Chamber and committees

My questions might be a bit naive and all over the place because I am a new member of the committee.

I am interested in the point about inflation and how energy prices falling back is

“leading to slightly lower expectations for inflation and interest rates in the near term.”

From what I observe, core inflation has increased to 6.8 per cent and most commentators think that we are going to get at least one interest rate increase and probably two more interest rate increases, which will affect the housing market and mortgage rates. When do you expect to see a reduction in inflation? Last year, we were told that that would be in the middle of this year, but that has not happened.

Yes.

You will be aware that there are Covid inquiries in Scotland and the UK. They will look at various things including the shortcomings of politicians, mainly, and others. However, having heard you speak, I think that it is worth saying that it was an absolutely fantastic achievement to get through Covid and keep the services running. I hope that, in due course, people will recognise the scale of that achievement.

Going back to the subject of Michael Marra’s questions, I note that you said that you intend to reduce the numbers of supplementary staff by half this year. We are only about three months into the financial year, but do you have any idea how things are going so far?

We have heard a couple of interesting examples about, for example, how Brexit impacted on one organisation, which had to move from a platinum standard down to a gold standard. We have also heard about trying to effect public sector reform during a time of constrained budgets, post-crash from 2010 onwards. That has affected public sector reform, but I am struck by the prevalence of public sector reform being frustrated by or foundering on IT projects—not necessarily digitisation.

For example, about a decade ago, Disclosure Scotland had a terrible experience with an IT project. Police Scotland is sitting with at least eight different legacy systems. There was also the case in the UK of a national health service system in which investment of about £4 billion achieved nothing. Do the organisations around the table perceive themselves to be too small to wrestle with some of the big IT providers in order to get a grip on budgets and timescales for big IT projects that are fundamental to public sector reform? For example, for the police, even implementing what Parliament has set in new laws is difficult with the legacy systems that they have.

Garry McEwan made a point about getting a smaller group of experts with experience across the piece in such projects—good and bad. Would that be a way to overcome what I perceive to be an imbalance, in that quite small organisations are trying to deal with very large, sometimes multinational, IT companies?

I would like to go back to IT, convener—I do not know whether that is okay.

The reason for raising IT in the first place was really to do with project management and the fact that such projects can swamp smaller organisations, but the issues that have been drawn out are quite interesting.

The data issue, which a lot of people have mentioned, seems to put an obligation on organisations to ensure interoperability at the very start. I think that there has been a change in culture in that respect, with the general data protection regulation and data protection in general being widely perceived as having had a too-chilling effect on data transfer and sharing. That might suggest that a big change is needed.

One issue is data, another is project management and the last issue is the more mundane matter of shared services. Going back to David Page’s point about how we work our way through this, I have to be perfectly frank and say that, having had ministerial responsibility for four of the organisations around the table, I do not think that this will happen unless it is mandated. Somebody is going to have to say, “You’re going to have to put together a group that can look at this.” The cybersecurity issue, which might seem contrary to the issue of data management, is now hugely important, but that sort of approach is not being applied consistently.

My final comment is really just an observation. The fact is that, if we do not join up the dots in a way that suits us for the data that we need, AI will do it—indeed, it can do it right now. If we are not part of it, AI will just supersede any Chinese walls that we might have between collections of data, if that makes sense. We are as well to get ahead of the game, but to be honest I do not see that happening, given the way in which public bodies currently operate. They will, quite rightly, look after their own interests. It goes back to David Page’s point: unless there is a perceived benefit for both bodies involved, it will not happen unless it is mandated.

I thank Maggie Chapman for taking an intervention. I tried to intervene on Sarah Boyack, because I wanted to make the point that, although she is the only Labour member in the chamber, I believe her sincerity when she says that she supports devolution. That goes back to the time when I campaigned with her father and ran a marathon to raise money for a Scottish assembly, as it was called.

Is Maggie Chapman, like me, utterly dismayed that the strongest Labour voice in defence of this Parliament is the First Minister of Wales?

I offer many thanks to those members who have supported the motion and allowed me to bring this important issue to the chamber, and to those members who have stayed behind to listen to the debate.

To be frank, it is a disgrace that we even have to debate this issue, but debate it we must, because this chamber and this institution—this Parliament of ours—are under attack. Sadly, there are those within these walls who are complicit in that attack—some explicitly and others by their silence, or even by their absence.

There is a phrase that is often trotted out about the Scottish Parliament and that predates its existence; it was part of the argument that was made during the referendum campaign that brought the Scottish Parliament into being. It is that devolution and the Scottish Parliament are “the settled will of the Scottish people”. For me, that is a bit

“thus far ... and no further”.

Like Parnell, I am more inclined to insist that

“No man has a right to fix the boundary of the march of a nation”.

Indeed, all the parties in the chamber signed up to the Smith commission, which said that nothing should prevent the Parliament from moving on to become independent if that was what the people of Scotland voted for. There was certainly a very broad consensus in 1999 that a wide range of issues were best dealt with here in Scotland’s Parliament rather than down the road in Westminster, and I do not see any sign of a shrinking back from that view among the people of Scotland. On the contrary, support for extending the powers of the Scottish Parliament has grown substantially, and support for independence is regularly the majority option in frequent opinion polls—as recently as last week, in fact.

However, what I also see is hard-line unionists—those who were not part of the 1999 consensus and have resented the very existence of this place ever since—emboldened perhaps by their experience with Brexit and fuelled by dewy-eyed reminiscences of an empire on which the sun never set and a golden age that never existed, trying to claw back powers to Westminster and to Whitehall.

The long list of legislation that is detailed in the motion shows that this is not a one-off issue. Those people are working to a template and with scant regard for democracy. We could easily add to that list the blocking of an independence referendum and the refusal to recognise the overwhelming opposition in Scotland to Brexit and being dragged out of the European Union.

We also see the phenomenon of the craven Conservatives who will never defend anything that might represent the interests of the people of Scotland if it conflicts with what the Government in London is doing. One example of that was the Liz Truss fiasco, which cost Scotland perhaps £6 billion, with not a word of criticism from the Conservatives.

Let us be clear: this is not just the view of the “bolshie Jock grievance-mongers”, as people such as Jacob Rees-Mogg might describe us. For example, the former Labour First Minister Henry McLeish—who would, I think, be appalled at the absences on the Labour benches tonight—has branded Tory moves to curtail Scottish ministerial engagement abroad as an attack on devolution and has highlighted “the contempt, the disrespect” and the “political control and coercion” of the United Kingdom Government. He highlighted the Scottish Government’s “absolute democratic right” to pursue international engagement, and he warned that

“This Tory government does not recognise the spirit of devolution”.

Looking at the UK Government’s intention to use a section 35 order for the first time to stop the Scottish Parliament implementing a piece of devolved legislation—one with cross-party support, and majority support from MSPs of all parties—the current Labour First Minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, who, again, is more concerned about devolution than some members in this chamber, said that the move to block the law sets a “very dangerous” precedent, and that that could be

“a very slippery slope indeed”.

When the unelected Tory peer Lord Frost, who served as Boris Johnson’s failed Brexit negotiator, argued that “no more powers” should be given to the Scottish Parliament and that some powers should be snatched back by Westminster, there were Tory members, such as Murdo Fraser, Stephen Kerr and Donald Cameron, who is in the chamber tonight, who rightly condemned the column and sought to distance themselves from the proposals. I promised Donald Cameron that I would mention the fact that his relative Michael Ancram was one of those members who spoke up in the House of Commons against the clause that became section 35. Where is that strain of Tory these days?

The Tories now avidly support Westminster’s section 35 veto, and they frequently call on their Westminster bosses to ignore the democratic will of the Scottish Parliament. Just this weekend, it emerged that the UK Government is blocking the deposit return scheme, which was approved by the Scottish Parliament, because glass is included in it. The Welsh Government has also included glass in its scheme, and it will no doubt be told “No”, as well. The odd thing is that, as we know, the Tories here supported the inclusion of glass in the scheme. I am looking at Maurice Golden—or I would be looking at him if he was in the chamber—who, as long ago as 2019, tweeted:

“Scotland’s new deposit returns system should include glass. It’s just common sense”.

The move to block the scheme can only be a macho exercise in flexing constitutional muscle on the part of Westminster.

Britain is financially broke and constitutionally broken, but even with the limited powers of devolution, the Scottish Parliament has been able to make a difference. We have been building a fairer Scotland with the Scottish child payment, which is the most ambitious anti-poverty measure anywhere in the UK and which increased by 150 per cent in 2022. We have been creating a healthier Scotland, with record high staff levels in our national health service—over 28,800 more staff under the Scottish National Party. We are forging forward with a greener Scotland; our climate targets, for a 75 per cent reduction by 2030 and net zero by 2045, are among the most ambitious in the world. We are supporting a smarter Scotland, with, for example, £1 billion for the Scottish attainment challenge to support our most disadvantaged children and young people. We are promoting a wealthier Scotland, with a progressive income tax system to ensure that the majority—52 per cent—of Scottish taxpayers pay less than is paid elsewhere in the UK, while delivering extra support for our public services.

That is only scratching the surface of the benefits that devolved government—and, in particular, the SNP’s policies, in my view—has brought to Scotland. I could go on and list many more, or I could highlight the ways in which Scotland is outperforming the rest of UK—for example, on teachers’ pay, police officers’ pay and crime reduction. I do not have time to list all the benefits—the list is long and impressive—but perhaps other members will pick up that baton when they speak.

The Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Government and the Scottish people need more powers, not fewer powers. The attacks by the Tories on devolution and the failure of Labour and the Liberal Democrats—I see no Lib Dem members at all in the chamber tonight—to oppose them will not be unnoticed, forgiven or forgotten by the people of Scotland.

The former Tory member of Parliament and minister Enoch Powell—not somebody whom I have ever quoted with relish—said that power devolved is power retained. The UK Government wants to go further and see Westminster’s power regained. It wants to take back control. We will not let it do that. I end with a call to members on all sides of the chamber, at least to those who are here tonight, and certainly to all those who have believed in devolution from the start and still do, to unite and repatriate the power that has been stolen from this Parliament and from the people of Scotland.

Last year, a number of Tory MSPs in the chamber were calling on the Scottish Government to replicate Kwasi Kwarteng’s catastrophic plans for tax cuts for the rich, following the UK Government’s disastrous mini-budget, which ended up crashing the economy to the tune of—we are told by some commentators—£74 billion, Scotland’s share of which is around £6 billion. There was not a word of comment from the Tories about that £6 billion that was lost to the economy. Can the Deputy First Minister advise what the likely impact would have been had those tax cuts been implemented by a Tory Administration, and what the effect of the Tory spending cuts for Scotland would have been?

I know that this is very uncomfortable—it will not last very long.

The number of passenger journeys per person has been decreasing across Great Britain since 2008-09. In Wales, the number of journeys per person is less than half the rate in both Scotland and England. Although the total distance travelled on buses in Wales increased by almost a third compared with the previous year, the total distance travelled decreased most in Wales compared with pre-pandemic levels, and that has recovered the least compared with England and Scotland.

I do not quote those figures to try to make the Welsh Government look bad, but merely to point out that the Labour Party patently does not have a magic wand to fix bus services in Wales, and it does not have one—and it has not suggested one—for Scotland either.

Of course it is the job of Opposition parties to oppose and to highlight where the Government might be going wrong, but they also have a duty to be honest with the public and to make suggestions if they think that things should be done differently.

Let us look at the motion. We are told that the improvement of bus services should happen more quickly and that local authorities should have more resources—although I do not know how the Tories are going to manage that by cutting £500 million from the Scottish budget through tax cuts. There is simply no indication from either side of where the money will come from. When we are dealing with a virtually fixed-size budget, that is simply irresponsible.

Surely the motion was lodged because the Labour Party wanted to do more than simply gripe. There must be a big idea—a cunning plan to transform bus transport in Scotland. It is to cap fares. That is the solution put forward by the Labour Party. There is no reference to, or understanding of, the impact of Brexit or the pandemic. What a paucity of vision that represents.

One idea on its own is highly unlikely to lead to the increased passenger numbers that help to make bus routes more sustainable. We need a broad package of measures, and that is what the Scottish Government is addressing.

Just this month, the Minister for Transport launched a £300,000 campaign co-funded by the Scottish Government and the Confederation of Passenger Transport to encourage people to choose the bus. Meanwhile, the various concessionary bus travel schemes brought in by the Scottish Government have now reached the significant stage at which 100 million bus journeys are being taken each year by holders of one or other of the concessionary travel scheme cards.

I am absolutely delighted that the people of Clackmannanshire and Dunblane and people throughout Scotland are taking advantage of the concessionary travel cards available. Those figures underline the SNP’s commitment to widening access to free bus travel.

For that reason, I support the amendment in Kevin Stewart’s name.