Pre Budget Report Speech, 3rd December 08

Ms Wendy Alexander (Paisley North) (Lab): I am delighted that the Scottish Government is following the UK lead and accelerating all the £260 million capital spend from year 3 to year 2, but it is only fair to record that we hope that its ability to make that happen will be better than its record so far on housing.

Way back in August, it announced that £100 million would be brought forward, but I note in passing that, so far, less than a fifth of that money has been assigned. Four fifths of the money is still to be assigned and, as Jeremy Purvis suggested, most of the money that has been assigned has gone on land acquisition and buying unsold houses, not on keeping construction workers facing unemployment in a job.

I turn to the meat of the debate. From the front and back bench speeches that we have had so far, the debate seems to be in danger of degenerating into a discussion about issues that are somebody else’s responsibility, thereby avoiding the scrutiny that we should be doing in the Parliament.
To be fair to the cabinet secretary, his Government has made three big promises on the credit crunch. First, we are told:

“Increasing sustainable economic growth has been this Government’s purpose from day 1.”
Secondly, we hear:

“The Scottish Government is prepared to utilise all the powers and resources at our disposal.”

Thirdly, we are told that the Scottish Government will “strain every sinew” to support Scottish jobs.

Are the Scottish Government’s actions measuring up to those promises? If they are, the Government will have no fear of a little more parliamentary scrutiny of those actions.

Effective economic policy requires good information. Therefore, will the cabinet secretary explain in his summation why basic data about growth rates in Scotland lag months behind those which are available for the UK as a whole? Secondly, how can growth be the Scottish Government’s number 1 purpose if the same Scottish Government makes no economic forecasts about the prospects for the Scottish economy? How can the Government plan to tackle a recession that it does not even attempt to forecast?

Thirdly, how can the Scottish Government advocate tax autonomy for Scotland but make no forecasts about the expected tax take in Scotland? We heard many complaints from SNP members about the requirement that Scotland should make additional efficiency savings comparable to those in the rest of the UK, but not a word about the falling revenues that Scotland could expect in the next three years if we moved to the financial model that the Government advocates.

The SNP has expressed concern about the possible £500 million of efficiency savings but has not said a word about what Scotland’s future financing would look like. I will give just one piece of data: the pre-budget report forecasts that UK tax receipts will be down £10 billion next year. A rough estimate is that Scotland’s share of that would be one tenth, or £1 billion.

Why do tax takes remain a totally number-free zone for the SNP? Their position on refusing to provide forecast tax revenues  is similar to their stance on the proposed local income tax. The SNP still refuses to tell employers how much it would cost them to run the system. Perhaps hoping that people will come round in the end if they provides no data.

That brings me to the Scottish Government’s responsibility for stewarding the economy in tough times. Eighteen months ago, the SNP told us that the behemoth of a department that the cabinet secretary runs would streamline Government. However, the reality seems to be that the giant department is slowing things down, not speeding them up.

Let me illustrate: the Scottish Government’s economic recovery plan has never been formally published or presented to Parliament.

Another example is the national planning framework, which has not yet been published and is at least three months overdue. Why?
The Strategic Transport Projects review is also months overdue. Why?
Another example is the SNP’s timetable for implementing the Planning etc (Scotland) Act 2006, which was removed from the Government’s website last month because every single piece of secondary legislation bar one or two has been delayed.

The six-times announced saltire prize is  now not even to be awarded for seven years …
and the Scottish Futures Trust is still without a completed board, a chief executive or a management statement.

I come to the vital issue of capital spending. The last time that we debated that, John Swinney was keen to name the capital projects that his Government had approved. However, he forgot to tell the Parliament how many of them were in the pipeline in 2007 and prepared by the previous Administration.

I hope that the cabinet secretary in his summation will tell us why not a single project has had its business plan approved by ministers or its contracts signed in the months of March, April, May, June, July, August, September or October. That is eight months with not one single project approval or contract signing.

I do not have much time to pursue the point, but I simply say that we should recall the promises the SNP made, “growth at the top of the government’s agenda”

– but the reality -

poor and late data;

the lack of any official forecasts;

strategy after strategy – on planning, on transport, and on LIT costs delayed;

and project after project stuck in the system.

It is a growing catalogue of inaction, delay and sclerosis.

In mid-October, the First Minister boasted to his party’s conference that the UK Government was slow to respond to the banking crisis. He would not dare make that accusation today, given the dither and delay that we are seeing. When can we expect action on these 10 delays?