Chamber and committees

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.

Just to finish this off, can you tell us what timescales you are working to?

I agree. Thank you.

I hear what you are saying and I accept all of that. You talk about accountability on both sides, and I think that the principles are clear. However, the budget for 2023-24 will be published fairly soon, in December, and local authorities will be asking what specifically it will mean for them in the following year. Have you managed to have any discussions yet with the Cabinet Secretary for Finance about what the interim measures will be? I acknowledge that you said that it will be an iterative process, and I am thinking specifically about local authorities that might wish to, for example, revert to using the more flexible pupil teacher ratio instead of going by the number of teachers and that will, therefore, be making specific budgetary plans based on that, because that is a longer-term issue. I am trying to flesh out how far they will be able to make those decisions straight after the budget, as I am not clear about that.

I accept your point, convener. I raised the pupil teacher ratio more as an example than as a specific point. I accept that it will be dealt with later.

After Mr Dey’s indication that he would be looking for administrative savings from the Scottish Funding Council, can you tell us what substantive progress has been made on that thus far? In other words, what sums are you going to put on the table, and where will they come from? Failing that, you could just write back to the committee.

I will move on. Given the increasing talk about the Scottish education exchange programme—and again this is a general question—what sense do you have of the budgetary requirements in that respect? Moreover, with the considerable financial challenges that I agree we face at the moment, how will the money for that be found in what is a very constrained environment?

Thank you, convener.

It is me again, cabinet secretary. In the evidence session that the committee had on 17 May, which I appreciate was a while ago, the minister for HE and further education, Graeme Dey, confirmed that work was being done on potential savings from the Scottish Funding Council’s administration costs. I have just a quick question: do you have any update on progress on that? If savings have been identified, are they coming from elsewhere in the portfolio? Can you give us further information on that?

Good morning, panel. Thank you for attending. I want to start with a quick question about the Verity house agreement. We know that some broad principles have been established, but, critically, we still need to work out the principles, never mind the details, of any fiscal framework.

Therefore, my question is, what consideration have you given to how the Verity house agreement will change your approach to setting the budget, giving advice to local authorities about budget setting and, indeed, policy making in terms of funding, ring fenced or otherwise?

Before I ask my main questions, I want to go back to the earlier question about training. I think that Donna Bell said that some programme management training, particularly around financial management and scheduling, was involved, but from my experience as a programme manager many years ago, I know that those are the fundamentals. You cannot deliver anything without a basic knowledge of scheduling and financial matters.

Therefore, I have to say that that worried me a wee bit. What on earth made you think before that you could deliver anything without having that basic skill set in place first of all?