Parliament debate: Budget (Scotland) (No. 4) Bill – Stage 3

Linda spoke in the debate on 3 February:

“I acknowledge and welcome the sense of realism from some members in the chamber. Despite the political posturing that ever applies, there is recognition that the Chancellor of the Exchequer at Westminster is cutting funding to the public services and that there is a resultant effect on Scotland owing to the inherent lack of powers in the current settlement.

“Andy Kerr should listen to his colleague Hugh Henry, who told the Public Audit Committee in November:

“we are trying to outbid one another in promising what we will do, although we know privately that much of it is not possible.”—[Official Report, Public Audit Committee, 18 November 2009; c 1307.]

“It seems that the convener of the Public Audit Committee has grasped the uncomfortable truth about the money that is available to Scotland. I am sure that he would recognise the need to work constructively with the Scottish Government to distribute the resources that we have in the most equitable manner possible. That is a responsible and mature attitude—looking at what is in front of us, rather than what we would like to be in front of us.

“Instead of listening to Hugh Henry, Andy Kerr seems to have listened to his friend at the Scotland Office. Its recent publication “Expenditure and Revenue in Scotland”, which claims to be based on the Office for National Statistics’s publication “Government Expenditure and Revenue in Scotland”, is along the lines of Andy Kerr’s thinking. He accused the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth of “deception”; I suggest that the deception comes directly from Andy Kerr’s colleague at the Scotland Office. The Scotland Office’s report was entirely selective in its statements, with a lack of balance and analysis but much imagination. It excluded large chunks of the revenue that is gathered from Scotland, but managed to lever in expenditure that did not actually occur. It also excluded council tax revenue but included local authority expenditure, thereby creating a phantom gap in Scotland’s accounts.

“There are other anomalies and analytical failings in the Scotland Office document, as there are in the posturings of the Labour group here today. I emphasise my disappointment at the fact that the Secretary of State for Scotland, supposedly Scotland’s man in the Westminster Cabinet, rather than the other way round, would wish to tell the people whom he represents—the people of Scotland—that they are not paying their way, that they are subsidy junkies and that they are too poor or stupid to be let out alone. I find that sad and strange and I ask whether the Secretary of State for Scotland is a little out of touch with some of his colleagues here, who have clearly grasped that perpetual negativity is in no one’s interests, either individually or collectively.”

Read the whole debate here.