Chamber and committees

We need to lower the temperature a bit. As members know, I always like to strike a consensual tone, so I thank the Government and the Conservatives for providing arguments that I can agree with.

I agree with the Conservatives that the Scottish Government suddenly furnishing us with the figure of £1 billion of waste a year is somewhat striking, in relation to both the quantum and the fact that it has taken the Government 18 years to come forward with that. In turn, I agree with the Government that it is somewhat ironic for the Conservatives to present such a miraculous plan. I note that the savings are not added up in the Conservatives’ documentation, so we do not know whether their sums add up at all.

When did we last hear about a 19p basic tax rate? That is right—it was in the mini-budget from Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng. With straight faces, the Scottish Conservatives are coming to the chamber with exactly the same uncosted tax cuts as were proposed by the UK Conservative Government that led to the calamity of increased mortgage bills, a run on the pound and a run on the cost of UK borrowing. That is simply not credible.

—we need to invest in it.

I move amendment S6M-17981.1, to insert at end:

“; welcomes the confirmation from the UK Government that it will provide the funding for the welding skills centre so that the project does not collapse; notes the contradiction in the Scottish Government’s policy, as the publicly owned Ferguson Marine shipyard is providing steel fabrication work for Type 26 frigates, and believes that this haphazard and misjudged policy is holding back the creation of jobs and economic growth in Scotland.”

Social Security Scotland accounts for 3,000 of the head-count increase, which is less than a third. The total head-count increase is between 8,000 and 9,000, and about a third of that is from Social Security Scotland, so that is not an adequate answer.

This comes at a time when we have £6.7 billion-worth of waste from things such as ferries and scrapped deposit return schemes and when the Scottish Government seems to seek to reheat the arguments for full fiscal autonomy, with the loss of the 20 per cent premium that we gain through the Barnett formula.

Ultimately, there is a lack of engagement with the economic performance gap, which is dismissed as a technicality. It is not a technicality. The performance gap boils down to a difference in the earnings of everyday Scots; it is about tax receipts.

It is instructive that the cabinet secretary could not answer my question about the increase in GDP per head since 2016—it is 4.4 per cent for the UK and 2.6 per cent for Scotland. That date is important because 2016 is the year against which fiscal devolution is benchmarked; it dictates how much money we have to spend. The fact that the cabinet secretary could not answer that question and does not understand its relevance tells us everything that we need to know about the Scottish Government’s incompetence when it comes to public finances and the economy.

I am very happy to do so, but it will need to be brief.

Although we might disagree on much, does the minister agree that this is not about shrinking the state, and that reform must be about freeing up people for front-line public service delivery?

I am happy to give way if Craig Hoy can explain why the Scottish Conservatives are doing that.

Will the cabinet secretary give way?

Murdo Fraser is absolutely right. Does that situation not also stand in contrast with the attacks on our communications infrastructure in the North Sea, and is it not therefore absolutely critical that the UK Government has stepped in to provide that £2.5 million funding?

I think that we are not taking our own defence seriously by not considering what we need to do in terms of restocking our munitions. My point is highlighted by the fact that treating the submarine welding facility as a munitions project is false. Submarines are not munitions.

The issue is not just about Ukraine—it is about the rest of the world. Look at the developments in the South China Sea, where China is increasingly testing internationally recognised boundaries. More recently, the situation in Iran is of grave concern. All that requires us to reflect on our defences and our defence requirements.

The issue is not just about traditional and orthodox military threats. In the past two years, the UK has received 90,000 cyberattacks from foreign actors, almost 90 of which have been of national significance. That is why the UK Government has brought forward the strategic defence review, with a commitment of a spending increase to 2.7 per cent of GDP, and that is why the defence industry in Scotland needs our support and our investment across every area. We do not want to split the sector neatly between reserved and devolved areas. That is explicit in the strategic defence review. The whole-society approach and, critically, the mobilisation of our industrial base will require devolved levers to be pulled.

To make a brief point on the Green amendment and the point about human rights checks, these things are not incompatible. If we want to increase our defence spending and support our allies, we need to enhance our human rights checks, because it is critical that we understand where our spending and arms are going and how those arms are being used. Those things are not incompatible. We cannot support the Green amendment nor the SNP amendment because, far from diversifying away from defence—

Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention?