Chamber and committees

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions the social justice secretary has had with ministerial colleagues regarding the support available to families experiencing poverty, including as a result of high energy costs. (S6O-02604)

To ask the First Minister what support the Scottish Government is providing to Creative Scotland. (S6F-02433)

Yes. I note the urgency of the work.

I am conscious of time. My last question is about the Verity house agreement. I think that there was an expectation that there would be more meat on the bones on the fiscal framework by the end of September. Will you give us an update on that, and on the principles of how the financial flows will work with no ring fencing or direction of funding?

Good morning, and thank you for attending today. I have a further set of questions in addition to the convener’s. Part of our challenge is the breadth of what we have to cover.

You have eloquently outlined the fiscal challenges. Have you had discussions with other political parties? Thus far, have they approached you to indicate their preference for policy decisions, and, in particular, given the shortfall, which is often talked about in the chamber, have they set out their plans for their ideas of what should be cut?

I am conscious that other colleagues will want to come in, but there are a couple more areas that I want to ask questions on.

To finish my previous point, I have already picked up that some in the renewables sector are rattled by the Prime Minister’s recent cooling—or apparent cooling; perhaps that was for his conference—on renewables and the effect that that will have on global capital flows. The money will go where there is political certainty, so, when such sentiment is expressed, it will probably affect Scotland while it is constrained within the UK. I am not looking for you to treat that as a question and answer it, but it might be helpful if you can make some further reflections on how that may affect or limit our ambitions.

I have a couple of questions on the reform of public services. I know that that is a stated aim. I am particularly interested in public sector property management. That is a huge area, and we all understand how the landscape is totally different after Covid. I was interested in the commentary in the recent Audit Scotland report. It seems as though we are operating at ground zero. The report comments:

“Without robust data on the entire existing estate, it is difficult for the Scottish Government and public bodies to decide whether this estate will meet future needs”.

My understanding from a previous life is that it is incredibly complex and time consuming when the Government is bedded into full repairing and insuring leases. Will you give us an update on where Government is with that and, critically, what timescales you are working to? A huge amount of money must be being tied up that could be used elsewhere because things have changed.

I will leave the field clear here. I feel as though I have asked enough.

I am sure that you, like me, will welcome any costed proposals and alternatives, because we all need to own the issues that relate to the constraints on a fixed budget.

One of the things that is being discussed this week, with a helpful intervention from the Fraser of Allander Institute, is the suggested income tax rises and the effect of behavioural changes. The Fraser of Allander Institute modelling showed the different percentages and numbers that that would wipe off any tax raised, varying from £56 million to £161 million, or 30 per cent to 36 per cent, based on the proposals from the Scottish Trade Unions Congress and the Institute for Public Policy Research Scotland. I appreciate that that cannot be exact. The only time that the numbers can ever be exact is after the event; we all understand that. To what extent are you considering behavioural changes? What would mark the tipping point in a go/no-go decision for you?

Yes, I can understand that. The Fraser of Allander Institute’s paper sets out anticipated effects. As you said, the methodology that it is using will be the same as that of the Scottish Fiscal Commission. My wider concern is around perception. It is extraordinarily difficult—probably impossible—to work out some scenarios properly, but there will be a perception linked to what, in my view, is a relatively low committed spend to entrepreneurs, for example, of only £15 million, although, of course, we have not seen the budget. It is about the wider picture.

Again, it is this same question: what reflections have you made on the perception of people, businesses and investors? I accept that the foreign direct investment stats are very strong—we agree on that—but we are trying to predict how behaviours might change as a result of policy decisions. We have to compare apples with apples, as the convener said. Do you think that the perception, rightly or wrongly, that Scotland is a higher tax environment will play into investment decisions? How are you reflecting on that perception in your decisions on tax rises?

Sorry to interrupt, Deputy First Minister. I suspect that I will strongly agree with what you are going to say. My question, if I have not been clear, was, given the scale of the estate that you have outlined, do you have a worked-up programme in the Government to address that issue? I think that we are all agreed on the scale of the challenge and on the benefits therein. I fully understand your position, but there is a need to move to having something substantive—to have at least a framework—to operate to.

I knew that the Scottish Liberal Democrats were irrelevant, but I did not expect them to prove it quite so readily today.

It all started with Brexit, didn’t it? Sold a dud by Tory Brexiteers who stoked and then played on fears, people in the UK took a leap into the darkness—apart from Scotland, which wisely voted by a majority to remain. It was not immediately obvious that the slogan “Take back control” really meant something entirely different. The lunatics in the asylum forced through a hard Brexit and a power grab by Westminster on our institution—this Scottish Parliament.

Sensible proposals to allow Scotland to continue to have access to the single market were ignored but were eventually conceded for Northern Ireland, with an admission from Sunak when he was chancellor that it had the best deal possible. The supine Scottish Tories are left defending the indefensible with a rictus grin as the evidence mounts up, with the latest poll showing that 58 per cent of UK voters are in favour of re-entering the EU. No wonder people were too embarrassed to turn up to the Tory conference.

The Labour Party branch office in Scotland is no better. “Make Brexit work” says Sir Keir Starmer, in an attempt to woo back red-wall voters. Even the Labour amendment, which can be summarised as saying, “Play nice,” is paltry, although it is good news that Labour agrees to repeal the UKIMA, as set out in the Scottish National Party motion. However, is that the response to an all-out assault on the institution that the Labour Party claims to have helped create? The Labour Party must be embarrassed by the Welsh Labour leader showing it how objections to the UKIMA are done. This Parliament made clear that it refused to give consent, as did the Welsh Senedd, but that, alongside a multitude of other Sewel motions, has been ignored. That is another by-product of the lack of respect shown by Westminster to this institution.

What, then, of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020? It will not surprise members to know that I lean towards facilitating business and so can understand the sensible approach that has been adopted by the Scottish Government in agreeing to common frameworks. However, the evidence heard by the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee was overwhelmingly that the UKIMA

“places more emphasis on open trade than regulatory autonomy”.

Therefore, in terms of balance and of fundamentally allowing devolution to continue to work—the whole point was allowing divergence on matters expressed democratically through the ballot box—the act is skewed. It was made clear that it would have an effect. That was not just my view but that of Professor McEwen, who told the committee that the act

“might in itself be introducing delays in the policy-making process, if not putting things into a long-term chill.”—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 2 December 2021; c 35.]

The UKIMA stifles innovation and a different way of doing things. Would the smoking ban have been allowed? Would the introduction of a charge for plastic bags have been allowed in Rishi Sunak’s climate-denying world? The same committee highlighted concerns around public health choices that were raised by the likes of Alcohol Focus Scotland, Action on Smoking and Health Scotland and Obesity Action Scotland. They collectively have

“serious concerns that the effect of the mutual recognition principle for goods will be to significantly reduce the benefits of introducing new devolved measures to protect public health.”

The real concern is about democracy, or rather the lack of it. The Fraser of Allander Institute said:

“The Internal Market Act can therefore be seen as enabling a range of UK government interventions that bypass not only the Barnett formula but the devolved administrations themselves.”

Let me rephrase that—they bypass this democratically elected Parliament. In his recent speech to the Tory conference, Viceroy Jack delighted in his new understanding of devolution. No more “devolve and forget,” said he, emboldening the bypassing of the democratically expressed wishes of the people of Scotland.

He also said that he will give back a further £140 million of our money to seven local councils in Scotland—whose priorities is that based on? Who voted for that? How will it be monitored? The Finance and Public Administration Committee is still waiting for Michael Gove to make his promised return to account for the previous lot of money. Those funds are to be spread over 10 years at £26 million per year; compare that with the £183 million per year that the Scottish Parliament got from the EU.

The Scottish politicians who refused to stand up for Scotland during a cost of living crisis and turned down opportunities to make matters better—for example, they denied this place the ability to control employment law—will not be forgiven. Do not forget the rights of the people of Scotland—rights that remain and will not be removed. I look forward to a further exploration of the implications of that in our Scottish National Party conference in October. We need a clear path to independence. It is more vital than ever.