Chamber and committees

Mr Gibson may have been young 25 years ago, but I was, in fact, a student 17 years ago. I remember campaigning in the 2007 election, when the SNP ran on a manifesto that promised to abolish and replace the council tax. Of course, the current First Minister was part of crafting that manifesto and has been part of the SNP Governments ever since, barring one year. Yet, 17 years later, not only has the council tax not been reformed but, as was reported yesterday, the Scottish Government’s joint working group on council tax reform has not even met in the six months since John Swinney became First Minister.

In a similar vein, as we have heard from my colleague Michael Marra, just last week, the Scottish Parliament passed legislation on the Scottish aggregates tax, which will replace the UK aggregates levy. That legislation makes use of tax-raising powers that were agreed as part of the Smith commission and passed in 2016, but it has taken a full decade to pass legislation on a tax that, in many fundamental ways, is the same as the prior UK equivalent.

I reference those issues because it is important to note that the Parliament has tax-varying powers but it takes time for any changes to be developed, implemented and come to fruition. Although we will have varying levels of disagreement in the debate today—and in the debates that will follow—with the Greens and other parties on the range of suggestions that are made in the Green motion today, ultimately, none of those changes will be brought about in time for the 2025-26 budget that we are discussing.

No. I have much more to say and I have only a short time.

We must have an end to the plugging of financial black holes that the Government created with £460 million-worth of ScotWind money. That money was supposed to be earmarked for investment in our future, but it is going to be used to repair the SNP’s black hole. We need an end to the waste and lack of transparency that we have seen. Senior Scottish Government sources have admitted that there is waste and a lack of transparency, and they have said:

“We haven’t looked under the bonnet properly in years.”

We really need an end to the sort of governance that we have seen in the recent past. The next Scottish budget needs to demonstrate a return to competence and an intention to grow the Scottish economy. We know that, had the economy grown at the same rate as the UK economy, there could be billions of pounds more to spend.

Of course, the motion does nothing to address the fundamental problems that poor economic growth is creating in Scotland’s finances. We need to ensure that growth is at the heart of what we do. That has been eloquently outlined by my colleagues, as it will be in their closing speeches as well.

There are no quick fixes for the economic mess that we face in Scotland after 17 years of an SNP Government and across the UK after 14 years of the Conservatives’ mismanagement of our public finances and crashing of our UK economy. However, that is the work that the new Labour UK Government has undertaken. It will take time and focus.

I fundamentally disagree with Mr Greer’s assessment—Mr Harvie said some of this in the debate yesterday as well—that there has been no change. The priority of the new UK Labour Government has been to pass changes to planning laws that will help to boost house building and infrastructure development. This week, we will see legislation for a new deal for working people—

—to increase the wages of working people in this country and to ensure that their work is stable and that we end fire and rehire and zero-hours contracts. It is not fair to make that characterisation of this Government, which is committed to change. It is time that the Scottish Government started thinking about the same.

Good morning to the cabinet secretary and her officials.

I have a question about the point that you made about the reconsideration of the UNCRC bill. The Supreme Court passed its judgment on the bill three years ago. I think that everybody knew that there was going to be a general election this year. Given the intervening three-year period, it would be useful to understand why it has taken until now to abandon the human rights bill. Does the cabinet secretary accept that organisations feel led up the garden path?

When did you come to the conclusion that you could not deliver what the stakeholders wanted, cabinet secretary?

Given that you had had three years of conversation, why did people such as the Scottish Human Rights Commission, Amnesty and those who were referenced in Maggie Chapman’s and Annie Wells’s questions react in such a visceral way?

I appreciate that my colleagues might well pick up on that point, so I will hand back to the convener.

Unfortunately, I was absent from the committee when we took evidence on these issues. However, obviously, I have read some of the evidence. There is much in the arguments that Maggie Chapman has made that is important and needs to be put on the record and explored, particularly the point about wider access to justice. I hope that the Government will reflect on those points and particularly the one about what it is fair to call a crisis in legal services. That is particularly the case with access to lawyers in criminal defence trials and the availability of lawyers through legal aid. I have had a number of constituency issues relating to the pursuers panel and pursuing solicitors who are at fault.

There is a range of issues that need to be looked at in the round, and I hope that the Government will take that on board. I have a degree of sympathy with Ms Chapman’s approach, but I am concerned about what would happen to the court system if we annul the instruments. I appreciate the costs that are involved and the arguments that have been made. I would be much more comfortable if the minister would say, in summing up, what further action she intends to take as a result of this discussion. However, I share the concerns that annulling the instruments might have a knock-on impact.

Last week, Professor McHarg provided a number of suggestions or a range of options for exploring this issue with the UK Government. To what extent has the Government considered that paper? It would be helpful to understand the cabinet secretary’s intention as to what will form the basis of her discussions with the UK Government.

I used the word “abandoned”—and I accept what the cabinet secretary has said about that—because I think that people feel that the bill has been abandoned for this session of Parliament. I think that it is fair to say that we will not have a bill this session. That is certainly the language that has been used to me by human rights organisations, and I am just trying to relay that back.

I absolutely accept what the cabinet secretary has said about the need for a renewed relationship. That is important, and we have heard a lot of evidence about avenues that could be explored. However, I am trying to understand what honest conversations the cabinet secretary has had, in the three years between the UNCRC judgment and now, with the stakeholders that we have talked about in which she has said what she has just said to me about the need for further work to be done, and what avenues she has explored. I might well talk about one in particular, but it would be helpful for the committee to understand what work has been undertaken during the three-year period.