Cost of Living

Debate between Christine Jardine and Dave Doogan

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dave Doogan]

I think that would be quite interesting. I am not suggesting for one minute that the hon. Member for Moray was saying one thing in 2019 and another thing now, but it would be interesting to see any clash of rhetoric.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

On that point, would the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dave Doogan]

In a minute.

It is not just the fishers, because Angus is the garden of Scotland and its farmers are subject to the real constraints of Brexit. People talk about farmers as though they are just a guy with a tractor, but modern agricultural enterprise is a vast undertaking involving plant and seed suppliers, as well as any amount of different subcontractors and small businesses, so when I talk about agriculture I am talking about hundreds of small businesses across Scotland, and thousands across the United Kingdom.

My farmers in Scotland are subject to the UK Internal Market Act 2020, for which my colleagues in the Scottish Government would not give legislative consent, because it is so damaging to Scottish agriculture, even before the introduction of the Australia trade deal on top of it, which undercuts with lower standards. That has created a market in which we cannot possibly compete, where they do volume and we do quality. Scottish agriculture is different to English agriculture, which is much bigger. We do not do bulk in Scotland, which gets to the heart of how broken the Union is. Did the UK Government try to construct that system to promote enterprise, jobs and prosperity in agriculture in Scotland? No, they did not. They did it on the basis of their ideology.

Turning back to business investment, where there is a thriving business community, there are jobs and upward pressure on wages. That is what we need to get people out of poverty—

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[Christine Jardine]

I was intrigued to hear the hon. Member talking about fishing policy. What is his view on the fact that his own party of government in Scotland has not seemed able to agree since the former Minister criticised the Government’s policy? I am fascinated that he is talking about supporting businesses when every business in my community tells me that they have nothing but complaints about the business rates imposed by the Scottish Government.

[Dave Doogan]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention, but I would love to see the evidence that every single business in Edinburgh West is critical of the Scottish Government, but that is not what she said, is it? Let us not forget that the business environment of Scotland is far preferable, particularly for small, independent traders, to the rest of the United Kingdom, because we have the small business bonus and rates do not kick in for small businesses until they have a rateable value of £15,000, unlike a rateable value of £12,000 in England. So I will not be taking any lectures from any Unionist about the business environment that we have created in Scotland.

Business investment grew in real terms steadily between 2009 and the Brexit vote. It then failed to grow at all between the Brexit vote and the pandemic, and has not returned to pre-Brexit levels. It fell off a cliff after the pandemic and has increased barely to where it was 10 years ago. As I said earlier on, when it comes to the nature of the United Kingdom, this is now a poor country. I do not know if that comes as news to anybody on the Government or Opposition Benches: this is now a poor country, irrespective of the GDP that gives a false prospectus of what it is to live in this country. Comparisons for 2021, in pounds rather than dollars, show that the UK is 14th, behind Ireland, Australia, Iceland, Denmark, and Norway. In terms of OECD countries, the United Kingdom finds itself in a very poor position, with an average salary of £37,500. I appreciate that many people listening to the debate will think, “Well, I wish I was on £37,500,” but that is an average salary, which is pushed up by a few colossal salaries. What is far more interesting and compelling is the median salary, which is down in the low £30,000s.

It is helpful in demonstrating how poor the United Kingdom is to compare like-for-like occupations. Nurses are paid more in Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, the United States, Belgium, Iceland and Luxembourg. The average salary of a nurse in the United States from 2016 to 2019 was £54,900; in Belgium it was £55,000; and in the Netherlands it was £46,000. However, in the UK it was £33,000. That is a directly comparable job and gives an interesting perspective on where we are.

When adjusted by purchasing power, salaries are even worse. Not only are the salaries lower, but the cost of living, thanks to the Tory party, is even higher. The purchasing power of a nurse’s salary is lower in the UK than the OECD average and lower than in Slovenia, Ireland, Spain, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Current estimates of an average nurse’s salary in the UK are that they will go up to £35,600, but the salary pay scale for new nurses in band 5 in Scotland tops out at £37,664, which is probably why the health spend per person is £3,490 in Scotland as opposed to £3,192 in England. The number of staff in the NHS in Scotland per 100,000 people is 2,845, compared with 2,224 in England. We value our nurses even when they are training, by making sure they get a £10,000 bursary in Scotland, rather than a £5,000 bursary. These are the best jobs in many of our communities. Teachers are very much in the same position.

The hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) mentioned the Government’s amendment to the motion, but what I have said and what some of my colleagues are about to say lays bare the myth within it. The amendment reads that this House

“welcomes the Government’s action to halve inflation, grow the economy and reduce debt”.

Well, inflation has not halved, and the Government are not acting but hoping. The economy is shrinking, but even it is was not—sorry, the economy is not shrinking; it is growing. The Government are saying that we have the highest growth in the G7, but we are starting from the lowest base. Growth is relative to where it starts from, and the Government are not too keen to talk about that. They are saying that they are taking action to reduce debt. When they took over, there was £0.8 trillion of debt in this country, but that is now getting on for £2.5 trillion of debt. They have completely lost control of debt, and they have obviously lost control of reality as well if they are suggesting that this is a measure of their doing really well. We have already mentioned the obscurity of the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023 as a measure of how good Brexit has been. If that is what we have to show for Brexit, a lot of people up and down these islands will be scratching their heads and wondering whether it was all worth it.

The Government go on to note in their amendment that

“the SNP and Labour would fail to grip inflation or boost economic growth with their plans for the economy”.

Well, they are half right, because Labour would wreck the economy. It would certainly fail to get a grip on inflation or improve growth, for when has it ever done anything else? Show me a time when Labour was put out of office without leaving the economy in tatters—and it will be the same every time for the UK population. Scotland is subject to the electoral will of the UK—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) challenging me to be a Tory? That is a good one.

We need to educate our people well, and ensure that they can use that education in their employment environment so that they can have well-paid jobs enabling them to pay their way and do better than their parents. Even with the limited powers that we have in Scotland, we have a higher level of foreign direct investment than any other part of the United Kingdom; we have the best small business environment in the UK, with the most attractive small business bonus; our level of research and development is enviable according to UK standards; we have the most universities per head, with incredible research and innovation taking place in them; and our median wage income tax rate is lower.

The hon. Member for Moray, who said a lot earlier, talked of the scandal of paying for services, which he calls tax. It is tax, obviously, but he looks at only one side of the equation. People under a social contract in Scotland have elected a Government who support funded interventions in, for instance, eye tests, better-paid nurses, tuition fees, pupil equity funding, and all manner of other social contract interventions. The hon. Gentleman is supposed to be a Tory, and the Tories are supposed to be the party of business. They are supposed to be, at the very least, fiscally and economically literate; although I would respectfully suggest that the evidence implies otherwise. The hon. Gentleman must know that there is nothing for nothing. Although we rhetorically describe these things as free, they are not free; they need to be paid for, and I suggest to him that the people of Scotland know that very well.

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[Christine Jardine]

Yes, the hon. Lady has made me quite angry, because this is far more important than that.

Surely the cost of living for so many people in Scotland, our constituents, could be alleviated if we did not now pay more tax than anywhere else in the UK. The situation is so bad that the Scottish newspapers today are reporting that the SNP-Green Government are concerned that the ever-increasing taxation burden may now encourage people to move elsewhere. Is that not dreadful?

[Dave Doogan]

When the hon. Lady speaks about the financial pressures and burdens on families and communities, she hits the nail on the head. How important for her constituents is not having to worry about the cost of a prescription, rather than finding £9.65; being certain that their children will get to university if they make their grades, without having fears about funding; or having any other benefit that they enjoy in Scotland but not in England? How grateful are her constituents?

[Christine Jardine]

When my constituents come to me, what they complain about is not that they might have to pay that amount for prescriptions were it not for the Scottish Government; they complain about the burden they face every day at the moment. Businesses complain to me about the Scottish Government. Constituents regularly complain to me that they do not understand why the Scottish Government are not doing something about the state of our NHS and not doing something to provide a better education for their children to give them a better chance in life. That is what my constituents complain about.

As for Brexit, I agree with the SNP that it is doing immense damage to our economy, making life incredibly difficult for business and increasing the burden on families. What surprises me is that the SNP fails to recognise that to take Scotland out of the UK would be to repeat and amplify that damage to Scotland’s economy, income and households. Why does the SNP want to inflict the same damage again? Of course independence is its solution to everything—