Chamber and committees

Mr Griffin raises a number of very significant and serious issues. I would be the first to accept that the position on homelessness and temporary accommodation is not where I would want it to be at this moment. Mr Griffin and I can probably agree that that is a product of the financial constraints that we have had over the past 14 years from Conservative-led austerity. I welcome, as I did last week, the investment that has been announced by the United Kingdom Government, which will provide us with more scope to address the issues that Mr Griffin puts to me.

My answer to Mr Griffin’s direct question about whether the improvement of the housing situation remains a priority for the Government is yes, it does. I am happy to confirm that. I will be working with the finance secretary during the budget preparation to address that very issue. It was a matter of great regret to the Government that we had to reduce funding for housing because of a very abrupt reduction in spending on financial transactions by the previous Conservative Government. We now have more options available and I give Mr Griffin the assurance that that will be uppermost in our thinking.

However, I come back to the point that I made to Mr Sarwar. If that money is to be spent, there will have to be more people voting for the budget than just my colleagues, so I invite Mr Griffin to encourage some constructive discussion in the Labour Party about how we might make progress on the budget so that we can address the legitimate points that he puts to me.

I have already put on the record the fact that the Government has delivered more growth per head in Scotland than the United Kingdom has done.

On the tax changes that the Government has presided over, people such as Mr Findlay told us that there would be an exodus of people from Scotland because of the tax situation. However, we have seen a net in-migration to Scotland over the period of those tax changes being in place.

Of course, there is a budget to be gone through, and the budget cannot pass in Parliament without the agreement of members beyond those of the Government party, because we do not command a majority in Parliament. Led by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, discussions are under way to construct agreement in Parliament about what the budget will look like.

The implications of Mr Findlay’s point on cutting taxes are that we will have to cut public expenditure, too. If people are going to come forward with substantive propositions in the dialogue with the finance secretary, they should at least have the democratic responsibility to set out not only where the tax cuts will come but where the spending cuts will come. If we dabble with the financial madness of the Conservative Party that we got under Liz Truss, we all know where that will end up.

No. We do not need a new direction; we need to sustain the investment that the Government has been making in the national health service for the past 17 years. The Government has gone beyond the investment that has comparatively been undertaken by the Barnett consequentials from the United Kingdom Government. The Government has been prepared to invest in the NHS in excess of the Barnett consequentials on health, because we have taken the tough decisions to do so.

I acknowledge that there are challenges in the NHS—I do so on every occasion that members come forward with their points—and I apologise to any individual who waits longer than they should do. However, the Government is focused on ensuring that we deliver an effective health service that meets the needs of people in Scotland, and that is the direction that we will follow.

Such contributions do not help with the reasoned deliberation of policy in the Parliament. As I pointed out last week, I came into government in 2007 committed to A9 dualling. The Parliament took a decision that stopped me from spending £500 million on A9 dualling: the Conservatives, the Labour Party, the Liberals and the Greens forced me, as a minister in a minority Government, to spend £500 million on the Edinburgh tram project when the Government had made a commitment to spend it on A9 dualling. In the subsequent period—[Interruption.]

Colleagues are muttering, “17 years ago.” If we had been able to proceed with projects at that time, we would have had £500 million at our disposal to dual the A9, which would have helped.

I am a bit perplexed by which projects Mr Mountain did not want us to take forward. Did he not want us to take forward the Queensferry crossing? Did he not want us to take forward the Aberdeen western peripheral route? I see Mr Burnett sitting in the chamber. He will be driving on the Aberdeen western peripheral route, and so will Liam Kerr. Do they not want such projects to be delivered in different parts of the country?

The Parliament needs to have a reasoned debate about the limitations of resources, and we need to have less posturing from the Conservatives.

Anyone who looks at my track record knows that I engage closely with the business community on all these questions. I also understand that there is a vibrant debate about the economic choices that are to be made. From Russell Findlay’s questioning, I suspect that he is on one side of that argument and that I am on the other, because I believe in using investment to stimulate growth. We have had an example over the past 14 years of what the constraining of investment does—it reduces life chances, opportunity and growth. That has been an unmitigated disaster for the country, and that is the record of the Conservative Party.

I will make a couple of points at the outset in responding to Mr Findlay’s latest question. First, he says that there is no evidence of growth. Scotland’s gross domestic product per capita has grown faster than the United Kingdom’s since 2007—if we account for population growth since 2007, GDP per person has grown by 10.5 per cent in Scotland, compared with 6.3 per cent at the UK level. I remind Parliament, so that it has the complete information, that 2007 was the moment when the Scottish Government was elected. Therefore, in this Government’s lifespan, we have delivered more growth per head than in the rest of the United Kingdom.

Russell Findlay rose—

For 14 of the past 17 years, this Government has railed against the austerity that was inflicted on us by Meghan Gallacher’s Conservative Government. After all the damage that was done in what we all agree was a disastrous period of austerity, and despite that austerity, this Government has built more affordable housing per head of population than in England or Wales. Despite that Conservative Government austerity, we have invested in housing.

Do we have a housing emergency? Yes, we do. Have we built more houses per head of population than in the rest of the United Kingdom? Yes, we have. Are we glad to see the back of the Conservatives and the impediments that they put in our way? Yes, we are, and we will focus on delivering for the people of Scotland.

On Sunday, Scotland pays tribute to the brave men and women who laid down their lives to protect our country and the freedoms that we all enjoy. Their bravery and their sacrifice make possible the peace and the liberty that we all so rightly cherish today. We remember them in our hearts and we commit ourselves to work for the peaceful and democratic way of life for which they made the ultimate sacrifice. [Applause.]

I agree with Mr Adam on the principle that education should be based on the ability to learn and not on the ability to pay. As a consequence of the policy stance that the Government has taken, record numbers of Scots secure a university place in Scotland and record numbers of Scots from deprived areas secure places at university without having to face the tens of thousands of pounds of debt that the Opposition parties seem determined to saddle them with.

That is what people get from the Scottish National Party Government delivering for the people of Scotland, delivering access to higher education and ensuring that people are not saddled with the debt that they would be saddled with if the tuition fees in other parts of the United Kingdom were applied.