Chamber and committees

For the Conservative Party in 2024 to bring to the chamber a motion to criticise financial policy is, in civil service speak, a bold move. We would almost think from Mr Hoy’s remarks that a change in leadership and in the front bench means that this is somehow year zero for the Conservative Party, as if we had not gone through the misery of the past five years of a UK Conservative Government, given what that did to people’s mortgages, the cost of living and everything else that went with it. Almost two centuries of perceived Tory fiscal competence were utterly destroyed when, in less than an hour, Kwasi Kwarteng and Liz Truss wiped £30 billion from the UK economy. I would have thought that the Tories would have preferred to avoid talking about their disastrous financial record in government, which even now has left us with a black hole of tens of billions of pounds. As I say, it is a bold move for the Tories to bring a debate on fiscal policy to the chamber.

However, let us not forget that another Government has also torpedoed any notion of financial credibility. The SNP has been in government for 17 years, but its incompetence, waste and apathy have hugely damaged Scotland’s economy. What do we have to show for that SNP economy? We have £5 billion of waste. Local authority budgets have been cut by more than £6 billion. Nurses and teachers have been taxed more than they would have been if they were doing the same job in the rest of the UK, but the essential services that those taxes pay for are on their knees.

I would normally, but the member has to appreciate that this is a very short debate.

If the SNP had managed to keep Scotland’s economy in line with the economies of other parts of the UK, it would now be £8.5 billion larger.

I find it fascinating, however, that we now have a failed Tory Party calling out a failing SNP Government on finances, and that the Tories have not learned about the impact of prioritising unfunded tax cuts over efficiency and fairness in fiscal policy. We in the Labour Party will be getting on with fixing the horrendous mess that has been left behind.

Today, the Office for Budget Responsibility set out in fine detail the financial hole that the Tories drove us into with their incompetence and the mess that the UK Labour Government has inherited—a mess that has made some difficult choices necessary.

As the Prime Minister made clear on Monday, every single choice has been made to fix the foundations of our economy with working people in mind—people in Scotland and the rest of the UK, who have been working harder and harder but are still just standing still. Some of the choices are hard, but they will mean an employment bill that will finally make work pay, contribute to growth and raise living standards for working people. It will mean a direct response to the cost of living crisis that we were elected to tackle.

The budget will stabilise, invest in and grow the UK economy, with £63 billion-worth of investment secured from business two weeks ago creating tens of thousands of good-quality jobs in every corner of our country. It will also deliver the largest budget settlement for Scotland in the history of devolution with an extra £3.4 billion of funding. Labour is clearly delivering for Scotland.

Today’s historic budget has shown that only Labour can get on with getting our economy back on track, boosting economic growth, ending austerity and making work pay.

I move amendment S6M-15061.1, to leave out from “the Scottish Ministers” to end and insert:

“while taxpayers in Scotland are paying more than their counterparts in the rest of the UK, almost one in six people in Scotland are on NHS waiting lists, the latest PISA statistics show that Scotland’s education system is falling further behind other countries, and local government services are under severe financial pressure; believes that people are not seeing the necessary improvements to their public services; regrets that the incompetence of the Scottish National Party administration has led to chaos in the public finances, with emergency in-year budgets for three consecutive years, and calls on the Scottish Government to end 17 years of waste and incompetence in the management of Scotland’s finances.”

Will the member give way?

Is the work that is going on in the background sensitive? Are we able to get a progress report that sets out some of the things that have been agreed on?

Good afternoon, cabinet secretary. Earlier, you touched on some of the tax-raising powers, including for the cruise ship levy, that the Government is considering devolving to local authorities. Which other tax-raising powers is the Government actively considering devolving?

As part of the work on the fiscal framework, is there any thinking on the appropriate level of tax-raising powers that authorities should have in relation to the balance of their spending? Last week at committee, a witness mentioned an ambition to move towards having locally raised versus central grant funding on a 50:50 basis. Is there any Government thinking on the appropriate balance in that regard?

Good morning. I had a question about prevention, but as that subject has been covered, I will, for the sake of time, move on and ask about the fiscal framework.

COSLA’s submission states that

“There has been considerable progress on delivering a Fiscal Framework”.

A number of witnesses have questioned that, although there might be work going on behind the scenes that we do not know about. Given that we have had a delay of a year or so in getting the framework in place, when can we expect to see it, and why has it taken so long?

Perhaps Mr Stewart will give me time to get started.

As Anas Sarwar pointed out, the shocking figures that were released last week have shown that Scotland is sliding towards levels of homelessness that we have not seen since Thatcher tore our country apart in the 1980s. The SNP Government should feel utter shame for squandering the progress that Scotland had made.

The Scottish Housing Regulator has spoken of services being helpless to deal with the rising tide of human misery washing up at its doors and warned of systemic failure. Councils across Scotland began to declare housing emergencies and finally—finally—the Government was dragged kicking and screaming into recognising that something was very wrong, and it declared a Scotland-wide housing emergency in May. However, it did that only when it was under threat of losing the vote.

There are kids living in bed-and-breakfast accommodation without even a toilet of their own and whose mum or dad is having to cook their dinner using shower water. There are people such as my constituent, Suzanne, who, with her husband and five children, is stuck in a house that is damp, inaccessible and too small and which is making the people she loves ill.

Walking down any high street in Scotland—

I am more than happy to work on a cross-party basis—with Mr Mountain or any other member—on solutions to the housing crisis, because they seem to be in short supply from the Scottish Government.

Walking down any high street in Scotland, we see people in sleeping bags who have been turned away by desperate shelters that have no room and no choice but to give out tents. Organisations are giving out tents rather than beds for the night.

Emma Roddick pointed out that we are all too aware of the effect that the emergency will have on children, who will be traumatised for their entire lives by the lack of a permanent home right now.

As Homes for Scotland has said, we are living through the housing emergency, but we are waiting in vain for the Government to turn the blue lights on. The Government seems to dispute that.

I apologise to the cabinet secretary.

For two years, Mr McLennan has been the minister with responsibility for housing policy and housing budgets. It is simply unacceptable for him to continue to stand on the sidelines, acting as a commentator and blaming everyone and everything other than himself. When 10,000 children have no place to call home, it is on the Minister for Housing. When 40,000 people are homeless, it is on the Minister for Housing. When one in four people do not have the house that they need, it is on the Minister for Housing.

The children who are caught up in this emergency desperately need homes; they cannot wait for the minister to get back on track. He needs to stop blaming everyone else, he needs to take responsibility and, frankly, he has to go.

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish revised modelling to show any impact of delays to the opening of the remaining national treatment centres on bringing down waiting lists, as outlined in its national health service recovery plan. (S6O-03795)