Chamber and committees

I will not. Jackie Baillie would not take an intervention from me and I will not be taking one from her.

What Labour did in 2009-10 is exactly what it did in 1979: it facilitated a long-term Tory Government that was committed to austerity, and Scotland continues to suffer the consequences of that.

Michael Marra mentioned the Scottish Government’s budget and Glasgow City Council. Let us make a comparison with Birmingham City Council, which is a Labour-run local authority. It will be making £1.5 billion in cuts, including cuts to adult social care, and it will be imposing a 21 per cent increase in council tax on the people of Birmingham. Of course, Birmingham City Council has something in common with Glasgow City Council: both have to deal with the legacy of Labour having failed to pay the councils’ female workers for many years.

That is the history of government by Labour, and that is a warning about what we should expect from a future Labour Government.

We have been talking about local government. I remember, having been a local government leader in the early 2000s, telling the Labour and Lib Dem Executive in Scotland that it was once again cutting local authorities’ share of the overall Scottish budget. I was told by both parties that it was not an important indicator, and that I should not worry about it. However, it seems to be very important to Labour and to the Lib Dems now. We have done far more to remove ring fencing and to support local government than Labour has ever done.

Alex Cole-Hamilton spoke about selling off the sea bed cheaply. His is the party that, under Vince Cable, sold off the Royal Mail for billions of pounds less than its market value. We are still paying for that. I will not mention what Ed Davey has done in relation to the Post Office, or the party’s betrayal on tuition fees. However, those things are very important. People think that we should dismiss and forget about the Lib Dems because they are an irrelevance, but we should not forget their record in office.

First, I do not agree with that statement and there is no way of knowing what it is based on. However, the idea that an independent Scotland could not construct a better future than being £2.65 trillion in debt and having the massive tax burden that the Tories have given us is, in my view, for the birds.

We have had 14 years of Tory austerity, which built on the previous Labour Government’s start to austerity way back in 2008-09, and that has had a huge impact on our public services.

We also have to consider the impact on the Scottish taxpayer. For example, they are currently contributing to the Ajax tanks programme. It was meant to cost £5.5 billion and to have produced 589 tanks by 2017. We have had only 44 tanks. The tanks were meant to cost £9 million each, but the current cost is £90 million each, and the programme is seven years late. That is the level of Tory mismanagement of the economy and the impact on the Scottish taxpayer.

The Tory Government, as Maree Todd said, has now said that we cannot have care workers coming to this country because their families cannot come. That has passed without comment or a word of criticism from Tory MSPs, who fail to criticise any action of the UK Government. There is another path for them. Why, if they really believe in support for business, can they not just say that it is wrong for the UK Government to cut our capital budget? What prevents them from doing that? Tory MSPs could do a lot more to stand up for Scotland and add their voices to the case for Scotland.

I turn to Labour. My goodness. Jackie Baillie mentioned the last period of the previous Labour Government. We all know its last words, which were

“There is no money left.”

It started the austerity—

I will, if I am allowed to.

I conclude by saying—given what has been said and the complete absence of any substantive amendment or suggested change to the proposed budget—that to my mind, the best thing that members in the chamber can do is vote for the budget motion in the name of the Scottish Government.

Murdo Fraser is carefully avoiding mentioning the fact that, under the Tories, the UK now has the highest tax burden since the second world war. He also never mentions the £400 to £500 lower council tax in Scotland. As well as the differential that he mentions, will he at least acknowledge the base that the UK Government has set in having the highest tax burden since the second world war?

I should say at the start of my speech that I believe that this is a good budget that was constructed in very difficult circumstances. I like that it supports our public services, that it has social justice at its heart and that it protects our NHS—the best-performing NHS in the UK.

However, we heard in a number of speeches from Conservative and Labour members comparisons with previous Tory Governments or a future Labour Government.

Liz Smith told us that there is not sufficient support for business. That statement comes from a party that said virtually nothing in Scotland about the effects of Brexit on the Scottish economy and business. If the member is going to listen to what business says about the budget—which would be quite right; I do not deny that it should be done—why did she not listen to business when it told her its concerns about Brexit, which has had a far greater impact on business in Scotland? Is it the case that she shares Boris Johnson’s attitude to business? I cannot use the word that he used when he said what he would do to it, but I can say to members that it starts with an F. That was the Tory approach to business.

Conservative members have also made allegations that there is financial mismanagement or a budgeting crisis. Those allegations come from a party that has seen us reach £2.65 trillion in debt, which is the highest-ever level. We have the highest tax burden since the second world war: that has come from a Tory Government. As John Swinney mentioned, we also see the effects of inflation.

I agree with that—I see nothing wrong with such concerns being brought to the chamber. That was not my point; my point was that, if we are to have a rounded debate, let us acknowledge why some of these things are happening—the root causes of them. We should have a more rounded debate, but I am not challenging the right of members to raise such issues in the chamber.

First, I welcome Neil Gray to his position as Cabinet Secretary for NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care. He is one of the strongest members of the Government and it is one of the most difficult posts, so best of luck to him.

I also welcome Tim Eagle to the Parliament. I hope that I will have the same convivial relationship with him as I have with his colleagues. I ask him to pass on my best regards to Donald Cameron, who left suddenly. We worked together on the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, and I always found him to be a courteous and considered individual.

What we heard from Alex Cole-Hamilton raises real issues but, in my view, the contribution is entirely fatuous, because it seeks to ignore some of the big determinants of what we are discussing. First, we get groans from some parts of the chamber when comparisons are made with other parts of the UK—unless it is a comparison that those members want to make—but the amount of resources that come to Scotland is determined by spending decisions that are made in London. The UK Government rightly bases those decisions on what it believes the need to be, but Scotland just falls into place, as does Wales. If we ignore the extent to which resources, including the capital cut to the NHS budget, derive from Westminster, this is not a real debate.

Another thing that is disregarded and ignored in the debate is that Covid seems to be a justifiable reason to give for some of the issues in the NHS in England—as happened this week in the House of Commons—and in Wales, but it is not seen as justifiable here in Scotland.

No—I will not. I have only four minutes, and Alex Cole-Hamilton has not been in the chamber during the whole of my speech, anyway.

Another thing that is unreal is the failure to acknowledge—particularly by Alex Rowley—the fact that Scotland has higher-paid NHS staff. As Ivan McKee pointed out, we have more NHS staff, and we have had no strikes in the NHS. If this was a genuine discussion about the condition of primary care services, there would be some mention of those facts.

A fourth thing that Opposition members have not mentioned, although Ivan McKee mentioned it, is the impact on the NHS of Brexit and of the more recent announcement that further restricts care workers’ ability to come to Scotland. If those things are completely ignored, how genuine can the discussion be?

Much of what Opposition members say in the chamber is derogatory towards the NHS and its staff, although it is usually dressed up by saying that it is the SNP NHS. My experience, whether of primary care or otherwise, including cancer care, is different. In the past couple of weeks, somebody I know who has cancer was seen within three days—they had a mammogram and an ultrasound, saw the consultant twice and were dealt with in three days. I am not saying that everyone gets that service, and I am not trying to pretend that there are no issues and no waiting lists, although the waiting lists here are substantially shorter than those in many other parts of the UK.

Surely it is more important to discuss how the spend on NHS services in Scotland, including on primary care, compares with that in other countries, so that we get a true comparison, or to consider what other countries are doing that is different and that we could learn from.

There is no question but that the NHS has done an absolutely fantastic job. I just recounted an experience from the past couple of weeks, but there was an even better one in the midst of Covid, which I will quickly recount. A consultant saw somebody who I knew and who had to have their gall bladder removed. After that person’s emergency admission to hospital in the afternoon, the consultant said that, since he was on that night, he would do the operation then—the same day as the person was diagnosed. Given how crammed the hospital was at the time—it was Glasgow royal infirmary—that was an absolutely fantastic job. I just wish that we had heard more about the work that has been done in the NHS.

I wish that we could have a realistic debate in which the Opposition parties at least acknowledged the constraints that operate in Scotland, as they do in Wales and Northern Ireland, because of the way in which the UK is structured. I will support the amendment in the name of Neil Gray when we come to decision time.

It has been quite heartening but also surprising to hear that people are fairly sanguine and are working through solutions. That is good to know but, because we have some big players around the table, it is surprising to hear what is quite discordant.

I was contacted this week by a small firm in Kintyre whose business has been decimated because it cannot export its cooked fish products. The difference between the big players—who know how to get around Government and legitimately prosecute their interests—and the vast majority of businesses, which are small and medium-sized enterprises, is stark.

Irene Oldfather mentioned that when she spoke about SMEs. Have you listened to such businesses and do you have feedback from them? As best I can gather—I think that most MSPs have heard about it—their experience is quite different. We read in the media—that does not necessarily mean that it is true—that there are major issues because of the impact on small businesses. How can they work their way through the TCA? For small businesses, that can be a huge challenge.