Chamber and committees

If you are looking for optimism, you have possibly come to the wrong place, convener.

We have covered an awful lot of what I wanted to explore. Sometimes, politicians play the game of thinking, “If it were me, what would I do?” I have been thinking about lots of things. For example, we could make all of Scotland a free trade zone but, oh no, we cannot do that. We could attract lots more entrepreneurs into Scotland, to go back to the digital line, but, oh no, we cannot do that. We could pick up on George Osborne’s old phrase about the “march of the makers” but, as the convener pointed out, there has been a 9.7 per cent cut in capital expenditure.

Having said that, I accept Graeme Roy’s comments about public sector consolidation and focusing on key sectors and the move away from oil and gas. One thing that this session has been very good for is looking at the wider perspective. Graeme Roy talked about structural issues. I do not think that we have talked about those enough in the committee. How are the structural issues in the UK economy holding Scotland back? I fully accept that there are structural issues in the Scottish economy but, looking at the macro picture, how are UK structural issues holding Scotland back?

I am looking at you, Graeme.

My last wee question is about behavioural elements. You talk about the Scottish Parliament taking a risk. If I was running a business, there is no way that I would run it in this way. How does that affect behaviour? That is probably my last question before the convener closes me down, and rightly so.

I am trying to work out the cost to the tax take of the Scottish Government of the reduction of up to 50,000 immigrants. I do not know anything about the nature of how much tax they paid or whether you would average it. I want to get a sense of the cost of that in budgetary terms.

I have one last wee question.

There will be economic outcomes, so the two are linked.

Good morning. I want to go right back to where we started, Professor Breedon. I could not quite hear your answer on what, specifically, was contained within the £620 million other income. I heard “spillovers” and “underspends”, but I could not hear what you said.

What estimates have you included and at what levels? I suspect that we will also want to probe the Scottish Government about what is included in that amount. If you do not mind, I ask you to run through that. In particular, I am also interested in whether and how you have factored the health and social care levy into your projections and whether you estimate that the Scottish Government has done the same. I understand that the Treasury says that the levy is in the figures, but I do not have a tangible sense of at what level in the budget.

I sense that you are laughing. I apologise if that was an unfair question but we will follow it up with the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy. My understanding is that the UK Treasury says that the health and social care levy is included in Barnett consequentials but we do not have a sense of the exact amount. Is that correct and is it the assumption that you make?

I congratulate the cabinet secretary on making such an outstanding budget statement, given the severe challenges that have been created by the, to be frank, incompetent UK Government.

The cabinet secretary has rightly put economic recovery at the heart of her budget. As she is the first female to hold her post, I want to ask her about issues that are of concern to many women in business. What can be done to ensure that there is a more granular understanding across government of the economic impact on women of Covid, Brexit and so on? What can be done to ensure that women are not discriminated against in seeking business funding for start-up companies?

An issue has been escalated to me in my capacity as the convener of the cross-party group on music. The Scottish commercial music industry task force wrote recently to the UK Government to highlight its concern that only £9 million of £40 million that was committed to in Barnett consequentials for culture has been given to the Scottish Government. The minister has referred to that. What discussions has she had with the UK Government about that very concerning situation?

In 1946, two years before the United Nations declaration of human rights was adopted, Eleanor Roosevelt became chairperson of the UN Commission on Human Rights and went on to become the author of the UN declaration. It is remarkable but singularly appropriate that a woman led one of the most important international declarations ever made. In her speech of 1948 in Paris, she said that

“Basic human rights are simple and easily understood: freedom of speech and a free press; freedom of religion and worship; freedom of assembly and the right of petition”

and freedom

“from arbitrary arrest and punishment.”

The words are simple and clear but, regrettably, they remain unfulfilled in many and perhaps most corners of our world, 73 years later. Why, for example, is there still arbitrary imprisonment of the likes of Aung San Suu Kyi, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Zhang Zhan? Why do we still have to struggle to enshrine the most basic of rights? I think that the answer lies in the words of Elie Wiesel, who is a Holocaust survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. It is a problem of profound indifference. Back in 1999, he said:

“The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees—not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity, we betray our own.”

As members may know, I am concerned about the indifference that is shown by some towards the hard-won rights of women. Rights that have always merited some attention but do not compromise the rights of others are coming under increasing threat. Too often, we are all guilty of that; we pursue the rights of those with whom we sympathise but in such a way that we deny or compromise the equally important rights of others. That is not the path to universal human rights. Freedom that is gained by denying freedom to others is no freedom at all and the antithesis of human rights.

Nelson Mandela was one of the most remarkable men to understand the tyranny of seeking to gain power in order to deny the rights of others. His words at his trial in 1964 are as relevant today as they were then:

“I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.”

It is not enough to celebrate human rights day—we need to stop our indifference to the suffering of others, and we need to aspire to be remembered as Eleanor Roosevelt was remembered by Adlai Stevenson:

“She would rather light candles than curse the darkness.”