Chamber and committees

It has been an interesting debate, despite the difficulty of fully digesting substantial documents in such a short time, which was unfortunate. However, from across the chamber, we have been able to glean information about some useful characteristics of the report. From what members have said today, there seems to be a shared sentiment that we want Scotland to fulfil its full economic potential, we want our people to be prosperous, and we want to build prosperity in our country. However, there was a bit of a disconnect between the rather bombastic claims made by the minister in his opening remarks and the preceding statement by the Deputy First Minister during portfolio questions, when we were faced with the idea of severe economic headwinds that threaten the prosperity of our country.

There are difficulties and structural problems in the Scottish economy that we cannot help but take into consideration. I do not feel that the report is going to help us to fundamentally shift that in any way. There were some interesting points made, but the fundamental issue is that the report is too passive, given the nature of the challenges that we face.

I acknowledge the headline figures that the minister gave for foreign direct investment, but does he recognise that not all foreign direct investment projects are created equal and that there are developmental projects and dependency projects? Is the Government investigating whether the projects are adding value to the Scottish economy or taking Scottish economic sovereignty out of the country?

I am afraid that time is against me. I will endeavour to bring the minister in at a suitable juncture, but I want to develop some of my arguments first.

We have big advantages in Scotland. For example, economic development spending is higher in Scotland than it is anywhere else in the UK. Indeed, it is 60 per cent higher than the UK average. However, unfortunately, that higher spending is not feeding into better productivity or growth, because there is too much of a quick turnover and churn, and a lack of focus in investment strategies.

As an alumnus of Scottish Enterprise, I can attest to that. It is not an organisation that is fully geared up to building the kind of capability that we need in Scotland, because it is too passive. I have seen that at first hand.

Let us look at some of the issues that we have dealt with in the debate. The minister will be well aware, for example, of the recent closure of the Caley rail works in Springburn, just next to his constituency. Let us look at that as a case study. When it was bought over by Mutares, a German firm, that would have been counted as inward investment and lauded, according to the minister, because all inward investment is great. However, what was the inward investment about? It was debt loading Scottish-owned assets; it was flogging off real estate to a US investment trust that was based in New York; and then it was asset stripping those industries from Scotland to service the debt, and focusing on the intellectual property, which was held not in Scotland but by the English subsidiary. The Scottish subsidiary was thrown away. We have had 163 years of railway engineering destroyed because of inward investment that was predatory, not developmental, in nature. That is why we cannot simply look at FDI as a panacea, which is what my friend Richard Leonard alluded to when he spoke about the extent to which the Scottish economy is becoming increasingly characterised as a branch plant.

We see stories such as that of McVitie’s, a Scottish company, the ownership of which has been stripped from the country—it now has Turkish ownership. The last factory with the McVitie’s brand has closed down in Glasgow; we have lost that brand, which is so synonymous with Scotland and is one of the best-known Scottish brands globally. Would America allow Coca-Cola to go the same way? I do not think so.

We have to fundamentally focus on how we maintain and build Scottish wealth in this country. That will require things such as looking at where we are world leaders and where we have the potential to be world leaders, and building the companies in Scotland—building them with the Scottish National Investment Bank, taking those stakes and building that equity to ensure that predatory overseas takeovers are prevented. That should be the fundamental ethos at the heart of a plan such as the Government’s, but unfortunately, when it comes to that kind of thing, the plan is thoroughly silent.

Members on the Government benches mentioned that, including Fiona Hyslop, the member for Linlithgow, who spoke about her concern that Scotland is too vulnerable to overseas takeovers. I am sure that we all have stories about where we have seen great Scottish potential thwarted by overseas takeovers. Would it not be great to see Scottish businesses going out into the world, buying over other companies and building that global network, with the control, capability and headquarters located in our cities, rather than in board rooms in other countries?

Rather than Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Development International going around begging board rooms in other countries to invest in Scotland, we could take the bull by the horns ourselves and do the hard work that is needed. I do not think that the agencies are doing that well enough. There needs to be a fundamental challenge to them to up their game and stop the neoliberal passiveness.

For example, I made a suggestion about emulating the Mondragon concept in Spain. Let us build the railway engineering in Springburn; let us allow employees to take ownership of the assets there; let us build, along with the new publicly owned railway company, a centre of excellence for railways in Scotland. When I suggested that, I was looked at as if I had two heads. It just did not compute with the agencies’ thinking, economically and fundamentally.

We see the same thing when it comes to issues such as Willie Rennie mentioned. Liberty Steel could have been at the heart of a renewables renaissance—we could have had green steel and rolling plates and electric arc furnaces. However, what are we doing now? We are dealing with another distressed company that is on the brink of collapse. The same goes for Ferguson’s, which needs long-term investment and procurement plans; Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd—CMAL—is not interested and we are sending orders to Turkey.

All those things are fundamentally at odds with one another, and unless we get everything shaken out and done right—which is what we all desperately want—we will not achieve the gains that are needed to help us to fund our public services, and the Deputy First Minister will continue to come to the Parliament to make cut after cut to public services.

Will the Deputy First Minister agree that, in addition to the consequential fiscal transfers that are available to the Scottish Government to respond to the cost of living pressures, the introduction of new tax levies on wealth and assets such as land, and the issuing of sub-sovereign bonds to finance public sector capital investments, should be explored as a matter of urgency?

Fifty-five years ago today was a very proud occasion on Clydeside. Tens of thousands of people gathered at John Brown & Company’s shipyard to watch the late Queen launch arguably the greatest engineering achievement in our country’s history, the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2. It was a particularly proud occasion for my family, because my granddad helped build the ship on Clydeside, like many thousands of working people in the west of Scotland.

There was tension in the air because no one knew what the ship was going to be called. At that time, it had been cryptically named Q4, and it was also known as Contract 736. There was great expectation in the air, but only two people in the shipyard knew what the name was going to be: the shipyard director, and the owner of the Cunard line. They shared rather awkward glances, because they knew that the ship was meant to be called Queen Elizabeth 2—that is, named after the previous Queen Elizabeth, which had been launched in 1938 and had been named after the Queen’s mother. While everybody else was celebrating as the Queen triumphantly announced that she named the ship Queen Elizabeth II, they realised that she had named the ship after herself, which was not the intention.

The Queen certainly struck the right note with the crowd, as she did throughout her reign, even if it was to the consternation of certain interests elsewhere. A similar occasion gave me one of my proudest memories. Before entering politics, I worked in the shipbuilding industry, and in 2014 I had a moment of great pride when I witnessed the late Queen smash a bottle of single malt whisky on the hull of the new aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, the largest ship ever built for the navy, as she christened it at Rosyth dockyard. I had helped to build the ship.

Many Glaswegians will have similarly personal recollections of the late Queen. She was a great friend of Glasgow, and her longevity and constant presence meant that she bore witness to some of the most remarkable events in our city’s story and our country’s story over the past century. That is why there has been a particularly visceral outpouring of grief. It is not simply commemorating the passing of a monarch; it is commemorating the passing of a generation and one of the last filial bonds that everyone has with that era and that lived memory and experience.

Her introduction to Glasgow came at the age of just 12 as she joined her parents to tour the iconic empire exhibition at Bellahouston park in 1938 on the eve of the second world war. The exhibition was a gleaming white streamlined modern city within a soot-blackened sandstone city, which celebrated the plethora of world-leading industrial and commercial achievements of what was then the second city of the empire as it emerged from the great depression.

Indeed, the Queen would celebrate the tradition of launching ships on the Clyde on no fewer than six occasions. She celebrated with thousands of Glaswegians in recognition of their great industrial achievements. Everyone feels that, in building a ship, they have built it themselves. Having the Queen come along and share that recognition was a really powerful experience for many people.

To many, Queen Elizabeth was the ultimate embodiment of public service. Her selfless and unwavering commitment to her public duty was unrivalled and, regardless of what anyone thinks about the abstract debates about the institution of monarchy or the concept of hereditary succession, now is simply a time to pay sincere tribute to a kind woman and inspirational leader who dedicated her life to be a humble servant of our country and the people of the Commonwealth.

I associate myself with comments from colleagues across the chamber about the health of Her Majesty the Queen.

The minister will be aware that Ukrainians are not the only people who are seeking refuge and asylum in Scotland. There are almost 5,000 asylum seekers in the country. Extending the concessionary travel scheme to all those asylum seekers would improve their lives immeasurably. The discussions that I have had with the Government have generally been positive, but progress has been painfully slow. Can the minister confirm whether the Government agrees that the concessionary travel scheme should be extended to all asylum seekers?

I thank the minister for advance sight of her statement.

The minister will be aware that the consultation on my proposed drugs death prevention (Scotland) bill closed at midnight last night, and that more than 85 per cent of respondents to that consultation believe that an oversight body must be entirely independent of Government in order to be effective. Sadly, that is not the case with the new national mission oversight group, which appears to be a continuation of the task force, rather than anything else. Will the minister commit to establishing an independent body, such as my proposed drug death council, or are we just going to continue to keep doing the same thing over and over again, as we have for the past 15 years, while expecting different results?

At this moment, as the cabinet secretary outlines £500 million of cuts, public corporation Scottish Water has reserves of almost £500 million, following its price hike earlier this year—a rise that looks set to happen again next year. Has the cabinet secretary demanded that public corporations that have vast reserves play their part in easing the financial pressures that millions of Scottish households face by holding down utility bills and investing in capital projects such as public district heat networks that get houses, public buildings and businesses off the gas grid?

Thank you, Presiding Officer.

I thank my friend for that intervention. It is critical that the Government hears that proposal and ensures that the emergency legislation incorporates that mechanism. I have just outlined that the decoupling of housing costs from incomes has been going on for more that than a decade in this country, and we must address that issue urgently.

We are in a cost of living crisis. Months of Government inaction has cost hard-pressed tenants money. Although it is welcome that the Government has finally acted on rent freezes, it is utterly unconscionable that they are poorer because of the failure to act three months ago. That is why we must address that time lag urgently.

The Government is right to call for a freeze to energy costs this winter and in what it said about the increase in the cap. The Labour Party agrees whole-heartedly with that approach, but we could be taking action here, too. Just a few months ago, I visited a municipally run district heating system in Clydebank that could take the entire town off the gas grid. It already provides energy to the Golden Jubilee hospital and numerous public buildings in West Dunbartonshire, but it cannot be connected to residential properties because there is no funding to do that. I would welcome clarity on whether the project would be eligible for the Clyde mission decarbonisation fund, which was announced earlier today. The fund cannot be another half-baked neoliberal programme that is exploited by foreign state-owned firms, such as Vattenfall in Sweden, when it could be a national system of innovation that uses Scottish companies, is owned by the Scottish people and delivers benefits back into our national economy.

We need to be honest about the scale of the challenge that the lowest earners in Scotland face. Half a million people in Scotland have no money left after they have covered essential monthly expenses, and more than a million have less than £125 left over every month. With energy bills, prices in the shops and interest rates all rising, most families in Scotland will face the hardest winter in our lifetimes.

While we had a summer of strikes, the Government was reluctant to respond unless it was dragged kicking and screaming from the Edinburgh festival to sort out the problems. There has been a failure to utilise the leveraging of the public sector and the procuring power of the state to drive up standards across industry. Just one example of that relates to the ScotWind projects, as the Government has completely failed to make the adoption of collective bargaining a condition for the licensing of ScotWind contracts. That has been a gross failure.

Although it is good to be back in the chamber, frankly, we could have been here taking action all summer. I have no doubt that we can get through this mess if there is the will to do so, but I worry that the Government would rather point the finger of blame elsewhere than lift a finger here to help.

Many of the proposals that the First Minister announced this afternoon are welcome. However, they are all long overdue and, in many instances, the Government could and should have gone further and with much more urgency.

We had a series of debates on the cost of living crisis in May and June, but nothing of any substance was put in place. We could have acted then. Instead, we went into a parliamentary recess lasting almost a quarter of the year. Parliament could have been recalled with a few hours’ notice, given the scale of the crisis. Labour called repeatedly for that to happen, but not a finger was lifted. Meanwhile, my constituents have been calling my office in tears and have attended my advice surgeries worried sick about the impact that the crisis will have on them and on their families.

Although I agree with the First Minister that the Tory Government has utterly failed to grasp the scale of the crisis—it has been consumed by a self-indulgent party leadership contest—that makes it all the more depressing that the Government here in Edinburgh has also been posted missing all summer.

I want to welcome specific measures that were announced today. The proposal for an initial overdose prevention centre in Glasgow has my full support, and the Government knows that my member’s bill intends to complement that effort through a licensing system that will enable rapid scaling up of those facilities nationally. My bill consultation closes tomorrow.

I also commend the no compulsory redundancy policy. However, that should be in place indefinitely in the public sector. I also note with interest the £25 million Clyde heat decarbonisation fund, which sounds promising, and I look forward to seeing further detail on that.

Although I am not convinced that the measures to tackle child poverty go anywhere near far or fast enough, I welcome increased funding of any description that will help to tackle child poverty in Scotland, however inadequate the effect that that redistribution of incomes has across the economy.

I also note the rent freeze announcement, although I have concerns about its short, seven-month duration. I encourage the Government to extend the minimum period of the freeze well beyond March 2023, to give comfort to tenants about their security.

In June, Mercedes Villalba proposed a rent freeze. Green MSPs told her that that was unworkable at that time. I do not know what is different now, why the Government has suddenly U-turned and why the excuses that it gave to us in June are no longer a concern. Frankly, the explanations that we have heard today from previous speakers have been woefully inadequate and unconvincing by any measure. A lot of that change has to be to do with members of the Green Party being in open revolt about their parliamentary representatives betraying them in that way.

We are three months—a quarter of a year—down the line from Mercedes Villalba’s proposal. How many tenants have had their rents raised in that period? How many landlords have taken advantage of the Government’s inertia? We know that, for example, rents in Glasgow are up 41 per cent since 2010, meaning that the average rent is more than £1,000 a month. Meanwhile, wages are down 3 per cent over the same period.