure programmes across Scotland over the next 20 years, but it is partly dependent on the Westminster Government granting borrowing powers to Holyrood in the Scotland Bill. We can remove that obstacle with independence, and give Scotland the full range of economic powers to promote growth, employment and opportunities for all.
15:46
I welcome the cabinet secretary’s speech and I welcome the debate, which is as necessary as it is timely. Implementing the planning and infrastructure programme over the long term will give everyone concerned time to reflect, to contribute to the discussions on opportunities and to consider the positive consequences. The political landscape is often viewed in the short term, with hasty decisions being made within a four-year term. Rarely, if ever, is a 20 to 30-year plan introduced.
Alex Johnstone said that the A9 had been made a priority ahead of roads linking Scotland and England. Well, folk in the north like to go to England as well; it is not one-way traffic.
I would like to reflect on a time when infrastructure investment re-energised people and reinvigorated the economy in the Highlands. That was when the Highlands and Islands was granted objective 1 status. European funding lifted the region from the bottom of the league table for low income, low standards of living, little development and a diminishing population. The programme of development was agreed with the district councils, the regional council, the Highlands and Islands Development Board and other relevant agencies.
Unfortunately, Westminster set the appropriate areas for funding and, predictably, some of our priorities were changed as a result. The reasons for that were eventually revealed. They involved the disaster that was the private finance initiative—the Skye bridge will remain as an example of that in the memory of most highlanders for a very long time. It also cost the Scottish Parliament dear.
The objective 1 investment had a dramatic effect on the Highlands and Islands—in other words, it worked. The blue symbol with gold stars quickly became ubiquitous in the region. Over 10 years, single-track roads with grass growing down the middle became two-carriageway, tarmacadam roads, with bridges where necessary. Those roads created ease of access for school buses, hauliers, locals and tourists, 24 hours a day. Harbours were improved, some telecommunications were introduced, and many community developments became a reality. The area was opened up but, more than that, many parts and most sectors began to thrive. Objective 1 status offered connectivity, accessibility and inclusion. The growth in economic activity was reflected in better jobs and better pay. The aims of objective 1 were being met, and confidence started to grow. All that happened over a very long period of time.
I mention that because the Highlands and Islands councils and development agencies had and have better communications—and the case for investment was easier to make—with Brussels than with the Westminster Government, which was much harder to persuade of the needs of that part of Scotland.
In spite of the current economic situation, the Scottish Government’s infrastructure plan, together with the regeneration strategy that was announced last week, can and will stimulate our communities to aspire to better things. I urge the Government to recognise, as part of the plan, the achievements that can be delivered at the hand of local community groups, be they charitable trusts or development trusts. I can recite a litany of remarkable achievements by such groups. They have acquired or created businesses, run ferries and crossings and rebuilt harbours; built community centres, swimming pools, nurseries and market gardens; and recycled furniture, made designer knitwear and designed golf courses. Such groups exist from Shetland to Lochaber and they need to be part of the overall infrastructure plan.
Last night, I had sight of a plan that several common grazings committees in the Western Isles have united around. The Point and Sandwick Development Trust in Lewis has been at work since 2005 and will soon make a £15 million investment in a renewables development that will be wholly owned by the community. The more common development of this kind is the alliance of a landowner and a corporate wind farm developer who will agree with the community the amount of community benefit, which is usually estimated to be £1.1 million over 25 years. However, by doing the development itself, the community in this case has attracted £15 million and expects to achieve £36 million over the period, which is quite a difference from the usual.
I hope that empowering such communities, whether urban or rural and in whichever part of Scotland they are, will be part of the plan. Taking the best examples of community ownership and sharing that capacity will contribute to the confidence that empowerment brings—nothing succeeds like success.
The future can be bright and what we have heard in the debate is about confidence and belief. I am sorry about the cannot-dos on the other benches. It would be good to hear some support for an ambitious programme of investment that is possible—everything is possible. Communities in Lewis show that it is possible and communities in the remotest parts of the most rural areas of Scotland are proving the impossible to be possible. We should get behind the infrastructure plan. Making Scotland better, recognising all its parts and making the investment that is needed for them to achieve their potential form the necessary blueprint for any infrastructure investment plan. I support the motion.
15:52
The full infrastructure investment plan makes a very interesting read if members like fairy stories. Never-never land comes to mind, as there is very little that is new, timescales are vague or non-existent and more than half of the projects have no funding mechanism attached to them.
I welcome the commitments to funding for the Scottish Futures Trust to work with North Ayrshire Council and others on the development and delivery of their residual and food waste treatment projects, as well as the commitment for the North Ayrshire community hospital. However, no real timescale is placed on those.
There is talk in the document of a western subsea link between Hunterston and Deeside, but it is not confirmed and is only being considered—part of the dream experience.
I await with much anticipation the Scottish ministers’ response to the application for a carbon capture storage plant at Hunterston, because the document reiterates that the Government is
“deeply disappointed with the UK Government’s decision not to fund the CCS project at Longannet. This is an enormous lost opportunity for both Scotland and the UK to become World leaders in development and deployment of CCS technology.”
Having made that statement, will the Government respect the decision of North Ayrshire Council and the 20,000 people who petitioned against the project, including the local SNP MSP, and remove the Hunterston coal-fired project from the national planning framework? Clarification on the Government’s policy on coal-fired power station plants would be appreciated.
Like my colleagues in North Ayrshire, I am relieved to see that the document acknowledges that urban regeneration companies
“play an important part in delivering the large-scale transformation of the areas in which they operate.”
Irvine Bay URC has played a major part in the regeneration of Ardrossan and Saltcoats and the UK Roses design award-winning regeneration of Kilwinning Main Street and its plans to regenerate Irvine town centre will provide not only an economic and aesthetic boost to the area but training places for local people. I welcome the announcement on 8 December that funding has been guaranteed until the end of 2014. I hope that the Government will fulfil that commitment and look to extend it back to the original 10-year commitment.
On the subject of commitments not being fulfilled, I refer the chamber to the 21 October edition of the Ardrossan & Saltcoats Herald in which Kenneth Gibson commits the SNP Government to building the Dalry bypass in this session. I have read and reread the Government’s plan and have seen no mention of any upgrades to the A737. The issue has been raised time and again, but no progress has been made. Did the local MSP just make it up? Is this road ever going to be upgraded? People in North Ayrshire desperately need an upgraded A737 that will give them a fast and safe route into Glasgow and beyond, opening up employment opportunities and increasing their life chances. I am willing to work with local MSPs, North Ayrshire Council and the Government to establish a definite timescale for the A737. The communities of North Ayrshire deserve to be given at least a date for when the work is programmed to start; after all, the issue has been on-going since the previous session and still there is no resolution in sight. Will it happen in this session, in the next session or not until after 2030?
I also looked in vain to see whether the Edinburgh and Glasgow airport rail links were mentioned. However, there is nothing—not a word—about them. We have lost an opportunity to put in place a vital economic link for those airports.
Although I welcome the developments for North Ayrshire that have been listed, I want to see dedicated funding and timescales. Many of these schemes have appeared in plans time and again, but they still have not materialised. Why should the chamber and the people of Scotland believe that this time will be any different? If this is a complete list of all future infrastructure investment projects, the people of North Ayrshire will be very disappointed to find that, despite Kenneth Gibson’s commitment, there are still no plans to upgrade the A737, no timescale for such work and no funding allocated to it. I urge the Government to make some progress and at least set out a properly funded, realistic programme of when we can expect these projects to be implemented.
15:58
It is difficult to overstate the importance of the recently published “Infrastructure Investment Plan 2011”, for which I commend the cabinet secretary. It is a plan that contains a vision of Scotland’s future at a time when we have much need of vision; it is a plan that is ambitious when we have much need of ambition; and it is a plan that is aspirational when we have a need to be aspirational. Most of all, it is a plan for long-term economic recovery based on the sound principles of infrastructure investment. It will leave a lasting legacy for future generations as well as creating jobs and prosperity in the shorter term as we work through each and every project on this extended list.
It is a plan for economic success where the UK Government has no plan. It is pitiful to witness the UK Government’s return to the dangerously naive grocer-shop economics of the Thatcherite era. The great English economist John Maynard Keynes first recognised the pivotal role of Governments in returning an economy to growth and at no time since the 1930s should those lessons have been heeded more closely than now. The UK Government’s response to our economic difficulties seems to be inspired by the fiction of Charles Dickens. It is an amalgamation of Mr Micawber’s belief that something will turn up and an austerity programme that is worthy of Scrooge. I can only hope that Messrs Cameron and Clegg are visited by ghosts this Christmas, because they seem not to be open to persuasion by anyone who is alive.
In contrast, the Scottish Government offers a plan and a message of hope. There is hope for our beleaguered Scottish construction industry, which stands ready to help us to build our way towards economic recovery. There is hope for communities and businesses, which wrestle daily with inadequate infrastructure. There is hope for people without jobs and for people without homes.
As a member for the Highlands and Islands, I am pleased that the plan contains a commitment on improvements to the A82, not least by dealing with the long-standing bottleneck at the infamous Pulpit Rock. The A82 has been one of the principal routes to the north and the west for more than a generation, and the bottleneck has served to illustrate the poverty of our infrastructure and a poverty of aspiration on the part of every previous Government of the country. It has illustrated the poverty of ambition on the part of the previous Labour-led coalition, whose interest rarely extended beyond the central belt. Now, at last, we have a Government for all parts of Scotland.
The member said that nothing happened under the Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition, but his colleague Jean Urquhart gave a long list of projects that were delivered in the Highlands and Islands. Will he address that point?
Jean Urquhart was referring to an era when the Highlands and Islands qualified for objective 1 status. I am sorry that, as a result of a serious miscalculation in the arithmetic by the Government of the day, the region no longer qualifies.
I welcome the Government’s commitment to provide next-generation broadband for all parts of Scotland, especially rural areas. In the 21st century, the information highway is as important as tarmacadam roads. Indeed, more traffic on the internet might result in less traffic on the roads, which I hope is at least one area on which Mr Harvie—if he were here—and I would agree.
Scotland—and particularly the Highlands and Islands—is on the cusp of a revolution in renewable power, which will deliver prosperity after generations of decline. It is therefore correct that the Government prepare the way with investments that are designed to facilitate the revolution by strengthening and extending the grid. We cannot deliver prosperity unless we plan for prosperity.
Our planet is bathed in energy. Anyone who thinks that Scottish ingenuity cannot develop better and more successful ways of harnessing that energy is so laughably pessimistic that even Dickens would have trouble painting their caricature. Scottish innovation and ingenuity, not least in pioneering new mechanisms of investment, will ensure that we deliver on our commitment to build 30,000 new affordable homes during the parliamentary session. I was speaking to some constituents the other day, who have just taken occupation of a new home under the shared equity scheme. They are delighted to have the opportunity to buy their first new home with the help of the Scottish Government.
We will deliver all the projects in the infrastructure investment programme for Scotland. That will sustain jobs and help to see us through the difficult times. We could deliver more if we had the full and proper powers that every member of the Parliament ought to aspire to have. We will deliver very much more and real prosperity when we free ourselves of our chains and shackles—like those of Marley’s ghost—and the drag factor of successive economically illiterate United Kingdom Governments and embrace our future as an independent Scotland.
16:05
Last week’s publication of the Government’s infrastructure investment plan carried on the fine tradition of the previous Lib Dem-Labour coalition in Scotland, which published the first such plan. Back then, the intention was to help the construction industry and training partners to see the opportunities that were on offer and the likely timetable for significant infrastructure projects. I noted with interest the cabinet secretary’s assertion in The Press and Journal last week that, if the borrowing powers that are being introduced through the Scotland Bill were increased from £2.2 billion to £5.6 billion, the Scottish Government could bring forward construction projects such as those for the A96 or the A9. The cabinet secretary’s logic surely means that the increase in borrowing powers under the Scotland Bill will ensure that those projects and others will happen more quickly than currently proposed. I would be grateful if the cabinet secretary, in his summing-up speech, could confirm that he will throw his weight behind the Scotland Bill.
We should note the additional £433 million of capital that the UK Government announced in the autumn budget statement, which will assist the Scottish Government in accelerating some projects. One interesting feature of the infrastructure investment plan is the emphasis that is placed on the national transport strategy’s three key strategic outcomes. One of those aims is to
“Improve journey times and connections, to tackle congestion and the lack of integration and connections in transport which impact on”
the potential for continued economic growth. That is entirely laudable and we committed to it in our manifesto. However, only a month ago, Transport Scotland published its consultation on the future of the rail franchise in Scotland and was forced to admit that a short-term franchise agreement is being considered because of the constitutional uncertainty that Scotland faces.
There are two fundamental problems with such an ill-thought-out approach. First, no company in its right mind would bid for a franchise that is so short. Secondly, we can forget about investment in rolling stock, stations and improved communications by the franchise owner, when it might be handing over the baton just a few months later. When the three-year extension to the current franchise was announced in 2008, the then Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change said:
“It provides further incentive for the operator to continue to grow Scotland’s railways”.
The current situation can in no way be dressed up as being in the best interests of commuters.
Does Jim Hume agree that one of the very good projects on which the Labour and Liberal Democrat coalition embarked was an emphasis on intermodality of transport structures? That was one of the key drivers of the Edinburgh airport rail link scheme, on which the Parliament passed legislation. The only obstacle to the scheme was that the SNP did not put funding in place. The same applies to the Glasgow airport rail link project, which should also have proceeded.
I certainly agree with Helen Eadie when she recognises the good work of the Lib Dem-Labour coalition.
The housing crisis is one of the biggest challenges that Scotland faces and it is only right that the Government should discuss housing in the plan. I welcomed the cabinet secretary’s comments on Tuesday about the economic and social benefits of investment in affordable housing but, sadly, the investment plan does not contain anything that we did not already know. There will still be a cut of 30 per cent to the affordable housing budget in the next financial year.
As always, we want to work constructively with the Scottish Government to tackle the housing crisis. A consensus is surely desirable. However, the Government’s plans will not make any inroads into waiting lists that contain hundreds of thousands of households. The Government must be honest with the Parliament. In an earlier intervention on the cabinet secretary, I asked a question but received no answer. There were originally to be 30,000 new social rented homes, but that has apparently been amended to 20,000. That is a deliberate muddling of the cabinet secretary’s own words.
I do not understand how 30,000 new homes will not make a major contribution to reducing waiting lists in Scotland. That is an absurdity.
The promise in the manifesto was 30,000 social rented homes.
Will the member take an intervention?
No. I have taken two already.
Surely the cabinet secretary cannot ignore the letter that he received last week from six prominent housing organisations that are calling for greater investment in housing. The sector is crying out for it.
The key difference that distinguishes the Government’s infrastructure investment plan from our earlier one is the threat of separation, which has thrown a cloud of uncertainly over not only the publication that we are debating today but Scottish society as a whole. The Government’s plan covers capital projects up to 2030, but there is a glaring omission, because it does not discuss how a Scotland that was separate from the rest of the UK would take forward those projects. The Government anticipates independence within five years, so anything that is listed in the plan for beyond then must be taken with a sizeable pinch of salt.
Those questions were not invented by the Government’s political opponents. They were also posed by the director of the Confederation of British Industry Scotland, Iain McMillan, just last month. He was not talking Scotland down when he posed the questions; he was merely articulating the concerns of the business community—the same community that the Government will expect to bid for the numerous contracts that will surely follow from the projects that are listed in its plan.
16:11
I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate both as convener of the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee and as MSP for a constituency in the north-east.
During the committee’s deliberations on the budget, there was much debate about the benefit of infrastructure investment and whether it contributes to economic growth. Would economic growth continue if there was no investment in infrastructure? As usual, there were different views from different academics, but even they agreed that there might be a negative effect if there was no infrastructure investment.
That negative effect is a real threat in the north-east. Many oil and oil-related companies have located, relocated and grown up in the north-east, and as the North Sea oil industry grew, so did they. For some of them, the North Sea is no longer their major area of work as they have gone global. It is no longer enough that the north-east is an excellent place to live. As those companies and others grow, move into renewables and continue to expand, they need infrastructure that is fit for their purposes. The same is true of food and drink companies. Infrastructure is important if those companies are to continue to provide much of the growth and wealth of the whole of Scotland.
That is why the delay to the start of the Aberdeen western peripheral route is not helping economic growth in the north-east. Although the case is now again in the courts, we must believe that early 2012 will bring an end to this sorry saga and ensure that legislation is in place so that this legacy of the previous Labour and Lib Dem Administration can never happen again.
I welcome the cabinet secretary’s commitments to dual the A96 and improve the rail links between Aberdeen and Inverness.
I am curious to understand the member’s reference to a legacy of the previous Labour and Liberal Democrat Government. Does she accept that the main source of difficulty for the Aberdeen western peripheral route has been the inquiry process that was followed by the SNP Government when Stewart Stevenson was the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change?
I cannot believe that you just said that, Mr Macdonald. The main reason for the situation that we are in with the AWPR is that, under your watch and that of the Liberal Democrats, you changed the route.
As I said, I welcome the commitment to improve the connectivity between Aberdeen and Inverness as that will stimulate economic growth in the whole of the north-east. It will help to transport vital whisky exports on their journeys to China and elsewhere. We have seen massive growth in those exports and the dualling of the A96 and the A9 will certainly help the whisky companies.
The Government in the previous session delivered on hospitals, schools, new trains, affordable homes and energy efficiency in homes. The infrastructure investment plan, the regeneration strategies and the other plans that have been announced recently will continue that work despite the severest budget cuts for decades.
Mr Macdonald mentioned the evidence-taking session that the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee conducted this week. If he had been listening more closely, he might have heard Brendan Dick welcoming the fact that the Scottish Government has a Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure and Capital Investment—the only post of its kind in any Administration in the UK. He said that it was an excellent post to have created.
It is not only the projects that have been set out, but the means of financing them in times of dwindling public finance. Thank goodness that this Government has ditched the expensive private finance initiative/public-private partnership model, which the other parties in this Parliament whole-heartedly embraced, mortgaging this and future generations in order to pour much more money than was necessary into the pockets of the private sector. Before Labour Party members complain about the lack of money for schools and hospitals, they should ask themselves how much of the revenue budgets are committed to paying back PFI/PPP loans before other choices on spend are made.
Will the member give way?
I have taken an intervention from the member already, and it was not a very good one.
Will the member take an intervention from me?
The NPD model for projects such as the AWPR, which is being bundled with the Balmedie to Tipperty project in order to achieve economies of scale, represents much better value for money for the taxpayer.
Come on.
Mr Findlay, I do not think that the member is taking your intervention.
The SFT has played a significant role in getting more infrastructure for the money that is available, and more and more local authorities, health boards, colleges and universities are using their knowledge of and support for innovative financing methods to facilitate collaborative procurement and asset management across the public sector.
Along with his colleagues in the Liberal Democrats, Alex Johnstone wants to set Scottish Water on the route to inevitable privatisation. Why on earth, when some parts of the country that is our nearest neighbour are experiencing severe droughts and water is becoming an extremely precious resource, would we sell it off to the private sector? The union dividend has seen anyone but our Scottish citizens benefit from our assets.
I am happy that the Government has prioritised the connectivity of our cities, with work to promote connectivity through road and rail and through broadband, which, as Mike MacKenzie said, will help small and rural businesses to grow. We will have more schools and better hospitals and colleges. Instead of wringing our hands and adopting the woe-is-me attitude of the Opposition parties, the cabinet secretary and his minister are going out to find new sources of funding, such as joint European support for sustainable investment in city areas—JESSICA—funds, European structural funds, loan funds and hubs. No wonder support for the SNP continues to grow. The electorate can see that the SNP Government has ambition for Scotland, even though the bah-humbug Opposition cannot.
16:18
The unemployment statistics that were released yesterday demonstrate the seriousness of the economic situation facing Scotland, particularly for young people out of work. In that context, the case for capital investment to kick-start economic recovery is undeniable. Regrettably, however, the infrastructure investment plan spends a lot of time providing what is essentially a progress report on projects that were announced in 2008, and the rest of its focus is a list of aspirations for the future. Admirable as those ambitions might be, without clear plans for how they will be funded, they will remain aspirations only.
Over the course of the next year and the remainder of the session, the Government will need to provide in-depth details of how future projects will be funded. It is disappointing that much of the detail of the plan focuses on projects that are already in the pipeline, which have been announced before. Little confidence about the finance arrangements for some of those projects is inspired by phrases such as
“Specific additional delivery models will be developed”
And “To be decided”. If the minister would like to decide quickly how he intends to fund those projects, I am sure that members across the chamber would be happy to see him back in the Parliament to supply us with the substantial detail that is missing from the plan.
I hope that those vital measures, which are needed to stimulate the Scottish economy, will not be subject to extensive delay. It would be a damaging mistake if the Scottish Government chose to delay decisions on how to deliver on the commitments that it has made, especially while thousands of Scots are on the dole and eager for the work that infrastructure projects would provide. “To be decided” is not a good enough answer from the Government on how it will fund the plans. It would have been more responsible if the Government had looked to what it could do now to bring forward investment in order to create the jobs that the economy is crying out for. More than half of the projects that are listed have no clear funding mechanism attached. Of those that do, the RAB and non-profit-distributing mechanisms will require significant private sector investment. Given the economic climate, it is uncertain whether that will be forthcoming.
The Government needs to provide more detail on the level of next-generation broadband service that it intends to guarantee across the country. Indeed, the infrastructure investment plan acknowledges that
“the level of coverage expected in Scotland to 2020 is not yet fully understood”.
The definition of next-generation broadband in use by the Government needs to be clarified. Does the Government guarantee equal speeds of 30, 40 or 50 megabits per second throughout Scotland? Is the provision of a universal level of service guaranteed, or can different parts of the country expect varying speeds? Constituents of mine in large, densely populated areas of Cumbernauld do not have access to current-generation broadband and they are looking for assurances that they will not miss out on next-generation coverage.
Investment of £68.8 million from the UK and £25.5 million from the European Union should go some way to meeting the universal coverage target. It is clear that significant levels of funding will also need to come from the private sector, but there is no estimate of exactly what level of private sector investment will be necessary to achieve the target of access for all in Scotland. The funding for this parliamentary session amounts to £143.5 million. That includes the UK and EU money, which makes up the majority of the funding that is available for delivering next-generation broadband. However, the report identifies the cost of rolling next-generation broadband out across Scotland as being at least several hundred million pounds. The vagueness around how the Government intends to close that funding gap and what role private sector investment will have must be addressed.
Many of the projects that have been unveiled, such as the dualling of the A9, the replacement crossing over the Forth, the reduction of Glasgow to Edinburgh journey times, the Southern general hospital project, more energy-efficient homes and the expansion of digital broadband, are projects from the previous plan simply reannounced. Proposals for a new health centre for Kilsyth, which is in the area that I represent, were also included in the 2008 infrastructure investment plan; they were included again in the 2011 plan as a community project whose delivery is being explored through the Scottish Government’s hub initiative. A more concrete commitment to delivering those facilities is required. There are several instances in the 2008 and 2011 plans in which the Scottish Government has been slow in bringing forward schemes or identifying how they will be funded. Given the cuts to local health services in Cumbernauld and Kilsyth, the Government should make a firm commitment to deliver modern facilities rather than simply including them in a wish list of projects that will be passed over into the next plan.
Scotland needs the Government to kick-start economic recovery, not reannounce the projects that it began to look into nearly four years ago. The Government must be clear about how it will bring about the private sector investment that is needed to make the plan viable. I hope that the minister will return in the new year with the detail on how the Government will fund the projects into the 2020s, which is lacking in the report.
16:23
I will declare interests in respect of some of the subjects that I shall discuss. I have been co-opted on to a newly formed Eyemouth initiative for the regeneration of the town, I am a newly joined member of the Campaign for Borders Rail and, as I have previously declared in my register of interests, I am a member of Rail Action Group East of Scotland.
I thank the cabinet secretary and the Minister for Housing and Transport, Keith Brown, for their continued and robust support for the Borders rail project in the face of a 32 per cent cut in Scotland’s capital departmental expenditure limit budget. That project is programmed to be delivered in time for the tourist season in 2015, and it will be hugely beneficial for the central Borders region. If bus connectivity to the stations is enhanced, as is planned, it will also benefit residents in a wider catchment, including the A7 corridor to Hawick. I know that the decision to move the project across to be delivered by Network Rail using the Network Rail regulatory asset base has been warmly welcomed by Campaign for Borders Rail volunteers and local government leaders in the Borders and Midlothian.
That has further increased confidence that the project will be delivered within the budget of £235 million to £295 million, and that it will deliver the desired economic benefits to the region and to Scotland.
Those who carp from the sidelines, and there are some, should recognise that the project is the largest single investment in living memory in the infrastructure of the Scottish Borders, and that if the vision of those of us who want the railway to be reopened to Hawick—and ideally, to Carlisle—is ever to be realised, building the route to Tweedbank is an essential first step. It could thereafter connect—perhaps at Carlisle—with the high-speed rail link that the Scottish Government proposes in its infrastructure investment plan.
Although I recognise current constraints on funding, I fully intend to do the preliminary work to ensure that such an extension is ready and waiting in the wings if capital should ever become available. That would obviously be optimised if we were free of the UK financial straitjacket. Such a project would be transformative for towns such as Newtown St Boswells and Hawick, to name but two.
Returning to those who carp from the sidelines, I come to John Lamont, who was here earlier to intervene in the cabinet secretary’s speech, but who I see has disappeared. On 7 October, in the Hawick News, he compared the project to the Edinburgh trams, and claimed that
“Hawick taxpayers must not be left to pick up the tab for a Galashiels railway.”
With great respect, that is a clear misrepresentation of the funding model. Mr Lamont, and other members in the chamber, may wish to note that he is rapidly getting a reputation as being guilty of—to quote the CBR; Claudia Beamish also heard this at its annual general meeting—
“riding two horses at the same time”.
On the one hand, we are given ill-informed diatribes about the project. John Lamont claimed to pupils from Berwickshire high school on these very premises that the delivery of the project was taking money away from schools in the Borders, the A1, the A68, the A7 and much else. That is, to be frank, misleading nonsense, and he should know that, but sometimes I question whether he does. I assure members in the chamber that the pupils are wiser to that now.
On the other hand, the pity for Mr Lamont is that his own party leader has expressed verbal support for the project to Campaign for Borders Rail office-bearers, as was reported at the AGM. It is clear that the Tory leader does not believe her party whip, and quite rightly so.
I am delighted that the Scottish Government is showing the ambition that is distinctly lacking from the UK Government, which proposes only half-hearted attempts to extend high-speed rail north of the midlands. Meanwhile, the UK Government is prepared to find billions for the two-week-long Olympic games and the London cross-rail projects.
I have read of the criticism from some members—and heard today in the chamber from others—that the infrastructure investment plan does not include small-scale projects at a local level. I, too, regard those as vital, but it is clear that there been a misunderstanding of the plan’s remit. It specifically does not cover projects of less than £20 million in value, as is stated on page 5, and there is a clear intent to refresh the strategic transport projects review in early 2012.
With smaller projects in mind, I thank the transport minister, Keith Brown, who has shown a keen interest in meeting with RAGES members and local MSPs to discuss proposals for the reintroduction of local services on the east coast main line to Berwick, with investment in new stations at Reston in Berwickshire and East Linton in East Lothian. I look forward to welcoming him on his visit to meet the community and council representatives at both sites, and I encourage him to visit the town of Eyemouth to gain a full understanding of the potential of such a modest investment to regenerate the town and the surrounding communities.
Of course, while the cost of a capital project is relatively immovable, the extent to which the project can deliver the desired outcomes is perhaps more variable. Those outcomes include enabling the switch from cars to rail and low-carbon transport. I therefore draw the attention of the cabinet secretary and the minister to the concept of community rail partnerships. In a recent presentation to the Campaign for Borders Rail AGM, the Association of Community Rail Partnerships—which currently does not cover Scotland, although it is keen to do so—highlighted the impact of such partnerships on securing increased patronage for routes. In some cases, they can boost passenger numbers on a route by as much as 25 per cent, through a modest investment of approximately £30,000 per annum, which is the cost of employing a local rail development officer for a route. They typically do what the rail operators fail to do, which is to identify, scope and market to new market segments, and exploit those opportunities. In the case of Borders rail, that could include charter traffic and tourist traffic to Abbotsford.
That would be hugely beneficial to the likely success of rail projects such as those in the Borders and I commend such mechanisms to the ministers to ensure that the economic impact of rail projects is maximised. I support the Government motion and welcome the infrastructure investment plan.
16:30
I was perhaps a bit unkind to say in last week’s economy debate that the infrastructure investment plan was the longest wish list in history, but I was certainly right to say that it needed to be costed and, most of all, that it needed to be prioritised. I think that I was also right, last week, to be sceptical about how that list could be funded within the 5 per cent revenue rule. I hope that the cabinet secretary will cover that in his winding-up speech. The plan is oblivious to that rule, yet the Scottish Government tells us:
“We will cap our future revenue commitments related to capital investment to a maximum of 5% of our expected future annual DEL budget. These revenue commitments will include existing PFI commitments we have inherited, future debt repayments once we have borrowing powers, and payments made under both the Non-Profit Distributing model and Network Rail’s Regulatory Asset Base.”
A study by the Centre for Public Policy for Regions, written by Jo Armstrong and John McLaren and published today, analyses the future revenue consequences of the plan in some detail. It is the most interesting commentary that I have yet read on the plan. Basically the authors say that by 2014 the Scottish Government would be quite near that 5 per cent cap and, therefore, it is not clear where future payments would come from.
I thank the member for giving way. I caution him against using the CPPR figures, because at first glance it looks to us as though they have made a substantial arithmetical mistake.
Obviously that needs to be looked into, but the principle stands. When I read the plan last week I thought intuitively that there was something wrong, because it seemed to be completely inconsistent with the 5 per cent rule. No doubt people will do more number crunching on that.
Politics is always about choices, more so than ever in hard economic times. I believe that the infrastructure investment plan must be prioritised against the key criteria of economic growth, social justice and climate change objectives. Prioritisation must also be based on evidence and Maureen Watt referred to very interesting evidence that we received in the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee. I cannot deal with all the issues, but I have taken a particular interest in broadband and in transport because we have been covering those issues over the past few weeks.
It seems clear that there is definite evidence—some of it was given to us yesterday—about the benefits of doubling broadband speeds. We were told yesterday that a study of 33 countries by the OECD says that such a doubling would lead to a 0.3 per cent upgrade in gross domestic product and further evidence was given from a study that indicated increased productivity from such additional speeds.
That confirmed, perhaps, what we expected, but more surprising was the evidence from transport professors. Members should read the Official Report of the committee’s 5 October meeting. I will read a couple of quotations, because they are very interesting. The first is from Professor Tom Rye of Edinburgh Napier University:
“It is extremely difficult to find empirical evidence that investment in transport infrastructure—especially large-scale transport infrastructure—grows the overall economy. You can find a lot of evidence that investing in specific pieces of transport infrastructure will move economic activity around it, but trying to find evidence that it will grow the economy overall is really difficult.”—[Official Report, Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee, 5 October 2011; c 166.]
I can see that time will not allow me to read the other quotations, but Professor Iain Docherty said something similar and referred to the work of Professor David Banister of the University of Oxford. I realise that that is controversial, but we need to question whether the infrastructure investment plan should allocate 39 per cent of the supposedly available capital to transport, in particular to road building, given that that is contrary to our climate change imperatives. I am particularly disappointed that there is no detail whatsoever in the plan about low-carbon transport investments such as active travel, which is so important for climate change as well as health improvement and other objectives.
I have said repeatedly in several debates in the past few weeks that I believe that the top priority for capital investment in the immediate future should be housing, including a retrofit programme to improve the energy efficiency of Scotland’s homes. The cabinet secretary talked a good game by referring to 4,000 extra social rented houses a year, setting aside the fact that he promised 6,000 earlier in the year. The fact of the matter is that the experts say that he will struggle to achieve that objective, even though he has changed the counting method to counting completions rather than starts. He will struggle to reach 4,000, but of course that number of houses in itself will not enable us to achieve the homelessness commitment that we have to achieve by the end of next year.
If we go for increased housing investment, certainly in the next year or two—there is obviously capital yet to be allocated—it will tick the employment box, the economic growth box, the social justice box, the climate change box and the 2012 homelessness commitment box. Last week we heard that the City of Edinburgh Council cannot meet its 2012 homelessness commitment because of the shortage of affordable rented housing in Edinburgh. That must be the immediate imperative for infrastructure expenditure.
I hope that the cabinet secretary will start speaking the language of priorities. I am sure that in his youth he quoted Nye Bevan:
“the language of priorities is the religion of socialism.”
16:36
I will start by saying something that I hope will please Jean Urquhart: I welcome the Scottish Government’s infrastructure investment programme. It is indeed an ambitious programme, as Lewis Macdonald fairly said. It might not amount to £60 billion when we do all the sums, but nevertheless there are a large number of projects in it. If they are all delivered, they will make an important difference to people in Scotland.
Of course, that welcome has to be qualified, because it is very easy to make promises far into the future. In our amendment, we identify that most of the projects that are being proposed will not even start until after 2016, by which time we will have had another election.
I particularly welcome the promise on the dualling of the A9 from Perth to Inverness. As the minister knows, there has been a long-term campaign to have that done, which I have been very happy to support on two grounds: first because of the very serious accident rate on the A9—it has the highest fatality rate of any road in Scotland—and secondly because creating a dual carriageway would increase vastly the economic opportunity for both Perth and Kinross and the Highlands.
I am proud of the record of the previous Conservative Government, which, according to a parliamentary answer obtained from Mr Neil’s colleagues, spent £600 million on the A9 in today’s prices in its period of office, compared with £60 million spent by the SNP since 2007, so there is a lot of catching up to be done. However, I welcome the fact that the 2007 manifesto pledge from the SNP is now to be fulfilled. We are told that we will see work start in 2017—we look forward to receiving the details of that early in the new year, according to what the minister said to me earlier this afternoon. We look forward to the work being completed by 2025.
We know that another important dualling is to take place: the dualling of the A96 from Aberdeen to Inverness, which, again, is very welcome, and which is to be completed by 2030. According to my calculations, by that time my good friend Mr Neil will be in his 80th year. I have no wish to be negative about the potential longevity of Mr Neil’s career, but I fear that by 2030 he might no longer be with us. Indeed, I see it now: he will be happy in his retirement. He and Isabella will be sitting of an afternoon with slippers on, feet up, watching “Countdown”, having long since cast off the shackles of ministerial office, which some younger person has taken over. My point is that it is easy to make promises that he will not be around to have to fulfil.
Of course, all this comes from the people who promised us not so long ago that we would have class sizes of no more than 18 by 2011, and that has not happened either. So, whether it is a wish list or a letter to Santa Claus, time will tell. We welcome what is being proposed, but we will welcome it more whole-heartedly when it is delivered.
Before I leave the subject of the A9, I want to agree with a point that Dave Thompson made earlier about two-plus-one lanes. I have always questioned the logic of creating two-plus-one lanes on the A9. If it really is the Government’s intention to move quickly with dualling, money would be better spent on creating not those additional lanes but a full dual carriageway.
The other key issue is funding. The cabinet secretary has today set out a menu of options—capital borrowing, non-profit-distribution, regulatory asset base, tax increment financing, national housing trust, JESSICA, loan funds and European structural funds. That is a cornucopia of methods to pay for the infrastructure investment plan. There are two key points in all this. First, virtually all the methods that I mentioned involve borrowing money. Not so long ago, I heard SNP members railing against long-term borrowing and telling us that we were mortgaging our children’s future. Of course, we will be doing that in spades under this infrastructure programme.
Secondly, the money that we will be borrowing will be overwhelmingly private funds. We are told that that borrowing will be done through the non-profit-distributing model. As Alex Johnstone pointed out, that is a misnomer. Whether those who are lending the money are the banks or the sovereign funds from Qatar that the First Minister is so fond of, they will not give us money if they get no return. They will expect to make a profit. The model will be not a non-profit model, but a with-profit model. We should stop calling it the NPD model and start calling it the with-profit-distributing model.
When I quizzed Audit Scotland a few months ago at the Public Audit Committee, it accepted that the non-profit-distributing model was a type of private finance. Members such as Maureen Watt, who rail against private finance, should have the honesty to admit that, if the programme is to proceed, that will happen only because it is funded with private finance.
That is an important point, because private finance has to be borrowed and when we borrow money, the interest rate at which we borrow becomes absolutely crucial. We are fortunate at the moment because interest rates are low. The union dividend has delivered low interest rates in this country compared with what is being paid across the euro zone. Even Germany, at times, is paying higher interest rates than we are. Let us never forget that it is SNP policy to join the euro, see interest rates rise, and see future generations paying even more for the programme than the £60 billion that is being claimed today. Thank goodness that we have David Cameron representing us in Europe and not the First Minister. He is protecting our AAA rating and ensuring that we can borrow money much more cheaply than would be the case if we were independent and part of the euro.
I want to mention one other thing in passing. Jim Hume made a fair point. I liked the unlikely sight of the cabinet secretary being savaged by Jim Hume on the issue of housing for social rent. The Government promised 30,000 social rented homes, and that promise is not being delivered. That is another broken promise.
If the plan is to be not merely a wish list, it needs more detail. We look forward to that. Our modest amendment calls for that and I am sure that if the minister is serious, he will have no difficulty in accepting it.
16:43
I, too, welcome publication of the infrastructure investment plan. We need a plan for long-term capital spending. However, as many other members have said, I am disappointed that the plan appears to be just a wish list or never-never land, as Margaret McDougall said. Half the projects have no funding mechanism. The costs are sketchy and vary between hundreds of millions of pounds for individual projects, and it is difficult to see how they can be budgeted for. Where funding mechanisms are in place, there is very little detail about how they will work. We do not have borrowing powers at the moment.
The non-profit-distribution model—or for-profit-but-capped-profit-distribution model, which, as Murdo Fraser said, might be more accurate—was proposed for the Borders rail link. It was unsuccessful, so it is untested and we do not know how it will work. Can we be sure that the projects that have been earmarked for such funding and the projects that have not been earmarked for anything and so might come under that model will be delivered?
We also have tax increment financing, which has been piloted. However, my understanding is that we would need legislation to roll that out, so which projects are earmarked for that funding? What will happen to them if the legislation is not rolled out and the pilot throws up problems?
The pilot projects do not require legislation. If we were to roll out a longer-term programme, that would require legislation.
Indeed; that is my point. To roll out TIF further than the pilot projects, we need legislation. When is that legislation coming forward and which projects will be affected by it? We need some clarity on that.
EU funding was mentioned. It is unclear what EU funding we will get post-2014. Jean Urquhart mentioned the impact that objective 1 funding had on the Highlands and Islands. I agree with what she said. I was puzzled that Mike MacKenzie implied that EU funding had nothing to do with the Government. Will the cabinet secretary give credit to someone other than the Scottish Government if we secure some for EU funding in the future?
Does the member acknowledge that the Highlands and Islands lost objective 1 status, when it should not have done, because of arithmetical errors in calculating GDP per capita and that that was the responsibility of the Labour Government at the time?
That is wholly untrue. We lost objective 1 status because of enlargement of the EU. The Labour Government successfully secured transitional funding, from which we are still benefiting. Let us hope that we are so lucky in the future.
Malcolm Chisholm mentioned the 5 per cent rule. We need some clarity on that, including how it affects all the funding mechanisms and how it will affect investment.
We wonder whether the infrastructure plan will be delivered. Alex Neil said in his opening speech that all the projects in the current infrastructure plan will be delivered but a number of projects that were included in the 2008 infrastructure plan have since been dropped. For example, as Margaret McDougall mentioned, GARL is not happening, and nor are the trams to Leith.
Today’s plan includes a number of repeats and delays. The 2008 plan said that the Aberdeen western peripheral route would be completed by 2013 but there is now no completion date. Is that another delay? A great many delayed projects, such as the A9 and the Southern general hospital, are repeated in the plan and rolled out as something new.
The plan talks about broadband, which, as Aileen McLeod said, is extremely important, especially to rural areas. However, I do not have Aileen McLeod’s confidence that next-generation broadband will be delivered to everybody by 2020. Other members, including Mark Griffin, asked about the speeds of next-generation broadband. We need some clarity. My understanding is that next-generation broadband provides high speeds. If that is going to be rolled out everywhere, it should be available to people who do not currently have broadband as well as to those who enjoy reasonable speeds.
To do that, we must map the fibre that is available throughout Scotland and we must do it now. I am aware of fibre being provided by state funding in pathfinder projects, and that fibre will be installed on the Beauly to Denny line. We need to have a public map of where the fibre is to ensure that we utilise what is available and do not build fibre on top of fibre, wasting public money. We should make the best use of public money to roll out next-generation broadband to other areas. That is hugely important.
Many members talked about the important issue of housing. Neil Findlay was right to say that it was the biggest budget loser. The promise of 6,000 social rented houses a year has been scrapped and we will get affordable housing instead. It is debatable whether mid-market rent qualifies as affordable housing—to my mind, it does not.
Malcolm Chisholm talked about retrofits. Retrofits are extremely important not only because they create jobs and cut down our emissions, but because they tackle fuel poverty. Retrofitting could lift huge numbers of people out of fuel poverty and make a real difference.
We need to think about rural housing and how that is funded. Housing funding is now competitive, and rural housing associations cannot compete with their urban neighbours. That means that some of them will not build any houses next year. We need to ensure that that does not happen, because we need new houses in rural areas as well as in urban areas.
Many members have mentioned transport. As I said, the A9 is in the plan, albeit that it is a retread, but roads such as the A737, which Margaret McDougall mentioned, the A83 and the A95 are not even on the wish list. Will they be improved in any way between now and 2030? Mike MacKenzie mentioned the A82 and the work at Pulpit Rock, which the plan says will be done post-2017, if funding is available. That is written in the document, and I would like the cabinet secretary to confirm that when he winds up, because I was certain that that funding had already been allocated.
The member needs to start winding up.
I will conclude. A number of issues have been missing from the debate. For example, there has been no mention of what is to happen with the consequentials from the autumn statement. If the letter about revenue to capital transfer was, indeed, sent to the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee prior to the debate, why was it not made public and placed at the back of the chamber so that we could talk about it in the debate?
The SNP Government has no shame about dropping plans. It dropped GARL and it dropped trams to Leith. We are not sure whether it will maintain the infrastructure investment plan. We hope that it will, and we hope that it will fair better this time.
16:51
I say to my Labour colleagues that I have never met such a depressing crew in all my life. If it had been left to them, we would not be talking about the dualling of the A9. They never made any commitment to the dualling of the A9, to the Forth replacement crossing or to the A96, and they did not want the Scottish Futures Trust or an NPD programme. If Labour had still been in office, they would just have accepted the Labour-Tory-Liberal cuts and would have offered nothing to fill the black hole that is being left by those cuts. We, on the other hand, are filling the black hole through the SFT and the NPD programme.
Mr Neil, I am absolutely certain that you did not mean to say that the Labour Party did not make a commitment to the Forth replacement crossing. We did so clearly. What I need to learn from you is whether you believe in the intermodality of transport, a new Edinburgh airport rail link and the Glasgow airport rail link.
To be fair to Helen Eadie, she has supported the new Forth bridge. I remember that she went even further in the first session of Parliament, when she wanted to completely dismantle and rebuild the Forth rail bridge. That would have been a highly ambitious programme.
Contrary to the reaction of the Labour Party and the other Opposition parties, our programme has been widely—
Members: Wildly.
It has been welcomed with wild enthusiasm by the business community. Let us look at some of the quotations. My good friend Iain McMillan from the Confederation of British Industry Scotland is fully supportive of Government policy. He said:
“Many of the capital projects identified in the Infrastructure Investment Plan, particularly those relating to transport such as the dualling of the A9, the A96 and M8 and the Edinburgh-Glasgow rail improvements, are ones CBI Scotland has called for and their inclusion is very positive and will be widely applauded by business.”
However, they will not be widely applauded by the party that claims to represent business.
Did the minister point out to Iain McMillan that it would be his members who would be paying for them?
We are talking about an investment programme that will have a high return to CBI members and to everyone who lives in Scotland from the point of view of jobs and economic growth.
The Tories’ position seems to be incredible. They are arguing for the dualling of the A9 and, to be fair, they welcomed the dualling of the A96. We have also had John Lamont, who—we were told in his absence—is being accused of riding two horses at once in the Borders. That is a gross underestimate of the number of horses that Mr Lamont tries to ride in the Borders. He wants us to do more on the A1. We also heard calls for more investment in the A95, more houses to be built and more ports—more everything. They say that and then they tell us not to borrow a penny.
The fact of life is that, if the Tories looked at the plan in detail, they would see that the bulk is funded through capital grant and not borrowing. There is an element of borrowing, but if we had control over our own purse strings the amount of borrowing would be substantially less and the amount of investment would be substantially more.
Let me go on to some of the other people who have welcomed the programme.
Will the minister give way?
Of course, Mr Hume.
Thank you, Mr Neil. I shall not savage you any further regarding socially rented houses today, although I shall maybe come back to that tomorrow.
You were going on about welcoming more borrowing powers. As I asked in my speech today, will you now back the Scotland Bill, which would give more borrowing powers to the Parliament?
I remind members in the chamber not to refer to “You”.
To be fair, Presiding Officer, Jim Hume is a farmer and maybe “Ewe” is a common term that he uses. I just wanted to ram that home. [Laughter.]
Let me continue with my quotations until 5 o’clock. Liz Cameron, who is the chief executive of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, said:
“The Scottish Government has set out a clear central purpose to increase Scotland’s sustainable economic growth rate and this can only be achieved through attaching a high priority to infrastructure investment.
This review of the infrastructure investment plan was an essential response to the changing economic climate and we welcome the Scottish Government’s commitment to a long term plan to improve Scotland’s transportation links and built environment.”
Will the minister give way?
Of course, Miss Beamish. I am delighted to do so.
Ms Beamish. Thank you, cabinet secretary.
Will the cabinet secretary answer for us the point that was raised by Malcolm Chisholm about the “total lack of detail”—in the words of Friends of the Earth—on the low-carbon economy in the Government’s plans?
That is no problem. The plan is totally consistent with the UK Government’s plan that by 2050 we should all be driving about in electric cars. Electric cars are like cars that are powered by the internal combustion engine in that they need roads. The pollution is caused not by the road but by the internal combustion engine, which is not in the road but in the car. If we meet Chris Huhne’s ambitious plan for us all to be driving in electric cars, we will be sure to have the road network to deliver on that promise.
We have heard some other interesting points about the cost of the plan. Let me tell members this: if we did not have to pay out nearly £700 million a year in private finance initiative annual payments, we would have a lot more money to invest without borrowing at all.
Will the minister give way?
Will the minister give way?
They are queuing up.
Presiding Officer, the voting has finished for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party in Scotland. Therefore, it cannot be influenced anymore, so it is only fair to give Mr Neil Findlay the opportunity.
It may be fair to you, cabinet secretary, but you have no time. You are winding up.
Members: Aw!
Thank you, Presiding Officer. It could be said that the whole thing has been a bit of a wind-up this afternoon.
I finish by commending to the Parliament my motion and the plan as a way forward for Scotland.