Chamber and committees

The minister is aware that Opposition parties on the Parliamentary Bureau understand the need for an expedited process—indeed, we have all acknowledged that we will not get the full, in-depth scrutiny that we would from a normal legislative process. However, given that the Government recognised the need for the bill months ago, why has it come to the point where it is asking for a process of just two days between stages 2 and 3? Does the minister really think that that is an adequate reflection period for members and the Government to understand the consequences of stage 2 amendments in order to frame stage 3 amendments? I do not think that that is enough. A week is about the bare minimum.

Regardless of the policy context or the power context, the Scottish Government will have to go further with the powers that it has.

I never did. In fact, the policy was criticised not only by dangerous extremists but by many others, including anti-poverty organisations. It was a bad policy and it was bad politics.

I understand why the Government has lodged the motion, and I do not disagree with anything in it. The Government wants to draw attention to the impact of austerity to date, the on-going austerity fiscal rules and the lack of a serious investment plan from the UK Government. Daniel Johnson mentioned some areas where the UK Government intends to invest, but, even before the election, Labour had dropped the £28 billion investment pledge on net zero, which would just have brought the UK up to a level of investment comparable with that of our neighbouring countries.

The Scottish Government is also criticising the process and the lack of co-operation with the UK Government. Even the winter fuel payment decision came with barely a moment’s notice to the Scottish Government. There are also points about the lack of Scottish autonomy and the severe limits on Scotland’s ability to make different choices. I understand why those points are being made.

The Government motion states the truth, but it is an incomplete truth. The Green amendment seeks to add to the motion, because some important parts are missing. In particular, there is a lack of recognition that wealth taxes and taxes on high incomes and corporate profits are an absolutely necessary part of the Scottish and the UK path out of the incredible fiscal challenges.

In reflecting on the debate, I note that quite a few members have spoken about the causes of the financial situation that both Governments face, but something has been missing from the reflections on the causes.

There was substantial opposition to what the Conservative Government did over the past 15 years, whether it was the austerity that began under the coalition Government; the obsession with public sector debt, which should be seen as a source of investment rather than something to be ashamed of; the decision to allow huge amounts of private wealth to be hoarded by super-rich individuals and corporations, which has resulted in a drag on investment; the decision to go for the hardest of hard Brexits; or Liz Truss’s mini-budget. However, the Conservatives crashed on with their own agenda, despite that solid opposition. After hearing some Conservative members’ speeches today, I think that one or two of them might have contributed to the script for Liz Truss’s bizarre self-pity video yesterday—“If only I’d been allowed to crash on with the mini-budget after all.”

We can contrast that with the criticisms that have been made relating to the reasons for the Scottish Government being in a very difficult financial situation. Some of the difficulties have been imposed from outside as a result of UK changes, but some of them, to be sure, are the result of the Scottish Government’s decisions.

The difference is that most of those decisions were supported by a large majority of members of the Scottish Parliament. I did not support some of them. For example, for many years, the council tax freeze has had a damaging impact on public sector finances and has benefited the wealthiest, but most members supported that policy. I criticised capital budgets being committed to funding wildly expensive, unsustainable and high-carbon infrastructure, but most members supported that. However, I strongly supported the Scottish child payment and fair pay for public sector workers, and most members supported those policies, too. Therefore, most of the decisions that have been made in Scotland that have worsened the Scottish Government’s financial position have been made with political support from across the parties. That is worth reflecting on.

I am afraid that I need to make progress.

Also missing from the motion are the choices that we have. The cabinet secretary and the Government want policy change from the UK Government and a change in the powers that are available to the Scottish Government, and I want both of those changes as well. However, whatever context we face of UK policy or Scotland’s powers, the Scottish Government and Parliament still have the responsibility to use the powers that we have to the maximum, and we are not yet doing so.

The Scottish Greens not only have made the case for policies such as the Scottish child payment but have successfully brought to the chamber solutions showing how we can pay for them. It is because of the work of Greens over the years that we have progressive taxation in this country and an extra £1.5 billion in the Scottish budget every year. It is because of the work of the Scottish Greens that we have already made progress on more local powers as options for councils, such as council tax on second and empty homes, the transient visitor levy and the workplace parking levy. As my colleague mentioned, there is more to come on that, with measures such as the carbon land tax and others. We need to go further on that.

Finally, we need to cut unsustainable investment in high-cost, high-carbon infrastructure and instead invest in infrastructure that will cut costs and emissions, such as energy-efficient homes and buildings that use renewables rather than fossil fuels. Today, we will support not only the Green amendment but the Government motion. However, whatever happens with the vote, the challenge will remain.

My other question leads on from the points that Caroline Sewell mentioned earlier about where we get the money from. I will try to join the dots between that and the interdisciplinary, multi-portfolio—holistic, if you like—approach. That sense of joining the dots between different public revenue streams and the public objectives that we are trying to achieve is only one part of the issue.

It is not all public funding, it is also charitable funding, which has taken a serious hit in recent years. It is about the amount of money that individuals spend in the economy when they choose to go out, whether it is money for a ticket to a cultural event or money that they spend behind the bar at the same venue; it is about the commercial operation of some of those venues, whether they are charitable or purely businesses that are looking to get by; it is about local authorities, too, as two or three people have mentioned.

What scope is there for more innovation in relation to where we raise the revenue from? We have seen the tourism levy, which has the potential to fund culture, among other work. Arguments are now being made about a stadium levy, so that highly profitable cultural events do something to fund independent venues. There is the chance to give local authorities more powers to raise revenue at a local level, too, rather than just relying on national funding. How much scope do you see for innovation and change in the way that we raise the money, rather than just focusing on the delivery model for how it gets spent, given the benefits that that could create for the wider cultural economy, rather than just the stuff that the public sector funds?

Good morning. I find a great deal that you have said interesting, especially on some of the cross-portfolio stuff.

I will come on to what Caroline Sewell said about where we raise the money from and finding more creative ways of doing that, but first can I be a bit unfair? You have made a very strong case that the scale of investment needs to go up and is a high priority, and that the stability and certainty that have been lacking are a high priority.

One of the factors that have been part of Scottish Government budgets pretty much since austerity began is that there is a tension between those things. The more money you put into a particular budget, the more risk you create that, halfway through the financial year, you will have to hit the spending controls. If that happens, legally or contractually committed stuff will be protected, whereas a sector that does not have that protection is immediately in the firing line and you are back into instability.

You should not have to pick one or the other—the scale or the stability. Everybody on the committee and probably everybody in the Government wants to give you both. However, can you give us more of a steer on where the priority lies between the two? There have been parts of this conversation where the priority was clearly scale and quantum, and parts where it was clearly stability. I know that that sounds unfair to ask.

Good morning. You have acknowledged that you do not yet have a great deal of information about what the review will consist of or the timescale for it. You have used the phrase “in due course”, which is the same one that the cabinet secretary used in his letter. We can only assume that that means that the Government has not decided yet, either. In the next few weeks, we will be looking at the budget for the coming financial year. I acknowledge that you cannot say what the outcome of the review or the process for it will be, but those decisions will have an impact on the ability of Creative Scotland and the wider sector to deliver in the short term on some of the issues that witnesses have raised with us.

I want to offer you the chance to reflect on what we have heard. I do not know whether you were listening to our earlier session, but you might be aware of some of the issues that came up last week, and similar themes have been discussed today. There is a tension between the scale of funding and the certainty of funding. There is a desire to avoid unexpected bumps in the road as a result of a lack of certainty in the middle of the financial year. There are issues relating to how public funding interacts with charitable funding and commercial funding and to whether revenue that is available nationally and locally, as well as in independent venues, can deliver a fair work agenda.

As well as the challenges, there are a great many opportunities. There are opportunities to invest in net zero, which could reduce venues’ operating costs, and there is the opportunity for the culture sector to tell that story, which is what we need, because there is interaction in that regard when societal change is coming.

Could you reflect on the opportunities that exist—under the current funding model or in the longer term, if changes are made—to respond in the coming financial year to the issues that witnesses have raised with us, given that we will be looking at the budget in a few weeks?

The only aspect of the report that is a new one on me is not even a change in Scottish Government policy or action; it is a highly technical series of consultations on the ETS, which were conducted using a four-nations approach. Most of the report simply restates existing policy, or the policy package that was announced back in April—each policy of which, I have to say, was painfully extracted under pressure from the Greens against reluctance from the Scottish National Party. None of that was designed to be the contents of a section 36 report to catch up on 2021 and 2022. Why does the report contain no new policy or action beyond what we all already knew about?

I raise my glass back to Edward Mountain and thank him very much for reminding us all of the vandalism of Alister Jack when he decided to put a wrecking ball through the deposit return scheme, wasting all that investment and the jobs that had been created. That is just one example of his and the previous Government’s contempt for this Parliament, whether on environmental policy, economic policy, equalities policy or anything else.

I know that Mr Mountain might wish that, as he described it, we were all united behind one flag. He is perfectly entitled to wish for that, even though it is not true that we are, but he is simply wrong in saying that we are all united behind one Government. He has miscounted the number of Governments in the UK. That is simply a matter of fact.

I am genuinely sad that, due to a personal appointment, I have not been able to be in the Parliament today. It feels like I have missed a very special atmosphere all afternoon, to be honest, and I wish that I had been there. I know that some people have been discussing the atmosphere during the referendum campaign in 2014. I have no doubt that there was some bad behaviour on both sides—I saw bad behaviour on both sides—but it was nothing compared to the political violence that we have seen in relation to British nationalism obsessions such as Brexit and, as we have seen this year, immigration.

We should all condemn political violence, but it is simply absurd to suggest that the 2014 independence referendum was some low point in our politics. In fact, I remember that on referendum day, like so many politicians and campaigners, I spent some time outside a polling station speaking to voters coming in. I spent that time sharing on social media examples of yes and no supporters showing empathy, interest, compassion and concern for one another.

My favourite example involved one of our campaigners in Edinburgh, who was standing outside a polling station with other yes and no campaigners who were all having a chat and exchanging a biscuit or two. A guy—probably in his 70s but maybe even older—came up to them and said, “How do you do this, son? How do you vote?” He had never voted before, but he was motivated in that moment to cast his vote and exercise his democratic right to be heard. The campaigners on both sides were far more excited about the fact that he turned up to vote than they were about how he was going to vote. I think that that characterises a great deal of the democratic spirit of 2014, and that is certainly something that we should celebrate.

It is important, though, to acknowledge the pain that some of us still feel. As I commented on social media earlier today, one of the most painful aspects is remembering having been dismissed—even laughed at and ridiculed—for saying that, if we voted no to independence, we would be endangering our place in Europe, because the UK was threatening to take us out of the European Union against our will. It is painful to reflect on standing in a national televised debate, expressing that concern and being dismissed, with the argument being treated with contempt, when, in fact, what we predicted is exactly what came to pass: Scotland voted to remain in the European Union but we were dragged out against our will, losing our freedom of movement—a freedom that is exercised by many Brexiteers but which they have taken away from young people.

However, I take heart from the fact that young people in Scotland do not seem to be resigned to that being their fate. They feel optimism and passion for a better Scotland, and I believe that, in my lifetime, they will make it happen.

If either Government wants to finally define what they mean by a reset in the relationship in the short term, I am open to that—I am all ears to hear what ideas they have for improving it. However, fundamentally, that must include an answer to the question that unionists have left unanswered for years now: if, at some point, the people of Scotland decide that independence is their preference, how may they express that decision? Those arguing for the union are entitled to do so, but they are not entitled to say that the people of Scotland cannot make that choice, and I believe that they will.