Blair McDougall
Main Page: Blair McDougall (Labour - East Renfrewshire)Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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John Lamont
I will make some progress, if I may, as I have taken a number of interventions.
Our workers and businesses have been poorly served by a nationalist Government who have too often been distracted from the day job and who have too often overlooked and sometimes even ignored what small businesses have said.
Let me outline how stark the situation has become. A recent survey by the Fraser of Allander Institute at the University of Strathclyde highlighted two key points. First, just 9% of Scottish firms agree that the Scottish Government understand the business environment in Scotland. Secondly, just 8% of businesses agree that the Scottish Government engage effectively with their sector. Those statistics should have been a wake-up call for the SNP to reset its relationship with the business community. It has been promising that reset for years, but it simply has not happened and the consequences are now becoming clear.
Compared with 10 years ago, the Scottish economy has also grown more slowly than the United Kingdom’s economy overall. GDP in Scotland is 8.4% larger in quarter 2 of 2024 compared with in quarter 2 of 2014, whereas UK GDP is 14.3% higher. Although the nationalists may try to claim an excuse by citing different population-based figures, the Fraser of Allander Institute have already dismantled that, too. Its most recent economic commentary found that,
“even when the differential population growth in the UK and Scotland is accounted for…growth in Scotland per person over the last 10 years has been 6% for the UK, compared to 4.3% for Scotland”.
It is crystal clear that ever since the independence referendum, Scotland has suffered from an SNP slowdown. The SNP’s damaging business policies and harmful decision to bring the Greens, who do not even believe in economic growth, into government has cost our country dearly. Scotland’s economy is crying out for something different, but it is not happening at the moment. Labour and the SNP offer only more of the same old ideas. John Swinney and Anas Sarwar favour most of the same policies. They both want higher taxes on workers. They both expect businesses to pick up the bill for a bigger state. They have the same socialist ideology that has failed Scotland for decades.
The left-wing parties in the Scottish Parliament have become disconnected from the lives of normal people. They spend too much time on divisive policies and fringe obsessions like gender reform and they do not spend enough time, energy, and resources on driving Scotland’s economy forward. Scottish Conservatives are proudly standing up against that left-wing consensus of the political establishment in Scotland. Scotland’s workers, businesses and indeed our entire economy need a different approach. They need a new way forward.