Chamber and committees

As a new committee member, I just want to check something that is on the income tax table in figure 4. Am I right in thinking that, if we had not had devolved income tax, the Scottish taxpayer would be £742 million better off and the Scottish Government £190 million better off? Is that right, or am I missing something?

Is that just to the Scottish taxpayer, or would the Scottish Government have extra money as well because of the block grant adjustments? I guess there would not be a block grant adjustment, in fact.

I turn to another question. There was no mention of council tax in your report. Is there a concern that the council tax cap being removed would bring an overall burden to the taxpayer—that it would increase our overall level of tax—and that that could have a damaging impact on the economy?

Okay. I will move on. When I was reading the report, it seemed—as I think Daniel Johnson mentioned earlier—that tax earnings are falling compared with the rest of the UK, social security charges are rising compared with the rest of the UK, the working population is falling compared with the rest of the UK, economic growth is lower than it is in the rest of the UK and recovery is slower in Scotland.

When I read about all that, I was concerned about how sustainable everything is. Would action need to be taken in the short term to try to stop some of the figures that we are seeing coming through?

Are there any other comments from anyone else?

I think that is a no.

We could talk about it for a long time and still not find solutions.

In terms of the fear that the prevention agenda cannot happen because local government, which is where a lot of the prevention takes place, is having its budget squeezed.

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

I thank Jenni Minto for bringing the debate to the Parliament. I enjoyed her powerful speech.

Like other members, I commend the work of community organisations in fundraising to purchase defibrillators. Likewise, I commend the work of the British Heart Foundation and others. That work has increased the number of defibrillators throughout Scotland. However, we must do all that we can to provide more support to ensure that that network of life-saving equipment is properly registered, checked and maintained. After all, it really is a matter of life or death, and that is the reason why I feel compelled to take part in the debate.

Earlier this year, a constituent of mine was in desperate need of a defibrillator. His son rushed to the defibrillator that was in their local village but, for whatever reason, it was not on the 999 system or the Circuit. He tried desperately to get it open but, without the code to unlock it, there was nothing that he could do. He was tantalisingly close and I cannot think of a crueller situation than that. Tragically, my constituent passed away. He paid the ultimate price—losing his life—and his family are left with the tortuous, traumatic thoughts of, “What if?” for the rest of their lives.

It is unacceptable that we find out that a defibrillator is not properly connected or maintained only at the point when someone calls 999 with a desperate medical need for it. Currently, local authorities regularly check life rings to ensure that they are fit for purpose. I would like the Scottish Government to provide funding to local authorities or community groups to allow them to carry out similar checks on a regular basis. Like a life ring, a defibrillator is—we hope—never needed but, in an emergency situation, we need to know that the kit is available and that it works. At that point, it is too late if it has been vandalised or broken or it suffers from another kind of fault.

Like Jackie Dunbar, I welcome the fact that Aberdeen City Council is investigating the possibility of installing defibrillators in all schools and sheltered housing locations. As she said, it is a rare moment when all parties in Aberdeen agree, but we certainly did at that time.

As has been mentioned already, too many people have undiagnosed heart conditions that cause out-of-hospital heart attacks. As Jenni Minto said, currently, only one in 10 people who suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survives. We must do more to prevent that, and we can.

The work that small community groups have done to help to fund defibrillators throughout our country deserves tremendous praise, but there is a huge problem that needs the attention and resource of Government to bring in recommendations from charities such as Heart Valve Voice and other heart disease specialists. At present, too many lives are lost prematurely to heart disease in Scotland. I hope that there are steps that the Government and everyone else can take to help to tackle that.

We have heard at the Finance and Public Administration Committee about the importance of spend on early intervention and prevention, which the cabinet secretary mentioned. Our councils can make a huge difference in prevention, but the derisory uplift to the local government core budget is a slap in the face to authorities, which have done so much in the past year. When will the Scottish Government put its money where its mouth is and properly fund our councils?

It is rather strange to hear an SNP minister talking about how the Scottish Government can spend its money, when we see the amount of ring fencing that local government has. If the same amount of ring fencing came to a Scottish Government budget, I am sure that we would hear it talked about loudly.

We need to look at ways to exempt high streets and town centres from business rates and relax planning laws for redevelopment in those areas. Our manifesto was packed full of measures to help our high streets, which included changes to the small business bonus scheme; delaying the introduction of new non-Covid business regulations until 2023; and superfast fibre broadband to all businesses by 2027. In food production, we promised a Scotland first approach—a national food strategy to promote local produce and double the size of the food and drink sector by 2030—and a farm to fork review of Scotland’s food policy as a key element of Covid recovery.

The purpose of those policies is to boost demand for Scottish produce; strengthen the bargaining powers of producers, supporting them to upscale and export; better label Scottish produce—even clootie dumplings—and ensure that public procurement utilises Scottish produce whenever possible.

We want to promote Scottish produce at home and abroad, without fear of a Twitter onslaught or threats against those businesses. I ask the minister to join me today in condemning those who damage Scottish businesses by attacking and threatening them on social media just because they dare to promote Scottish goods in England on small business Saturday.

What we have today from the devolved Scottish Government is a motion that contains no commitments at all—no policy drivers, no help for local authorities and no funding to help our worn-out high streets. One shop owner in a small town in the Borders posted on Facebook the other day just how exhausted she was and how much the pandemic had hurt, not just financially but emotionally—she has had sleepless nights, fears of another lockdown, and worry about her staff and her supply chains.

It is not just about finances for many of those businesses, but about their heart and soul, their family businesses and the contribution that they are making to their communities. All those businesses look for is a bit of help and light at the end of the tunnel, not just warm words and platitudes.

Tomorrow, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy will set out the Scottish Government budget for the next year. I hope that it will include some of the measures that I have mentioned. I hope that it will provide funding and support for our small businesses as well as a bit of reassurance about the future, which our businesses are looking for. I hope that it will also provide for the great work of our business improvement districts—I completely agree with the minister on that point—and that it will give more funding to local government so that we can get on with the business of supporting our high streets. Warm words are great, but we want action.

I move amendment S6M-02442.2, to leave out from “and welcomes” to end and insert:

“; notes with concern Scottish Retail Consortium figures, which indicate that footfall for November 2021 was down by a fifth from November 2019; recognises, however, that Scotland’s high streets and town centres were struggling long before the COVID-19 pandemic began, and calls on the Scottish Government to deliver a budget on 9 December for 2022-23 that will drive local recovery by extending 75% non-domestic rates relief to retail, leisure, newspaper and hospitality businesses, and deliver a fair funding settlement to local authorities, so that they can properly invest in regenerating and supporting high streets and town centres.”