Chamber and committees

Indeed, I agree with the convener of the Criminal Justice Committee. As I have already said, some individuals will apply for a licence and will not use fireworks for the rest of the year. The issue is whether the licensing scheme will effect the culture change that the cabinet secretary has spoken about; I plan to move on to that after I have taken this intervention.

I do not really have time to take an intervention. I am happy to take interventions but I do not think that there is time.

Scottish Labour is prioritising, and is saying to the Parliament that we should prioritise, this particular action, given that we see it as one of the priorities that we should be setting.

We already know that there are many good examples of councils that are taking steps to address the issue. For example, as has already been mentioned, while it was under a Labour administration, North Ayrshire Council brought forward flat rate charges regardless of income to include meals at homes and telecare. As has been said, earlier this week, West Dunbartonshire Council unveiled an ambitious cost of living plan that includes ending non-residential social care charges and which would put more than £1 million back into the pockets of some of the most vulnerable people.

We know from SPICe that the cost of removing charges would be in the region of £51 million, and we already know that charges for services that are not considered to be free personal care vary tremendously across Scotland, with different councils having very different charging policies.

The national care service will address many of those issues, but as we also all know, it will be a number of years before any national care service is in place. The debate is about what we can do in this financial year, within the budgets that exist, that will help people who are in real need and support some of the most vulnerable against a backdrop of a massive cost of living crisis. I ask colleagues to support the motion.

The debate is, of course, about what we can do now given the challenge that we face, to support some of the most vulnerable in society with the level of reserves that sit with health and social care partnerships. There seems to be a consensus across the chamber that there should be a removal of non-residential social care charges, which have sometimes been called a care tax, but the debate seems to be about when that should happen.

We need an extensive debate about the Scottish Government’s proposals for a national care service. I remind Gillian Martin and others that, as proposed, it will be a centralised service. I have campaigned for a national care service but the national care service that I campaigned for would be a not-for-profit care service that respects the role of local government.

That is not primarily what the debate is about. We know that there has been a slashing of care practices, that care charges are an issue, and that there has been a withdrawal of respite care. The motion proposes an end to all non-residential social care charges in the current financial year. It is not about the future configuration of care in Scotland, but it is about priorities and what we think that the Parliament should be prioritising.

The negative impact of Brexit on Scotland and on the whole of the UK is clear, as is the Conservative Government’s failure to work with all the devolved institutions. Will the cabinet secretary outline what he can do to ensure that legislation on matters such as agricultural subsidies, for which it is clear that there is devolved responsibility, is brought before this Parliament as soon as possible? What work is being done on how, for example, public procurement will be affected, and what legislation can this Parliament enact?

The Sheku Bayoh inquiry, which, of course, relates to a police-related death, started taking evidence seven years after Sheku Bayoh’s death. It is currently in the first of four stages, and I understand that it may take four years to report. How will the cabinet secretary ensure that the recommendations of that substantial inquiry are implemented?

Are other crimes beyond drug driving affected by the issue? I understand that, in November, the Government paid to outsource 30 per cent of testing to commercial forensic services, to allow about 900 drug driving cases to be dealt with. Is that a long-term solution or is it the plan to return to an in-house service?

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. My app did not work. I would have voted yes.

I warmly welcome the debate and the opportunity to consider the significant announcements that were made last week.

We have heard from many members about the backdrop to the discussion. Across the UK, we have the sharpest fall in living standards, rising food and fuel prices and rising inflation. As members said, Brexit, the pandemic and Ukraine make the economic situation more challenging.

As members also said, there seem to be specific issues in Scotland around poor productivity and earnings growth. The growth forecasts are poor.

We know that, given the announcements last week, we face significant cuts in budgets for many sectors for which the Scottish Government is responsible.

I will focus on the impact of those cuts. Local government will be significantly affected by a cut of approximately 7 per cent. When the announcements were made last week, Unison’s Scottish secretary, Tracey Dalling, said:

“This is a desperate day for public services that will have catastrophic consequences for Scotland’s communities”.

I want to focus on a sector for which the impact of the cuts will be disastrous: the justice sector. The sector is already in crisis. Before the pandemic, approximately 13,400 sheriff court trials were outstanding. As the Criminal Justice Committee indicated in a report earlier this year, there are now approximately 32,400 outstanding cases in the sheriff court.

In last week’s announcements, significant real-terms cuts of at least 20 per cent over the next few years were proposed. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service budget is frozen at £170 million per year until 2026-27, the community justice budget is frozen at £47 million per year until 2026-27, and the justiciary budget is frozen at £29 million per year until 2026-27. The legal aid and Scottish Police Authority budgets are also frozen, along with the budgets for the Scottish Prison Service, the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.

I fully appreciate that politics is about priorities and choices, as members have said, but those real-terms cuts will have significant impacts on a sector that is already in crisis. The projected gap is £3.5 billion. The Parliament needs to debate such issues, because the impacts will be significant.

We know that there is a massive backlog in trials—43,606 as of February—and that Scotland has the highest proportion of people in prison anywhere in Europe. It has historically had very high percentages of people on remand, which rose to 30 per cent, and perhaps higher, during the pandemic. We also know that it costs £40,000 a year to keep a prisoner in prison. There are significant impacts and consequences of the types of cuts that were announced last week, which the Parliament needs to debate.

I have focused on one sector, but other sectors have similar stories. It has been said that it is a matter of choice and that other sectors have perhaps done better. The challenges that we face in the health sector and social security budgets have been mentioned.

I hope that we have a serious debate about how we make the Scottish Parliament’s budget bigger. I do not think that it is helpful to specifically focus on independence in this debate, because the Parliament can do many things with the powers that it already has. We heard a number of speeches about income tax, and we heard my colleague Paul Sweeney talk about what could be done with district heating. There is much that could be done on municipal energy production that would contribute significantly to many of the issues before us today.

We urgently need to consider what we could do on land taxes, and we need serious proposals for a land value tax, including looking at what we can do to tax the profiteers such as Amazon, which operates out of warehouses that could fall under a land tax. Those are the kinds of debate that we should be having in the chamber.

A land-based tax would be lawful, and I hope that we come back to that debate. I look forward to debating the member on that specific issue in future.

A number of reports have indicated the types of taxes that are within the powers of the Parliament. The Scottish Trades Union Congress, in a joint report with the Institute for Public Policy Research Scotland, listed a number of areas that we could be looking at, including local inheritance tax, local payroll tax, fair work supplements on business taxes, local income tax and carbon taxes.

I hope that, in coming debates, we seriously engage with those suggestions and that the Scottish Government comes forward with proposals on how we meet the massive challenges of the coming years.

I will take an intervention, and I hope that I will get my time back.