Budget Resolutions
Debate between Ian Blackford and Maria Miller
Ian Blackford
I am just a simple crofter with 10 acres—[Interruption.] Let me deal with the seriousness of the situation. The European Union recognised the underfunding of hill crofters and farmers in 2013, creating a new fund from which payments were to be made between 2016 and 2020. Almost 90% of the fund was meant to come to Scotland, but we have been short-changed. We have been given only 16.5% of the funds. Some £160 million that should be going to Scottish farmers and crofters has not materialised. Where is it, Chancellor? Why has he not given Scottish crofters and farmers the money that they were due? Why has he withheld funds that were explicitly meant for Scotland? Why does he think it is right to hold back EU funds that he was meant to pass over? It is little wonder that our crofters and farmers should worry about funding post Brexit; this UK Government have form. Make no mistake that not passing over funds the EU earmarked for Scotland is a serious breach of trust. I would even go so far as to say that the UK Government have stolen that money from the pockets of crofters and farmers.
Let me turn to what the Chancellor has done in this Budget. With Brexit having pushed inflation above its 2% target for each month since February 2017, I welcome that he has frozen fuel duty. I also welcome the fact that the UK Government have finally lived up to their responsibility on broadband, which is, after all, a reserved matter. Despite a few welcome gimmicks, Scotland’s promised £600 million in NHS consequentials, we are getting only £550 million. We have been short-changed again—£50 million should be coming to Scotland for health; we are not getting it.
Those at the bottom of the pile will continue to struggle while the Tories fail to put dignity and respect at the heart of their social security policies. By 2021, low-paid women stand to lose £1,400 a year from changes to universal credit, according to the Women’s Budget Group. A couple with two children will be £832 a year worse off due to the benefit freeze, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Some 600,000 three-child families will see £2,500 a year robbed from their budgets, and those with four or more children will lose around £7,000 a year. The Chancellor could have done the right thing today. He could have halted and fixed universal credit. Instead, he failed to go far enough to put money into the pockets of those who desperately need it.
The SNP has long championed the case against cuts to the work allowances, and another U-turn from the Tories is welcome, but it does not go far enough. The Chancellor’s increased spending on universal credit is nothing but a drop in the ocean. He is putting a sticking plaster on a wound that needs to be redressed. His failure to halt and review universal credit means that more people will be left behind, left in poverty, left in hardship and left struggling by a Tory Government.
Now, I do not think that there is a magic money tree, but political choices can be made: to deliver a society where the sick or unemployed can be helped out of hardship; or a society that punishes the poor and abandons those who are out of work. Why has the Chancellor failed again to end age discrimination and give young people, as well as other workers, a real living wage?
Since Brexit, electricity bills have gone up by 17.1% and gas bills by 4.3%—young people continue to be left behind with those higher prices. All workers should be treated fairly, yet this Government continue to underpay young people. Young people have again been short-changed, as the Chancellor has failed to pay a real living wage. Young people in Scotland deserve better. The Chancellor should immediately devolve the powers so that the SNP Scottish Government can uplift young people and end this discrimination.
But it is not just young people. Women born in the 1950s have seen their pensionable age increase by as much as six years, in some cases with only 14 months’ notice. We in the SNP have long accepted that the equalisation of men and women’s pensionable age should happen, but the women affected by the changes had paid national insurance on the condition that they would get their state pension earlier than many of them now are. They have been short-changed. Women’s pensionable age has increased too quickly, and many are living in poverty, relying on benefits. Of course, in a Westminster Hall debate, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), ludicrously suggested that the women affected should think about going on apprenticeship schemes. Talk about a lack of humanity. Absolutely outrageous. This is a Government who simply do not get it and do not accept their responsibility.
Why was this not addressed in the Budget? Where is the dignity? Where is the compassion for the millions of women who have given a lifetime of service? It is utterly shameful that that issue has not been addressed, and it is not going to go away. The Chancellor should have listened to the SNP on 1950s women and, more widely, on austerity.
The Scottish Government are already delivering £125 million of mitigation in this year alone to protect those hit by Tory austerity. We have established in law that social security is a human right, and I recommend that this House also thinks about that. We are building a social security system based on dignity and respect. Society is only as strong as its weakest link. Social security is not just a nice thing to provide; it is a necessity that we provide a safety net to those who need it.
We are also working to bolster our economy and society by supporting business and by working to boost job opportunities and growth: a 64% increase of £270 million in the economy, jobs and fair work budget, as part of a total investment of £2.4 billion in enterprise and skills; a 70% increase in investment in business research and development; £18 million as part of a £65 million package of investment in the National Manufacturing Institute; and £340 million of resources set aside to provide initial capitalisation for the Scottish national investment bank. The Leader of the Opposition called for a UK state investment bank; we are getting one in Scotland, courtesy of the SNP.
The Scottish Government have an ambitious programme of infrastructure investment for 2018-19 of more than £4 billion, in line with the “Programme for Government” commitment to invest £20 billion over the lifetime of our Scottish Parliament. That is our commitment to infrastructure investment.
In Scotland we are using the powers we have to change lives for the better and to strengthen our economy, and it is working. Scotland has strong economic fundamentals, with higher growth than the UK as a whole and the most inward investment anywhere in the UK outside London. Scotland’s economy grew by 0.5% in the second quarter of 2018, faster than the UK. Over the past 12 months, the Scottish economy has grown by 1.7%, faster than the 1.2% in the UK. The Scottish Government are delivering for the people of Scotland.
According to the Office for National Statistics, long-term pay growth has been highest in Scotland and lowest in Wales. Median pay for full-time workers is 87% higher in Scotland than it was in 1997. Fraser of Allander expects Scotland to have higher growth and lower unemployment than the UK in 2019 and 2020. Scotland’s female unemployment rate fell over the quarter and year to 3.2%, lower than the UK’s 4%. In the face of Tory austerity, the Scottish Government are building an economy of the future with measures to unlock innovation and drive increased productivity.
In Scotland, those measures, outlined in the “Programme for Government”, have been welcomed by the business sector. Scottish businesses, customers and our workforce rely on robust and reliable infrastructure, as the foundation which keeps our economy moving, and it is right to increase investment in that area—but it will not stop there. The Scottish growth commission’s report is clear that an independent Scotland can leave the broken economic model of the UK and deliver an inclusive, sustainable growth programme. If the approach to spending growth recommended by the commission had been applied by Westminster over the past decade, the £1.9 billion cut in real terms to Scotland’s budget would have been wiped out.
The report recommends adopting the following fiscal rules: that the deficit is reduced to below 3% of GDP within five to 10 years; that national debt does not increase beyond 50% of GDP and stabilises at that level; and that borrowing is undertaken for public investment only over the course of the economic cycle. Closing the per capita income gap to the median of the 12 best-performing small advanced economies, the report’s peer group, through a 21st century economic model focusing on productivity, population and participation would mean, in today’s values, an additional £22 billion in GDP and a potential additional £9 billion in tax revenues—that is £4,100 per person.
In Scotland, we are not just focusing on the now; we are focusing on the future. The Chancellor today attempts to pull the wool over our eyes and distract us from the bigger picture, but we are not distracted. This Budget is a typical Tory offering: giving with one hand and taking with another. The Budget exposes to the people of Scotland that there is a choice to build a better future—to turn away from the isolated, economically failed UK and instead look to a more prosperous Scotland in the European Union. Only with independence can we secure a strong future for the Scottish economy, and deliver for our communities and families, who are being left behind, scrambling to make ends meet, moving from crisis to crisis at the hands of consecutive failed UK Governments.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I tried to intervene on the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) on a number of occasions. Could you confirm to the House whether or not there are any rules in place preventing the Scottish National party from taking such interventions?