Chamber and committees

Will the member take an intervention?

To ask the Scottish Government what legal advice it has received on introducing the proposed referendum bill on Scottish independence. (S6O-00744)

No rail improvements for the north-east of Scotland were mentioned today, and no mention was made of re-laying the Formartine to Buchan line or of the promised 20-minute reduction in journey times between Aberdeen and the central belt. Have those projects hit the buffers?

Fifteen years.

I received the following message from a constituent with a child in fifth year at school:

“The impact of face masks on hearing impaired pupils has been catastrophic and disproportionately affects them. Face masks not only take away their vital method of communication—lip reading and facial expression—it also reduces sound and distorts normal speech which as hearing people we all take for granted.

The whole impact of wearing face masks in schools for these pupils will not be felt for years to come when the life chances of hearing impaired pupils will be less than their hearing peers and yet again they fall further behind and are disadvantaged.

Every single day this policy is in place, it’s taking away future hopes, dreams and friendships of hearing impaired pupils.”

What is the First Minister’s message to that parent?

Will the member give way?

Will the member give way?

I remind members of my entry in the register of members’ interests, which shows that I am still a councillor at Aberdeen City Council.

It has been an interesting debate. I note that a similar debate happened in the House of Commons this week on a similar motion from Labour. I want to focus initially on the proposal in Labour’s motion that a windfall tax be imposed on the oil and gas industry. It is sad to see Labour now being so disconnected from the north-east. It has a significant history in the city of Aberdeen, but it seems to have turned its back on the region, just like the SNP has. It is now completely disconnected from the energy industry and its workers. A windfall tax on the industry would impact those workers most severely.

We cannot simply change a tax regime with a flick of the pen—that is unfair on our industries and causes instability and uncertainty in the marketplace. When investment is under threat, those companies fail to create jobs and invest in the north-east. It is my constituents who will suffer; it is the 100,000 Scots who are directly employed by the energy sector who will suffer; and it is their cost of living that will be affected when they have uncertainty about their employment. The SNP-Green coalition is threatening their jobs in the north-east, and now the Labour Party has joined in and is doing the same.

This week, my colleague Andrew Bowie made the point in the House of Commons that

“oil and gas prices fluctuate wildly. Gas may be sitting at near record prices today and oil may be sitting at $88 a barrel right now ... but tomorrow that might all change. It is grossly incompetent, naive, inept ... and totally ignorant to base a policy around the price of oil and gas.”—[Official Report, House of Commons, 1 February 2022; Vol 708, c225.]

He is absolutely correct.

To turn to other matters, the cost of living crisis that we face is probably the biggest issue that we have to deal with as we recover from the pandemic. The SNP-Green amendment is nothing if not predictable. It takes no responsibility and offers nothing new. “Give us more powers,” it says. The SNP and Greens do not need more powers in order to fund local government correctly; they just need to value it and treat it as a partner. As Finlay Carson pointed out, there is a huge risk of increased council tax bills, due to the real-terms cut of £251 million to local government. That will be a real burden to families across Scotland, and that is entirely the fault of the devolved Government. I hope that the devolved Government will pass on in full to our local authorities all the consequentials from the UK Government’s announcement today of a reduction in council tax bills in England. They do not need more powers in order to invest in our future workforce and give the people in it the skills to have a well-paid job and improve our economy’s productivity.

More and increased taxes are not going to solve the cost of living crisis. Increases to the living wage, raising the personal allowance, reducing unemployment and creating well-paid jobs will do that. We have heard today that the UK Government is taking action. The Scottish Government needs to do that, too, as Jackie Baillie pointed out in her contribution.

We have heard other interesting contributions. We heard from Christine Grahame, who said that there was no debt in Norway; that has since been corrected by Kenny Gibson. Once again, the SNP has somehow moved a debate on the cost of living back to the topic of independence. I have news for Christine Grahame: if she thinks that things are bad now, independence would bring austerity max, which would affect the poorest in our society.

We also heard from Stuart McMillan, who brought up the issue of spending being wasted. The £700,000 that is being spent on civil service planning for an independence referendum is money that is wasted. What about the rusting ferries with painted-on windows? Surely that is another huge waste of money.

In conclusion, Presiding Officer, I support the amendment that has been lodged by Liz Smith—to build our economy, increase employment, support the north-east, and recover from the pandemic.

Last year, my colleague Maurice Golden closed the same debate for the Conservative Party. In that debate, he commented that:

“There are usually two certainties with a Scottish budget—taxes going up and a pantomime from the Greens, pretending that they might not support it.”—[Official Report, 25 February 2021; c 98.]

Last year, he was pleased that one of those traditions was broken. This year, I am pleased to see that the other one has also been broken. The Greens are no longer a pantomime; instead, they have been fully brought into the circus of this devolved Government, selling local government down the river for a couple of ministerial diesel cars.

As has been said many times, the fact that hard-working, middle-income Scots pay more tax than the rest of the UK is a disgrace. Why should our nurses, teachers, public servants and many more be penalised because of this devolved SNP-Green Government? However, the most disgraceful fact in all this is that all that extra tax that our vital workers are paying is for nothing—it is of no benefit at all for the Scottish budget.

At the Finance and Public Administration Committee on 14 December 2021, Professor Alasdair Smith of the Scottish Fiscal Commission told us that, if Scottish income tax had not been devolved, taxpayers would be better off by £800 million in 2022-23.

I am tackling that point, Mr Mason. The whole point is that, if the tax had not been devolved, our taxpayers would have £800 million back in their pockets. That point was made not by me but by Professor Alasdair Smith. It is about having £800 million back in the pockets of hard-working taxpayers, back in our economy and back being spent on our high streets. Tomorrow, we have Labour’s debate on the cost of living. Think how much better it would be to have that money back with families right across Scotland.

Before anyone says that that £800 million is more for the Scottish Government to spend, I am afraid to report that that is not the case. Because our economic performance is lagging behind that of the rest of the UK, that extra taxation is simply to plug the gap in our economic divergence. Alex Cole-Hamilton pointed that out in his contribution.

To be fair, that is not the fault of devolved taxation; it is the fault of the devolved SNP Government and its economic incompetence. The SNP gambled that the Scottish economy would grow faster than the rest of the UK’s. It gambled that oil and gas would pay a pivotal role in economic growth, but then it got in bed with the Greens. The First Minister went for some selfies at the 26th United Nations climate change conference of the parties—COP26—and she turned her back on the oil and gas industry in the north-east. The SNP gambled with millions of taxpayers’ hard-earned cash—and lost.

In 2017, Nicola Sturgeon said:

“I have been very clear that the Government will not increase income tax rates. At a time of rising inflation and pressure on household incomes—especially low incomes—that would not be the right thing to do.”—[Official Report, 2 February 2017; c 10.]

Yet middle-income taxpayers right across Scotland are paying more—much more.

The minister said that he has been talking to businesses.