Chamber and committees

This year it will be 10 years since the independence referendum—10 years of a majority Government. With respect, minister, papers can be produced by anyone. What the independence movement wants at this point is action. Time is of the essence, and the Government should embrace the opportunity to give Scots the power to tell the world that they want the Scottish Parliament to negotiate and legislate for independence. If they do not, this entire five-year parliamentary term will have been wasted. The minister can perhaps enlighten us: what is the point of a pro-independence majority if it is not used to pursue independence?

I commend Mr Kerr for securing the debate and for his very thoughtful contribution.

Grangemouth is a strategic national asset for Scotland, and decisions regarding it need to be taken in that light. Crude oil is refined not only for fuel but for feedstock for chemicals that are used right across our economy. Scotland produces 90 per cent of UK oil and gas and has just one refinery. To contextualise just how profitable oil and gas produced in Scotland are to the UK, last year saw a record £10.6 billion in revenue flowing from Scotland to the UK Treasury.

When I had the opportunity to question the UK Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero, Graham Stuart, just a couple of weeks ago, he admitted that the revenue from Scotland’s oil industry is funding reductions in energy bills for the whole of the UK. I wonder whether other members were surprised, as I was several weeks ago, to hear from him that, up until that point, the UK Government had had no approaches from anyone seeking funding for a rescue package.

An industry that is worth £10.6 billion a year is hugely valuable to the economy of the UK—a country or, rather, a state of 67 million people. Let us imagine for a moment how much further that would go and what we could do with it in a country of just 5 million people.

Grangemouth needs investment to save it and make it profitable into the future. It is estimated that the investment that is needed is around the £80 million mark. That is but a drop in the North Sea compared to the billions upon billions that Scotland’s oil and gas industry has poured into the UK Treasury. In fact, £80 million is only 0.7 per cent of last year’s revenue—not even 1 per cent of a year’s revenue.

Scotland has only one refinery. The rest of the UK has six, but the Scottish refinery is marked for closure. If Grangemouth is to be no more, Scotland will find itself in the uncomfortable position of being the only one of the top 25 oil producers globally with no refinery. That is a disgrace.

No, I do not completely agree with that. The way that I imagine a just transition is that the “just” part is about the people. In the future that the Government imagines, the people with the skills will largely be lost to the site if it is turned into some kind of import terminal.

Scotland needs to have a refinery once it is independent. We must continue to have a refinery and refine our own oil in it—not produce it, send it away and then buy it back at a premium. That is also an energy security issue. Reliance on global markets creates insecurity for Scotland, which is simply absurd for an energy-rich nation.

It is not an issue about which the Government—any Government—can shrug its shoulders and say, “Oh well, there’s nothing we can do.” The Scottish people expect more and expect better. The UK Government and the Scottish Government must find some vision and ambition and work together to secure a rescue plan. The UK Government must provide the funding and the Scottish Government must wake up and find a backbone. Anything less than that will be a betrayal of the workforce and the country.

We cannot stand by and see more of Scotland’s key assets lost. History tells us that, once they are gone, they are gone for ever. We cannot stand by and see a strategic asset lost to us for ever.

The brutal choices that the Scottish Government has had to make are a result of a fiscal framework that is set up to fail Scotland, as I warned a few weeks ago in the chamber. Are we really surprised any more by the callous actions of a UK Tory Government that is hostile to people who are struggling to survive with dignity but that can find the money for election promises in order to remain in power? It uses tax cuts cynically and irresponsibly for a sugar rush in an election year—petulantly ignoring warnings of any detrimental consequences—and it refuses to tax obscene wealth or invest in long-term economic security and environmental responsibility through the reserved fiscal levers that only it has. All that has a direct and indirect impact on the people of Scotland. While people across the UK continue to suffer from the increasing strain in their cost of living as a result of the UK Government’s irresponsible choices, our Government is left holding the ball of delivering a pay more, get less budget to constituents across Scotland’s communities.

People do not want more excuses. What they are looking for now is solutions. I sympathise with the challenge that the Scottish Government faces in spreading an ever-thinning real-terms budget across increasing demands, but if election promises are not delivered, that only further erodes public trust.

I welcome the Government implementing my proposal for the necessary short-term step of cancelling school meal debt by allocating £1.5 million of funding to local authorities. However, despite the significant cost of living pressure on families, there remains no clarity on the delivery of the Government’s again-delayed commitment of providing universal access to free school meals for all of Scotland’s primary school children. As access to enough food—enough quality food—for primary children is a key driver of their development and of their education outcomes, that promise must be delivered without further delay.

Although the statutory inflationary uplift to £26.70 a week for the game-changing child payment is welcome, it does not go nearly far enough. That is despite the First Minister committing to an increase of £5 in his first budget when he was running for party leader. An open letter that was sent to the First Minister last year, which was signed by more than 150 charities, faith groups, trade unions and civic organisations, urged him to deliver on his commitment as a first step, and then to follow that up by adopting our Alba Party policy of increasing the child payment to £40 a week. That is a must if there is to be any hope at all of the Government meeting its targets to tackle the scourge of child poverty in this land of abundant resources.

However, even such targeted mitigation is not enough, as the Scottish Government is still running to stand still to keep heads above water against the surging consequences of UK Government choices that Scotland’s 59 MPs lack the electoral arithmetic to influence at Westminster.

I welcome the short-term certainty for households that the council tax freeze will provide, but we need to ensure that local taxation is fair, affordable and secure, and we need to deliver quality local services that we can all rely on. The Government must commit to its long-promised reform of local taxation and, in doing so, it must undertake real engagement to ensure that we reach a solution that works for all.

Short-term thinking has got us into a position of cuts and compromise. Only longer-term thinking—thinking that goes beyond the walls of devolution—can deliver security, confidence and ambition for Scotland. Until then, limited resources need to be stewarded very carefully. Now, during a cost of living crisis, is not the time to introduce tax hikes to backfill a budget shortfall. One of the purposes of tax is to create behaviour change, and I believe that the behaviour change that the proposed tax rises will usher in will be detrimental to Scotland in the long term.

I urge the Government to end its short-term mindset of cuts and compromise, and to start to deliver not only on its own election promises, but on the longer-term, foundational changes that are needed to secure us a secure future.

To ask the Scottish Government, as part of its work to further the case for Scottish independence, what its position is on whether it could hold a referendum on the powers of the Scottish Parliament. (S6O-03027)

Last week, the Alba Party released poll results that show that an overwhelming majority of the country support the Scottish Parliament having the power to negotiate for and legislate for independence. Last week, support for independence was at 52 per cent. If the Scottish Government does not want to back a bill that could unblock the constitutional roadblock that the minister just described, how does it propose to move Scotland forward towards independence in this session of the Parliament?

I commend Ruth Maguire for bringing this important debate to the chamber. I agree entirely and whole-heartedly with the contents of her speech. I also commend A Model for Scotland for the work that it has done on this important topic in the past wee while. I read its report with interest a month or so ago. I thought that it was very good and that it helpfully set out information on the international context. I also commend the Parliament’s cross-party group on commercial sexual exploitation for all its work on the topic.

A Model for Scotland’s report is about international insights. The international context is important and instructive for a country that is considering changing the law on the issue. The aim of the United Nations Palermo protocol is

“to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children”.

It says that

“States ... shall adopt or strengthen legislative or other measures ... to discourage ... demand”.

Article 6 of CEDAW says that states

shall take all ... measures, including legislation, to suppress ... exploitation of prostitution”.

Again, one aim of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings is “to discourage the demand”. Reducing demand is therefore the key part of that approach. Prostitution and trafficking are linked. Prostitution creates a market that traffickers then strive to fill. Reducing demand by creating a legal framework that diminishes it as much as possible is therefore imperative.

Sweden showed us the way on that. It was the first country to criminalise the purchase of sex with a view to achieving such suppression of demand. In the 20 or so years since then, other countries have followed suit—I think that it is up to around eight now. That gives us more data to examine and more experience to watch so that we can see how a country such as Scotland might be able to follow it.

The report mentions Sweden, which I visited when I was looking into the issue a few years ago. I remember prosecutors there explaining to me that, although they were very proud of their law—and rightly so—on reflection, they felt that there was no way to escalate penalties. Someone who had been caught a number of times would get the same fine each time. The report says that Sweden has now updated its minimum penalty, which I note with interest is now imprisonment.

The Scottish Government has a position on the issue. Its “Equally Safe” strategy notes that prostitution is violence against women, which is the position that many of us in the chamber would take. The problem with that is that “Equally Safe” has represented the Scottish Government’s position for more than 10 years but, unfortunately, the law has not been updated to reflect that.

I take some personal responsibility for that—as many members will know, for a number of years, I was the minister in charge of that area. It was a personal disappointment for me that I left office not having been able to change the law while I was a minister in Government. Unfortunately, I learned that the political will of just one person in a large Government is not enough, and it was not enough in that case. Ten years is too long, though, and it is not good enough that the issue has not been given higher priority.

I recognise that the Scottish Government has instead been focusing on other issues, some of which I consider to be detrimental to women, such as the discredited Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. Seemingly, the Government has learned nothing from that process over the past year, and it is now considering introducing a bill to end conversion therapy. Even the proposed bill on misogyny that the Government is considering should be introduced only after legislation is undertaken to update the position on prostitution law, because prostitution is misogyny in action.

Members might not be aware that I plan to introduce a member’s bill on the topic this year. I am finalising my consultation, which I hope will be out in the next few weeks. I would be happy to discuss that with any member, and I hope to receive cross-party support for my bill.

The minister talked about one United Kingdom, but it is Scotland that produces 90 per cent of the oil and gas for the UK, and it is Scotland that will be left with no refinery. Would the UK Government be so relaxed about the situation if the boot were on the other foot and England had no capacity to refine oil?

[Inaudible.]—refinery when it produces 90 per cent—

Can I follow up on that, convener?