Scott Arthur
Main Page: Scott Arthur (Labour - Edinburgh South West)Department Debates - View all Scott Arthur's debates with the Scotland Office
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Graham Leadbitter (Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey) (SNP)
Back in the early ’90s, I was just out of school and getting involved in politics. It was an exciting time, with a constitutional convention, excitement about a new Parliament, and decision making coming closer to home. People in Scotland had the right to decide on whether to have devolution with a Scottish Parliament or keep power at Westminster—and they chose well!
The Scottish Parliament’s early years featured some of the most well-known names in Scottish politics: Donald Dewar, Winnie Ewing, Alex Salmond, Nicola Sturgeon, Jack McConnell, Annabel Goldie, Jim Wallace and, of course, our current First Minister and SNP leader John Swinney, whose public service and commitment to Scotland remains second to none. I add to those names George Reid, who sadly passed away recently. He was respected right across this House and the Scottish Parliament.
The formation of the Scottish Parliament marked my first employment in politics, for former MP and MSP Alasdair Morgan, who retired in 2011 after a distinguished period as Deputy Presiding Officer in the Scottish Parliament. My introduction to politics—working for an MP and MSP, as many in the Scottish Parliament were in its first couple of years—fired up my own desire to go further in politics and become an elected councillor, then a council leader and now a parliamentarian in this place. I did that because of my desire to improve the lives of the people I represent and the people right across Scotland, which is the same reason that colleagues right across the House got into politics.
The Scottish Parliament has led the way in many areas of policy. On tackling child poverty, it is the only part of the UK in which child poverty has fallen. The Scottish child payment of £27.15 a week, introduced by the SNP, has been praised by numerous highly respected charities and organisations in tackling child poverty. On social security, the formation of social security—
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but the Scottish child payment is not just praised by charities; it was their idea. The Child Poverty Action Group campaigned for it for a long time and the Scottish Government opposed it. It was parties in Opposition and charities who made it happen, so they do not just praise it. We should congratulate them on their long campaign that made it happen, and I hope he will join me in that.
Graham Leadbitter
The point made is entirely reasonable and I commend the work done by charities and third sector organisations over many years in highlighting that and a wide range of issues. I am grateful that the hon. Member acknowledges that the Scottish Government responded to those concerns and took action, demonstrating exactly the power the Scottish Parliament can have and the difference it can make.
On social security, we introduced the carer’s allowance supplement. We mitigated the bedroom tax and increased the employment rate for disabled people, without resorting to cutting vital welfare support.
Melanie Ward
My hon. Friend makes an important point about something we see too frequently across Scotland: our people being forced to opt in to private healthcare because they cannot get treatment under the SNP’s NHS. That is completely unacceptable. I know that similar waits exist for assessments for autism and for mental health support. There is a crisis across Fife and the Scottish Government are refusing to give NHS Fife the support needed to try to make a difference.
The problems do not just exist in our health system; sadly, they also exist in our education system. Our educational outcomes in Scotland worsened this year, with the gap in attainment between the richest and poorest students growing, including in Fife; that happened after Nicola Sturgeon said that eradicating that attainment gap was the priority on which she wanted her record as First Minister to be judged. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson) said earlier, Scottish Government failure on the targets they set for themselves is a hallmark of their time in office. The same Nicola Sturgeon proclaims her love of literature at book festivals, yet she was part of successive Governments who have presided over the closure of almost 100 libraries in Scotland.
On skills, we saw the UK Government having to step in recently to save a welding skills centre because the SNP Government refused to do so. The SNP Government’s indifference and often opposition to the highly skilled, highly paid jobs that the defence industry provides across Scotland and in constituencies such as mine has meant young workers missing out on the opportunity of a secure, highly paid job. It is also deeply irresponsible at such a dangerous time in the world, with Russian aggression in Europe right on our doorstep.
All those cuts stack up, while the bill to the taxpayer for SNP waste becomes ever more eye-watering: nearly £1 billion spent on Barlinnie prison, almost double the original cost; more than £400 million or four times the original estimate spent on two ferries, with one ferry still not in service eight years later; and let us not forget the costly shambles that was the deposit return scheme, flunked by the SNP and the Greens and described by the SNP’s leader in Westminster, the right hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), as a “self-inflicted wound”.
The purpose of devolution is supposed to be to take action in Scotland on Scotland’s problems, and to help to make our nation the best it can be. Yet too often that is not the reality under this Scottish Government, as a couple of examples from my own constituency show. At the peak of summer this year, when many businesses in Kinghorn and Burntisland were looking forward to making the most of tourism season, because we are blessed by beautiful beaches, the beaches were closed because sewage spills made the water unsafe to swim. Some of my constituents became physically sick because they had swum among sewage, yet the chief executive of publicly owned Scottish Water said over the summer that the concerns of my constituents “should not be overblown”. This issue has a real social and economic impact on people in my constituency, not to mention a health impact. It is the direct result of the SNP’s failure to invest in our sewerage network and in regular water-quality monitoring.
I wrote to the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy in August and received a response that began with a comparison between Scottish and English bathing waters. We are familiar with that: if we raise a problem in Scotland, we hear, “Well, it is worse in England.” Even if that were true, that is exactly why this Labour Government are taking tough measures to crack down on polluting water companies. Yet water quality is another devolved issue, creating significant problems that the SNP Scottish Government seem completely disinterested in solving.
Dr Arthur
My hon. Friend represents my home town, so it is always great to hear what is happening there. The UK Government inherited an awful situation from the Conservatives on water quality in rivers—that is beyond doubt—but in the UK we know how much sewage goes from sewerage systems into rivers. In my constituency, I have had dog owners concerned about what their dogs are eating on river banks, if I can put it politely. When I contacted Scottish Water, it could not even tell me the volume of sewage going into the rivers. Does she agree that this whole situation is unacceptable and that we have to discuss it more?
Melanie Ward
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. The experience of dog owners in his seat has also been raised with me locally. In Kinghorn, some of my residents were promised action from Scottish Water five years ago, and nothing has happened. There is no justifiable explanation for that.
Another serious example is that of antisocial behaviour. Across Fife, this seems to be a growing problem. Just last week, some of my constituents were left terrified by appalling disorder involving up to 50 young people in Cowdenbeath. A police officer was assaulted, and residents in Cowdenbeath have said that they are scared to go out at night. I know my local police are doing their best to get on top of the issue and have a plan to try to deal with disorder that might take place over the Hallowe’en period, which residents are worried about. I have raised the issue with the local police inspector and discussed it with him, but the disorder was not an isolated incident. Surely it cannot be just a coincidence that this comes as police numbers across Scotland last year fell to their lowest since 2008. It is increasingly clear that more devolved action is needed in Scotland to tackle the problem of antisocial behaviour, because it makes lives miserable. We have to ask why it is not being taken seriously and why more is not being done about it by the Scottish Government.
I must say something about the number of tragic drug deaths in Scotland, which last year was the highest in Europe for the seventh year in a row. The National Records of Scotland has said that the total number of people dying from drug misuse in Scotland was more than 10,000 over the past decade. Drug deaths in Fife last year were almost double what they were in 2010, each one of them a tragic waste of life.
I has a meeting recently with some of the residents of Linktown in Kirkcaldy, who have a particular problem with that issue. Residents are deeply worried; they told me about families in which mothers had had four children, but only one child now remained alive because of the scale of drug deaths and the problem that we have. That is one example of why it is so frustrating to hear the SNP continuing to chunter on about independence and trying to distract from the very real problems across our communities, rather than getting on and solving them.
We were told that the referendum on Scottish independence was a once-in-a-generation referendum, and the Scottish people gave their verdict very clearly. There are so many issues that the SNP’s mismanagement, neglect and under-investment have caused over the last almost two decades, yet the SNP continues to show almost no interest in fixing them and tackling the problems that it already has the powers to solve. It is long past time that the SNP took devolution seriously and used it to improve the lives of our people.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
I start by thanking the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for introducing the debate—it took us two goes to get here, but I thank him. I was inspired by his bravery in admitting that he was on the committee that oversaw the building of the Scottish Parliament, because I think it was 10 times over budget, but perhaps those are skills we can deploy to build ferries in Scotland. Perhaps they are already; I do not know.
It has now been 26 years since the Scottish Parliament was established with the promise of empowering our nation. For that to work, it has always been the case that the Government in Scotland need to have a can-do attitude. In the early years under Scottish Labour, the Government made significant progress, as we have already heard. We abolished tuition fees. We introduced a smoking ban, free personal care, and free bus passes for older people—that is one of my favourite ones—and we reintroduced the rail link to the Borders. One of the most amazing things that I read today was that during the 1999 to 2007 Parliaments, life expectancy in Scotland increased by 2.3 years. These are the wonders of a Labour Government. Of course, we also oversaw a vital expansion of social housing in Scotland, something that is needed today.
The pace of change during that era was incredible, as Scotland was finding its feet with its new Parliament, which felt like a bit of an experiment at the time but is now here to stay. In the two decades since then, however, the SNP Government have overseen a period of stagnation and decline across all of the same areas.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Gentleman on including some positivity in his speech. Does he agree that we do not want my Gaelic brothers and cousins, the SNP Members who are sitting in front of me, to leave the Union? I want them to stay in this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland forever, because we are better together. It is the money that comes centrally from Westminster that keeps the Scottish Parliament and its people going.
Something that perhaps has not been mentioned yet is that one of the advantages of devolution has been the tourism connections between Northern Ireland and Scotland—our cousins across the straits. Does the hon. Member agree that that is one of the things that is positive and good in the relationship between people from Ulster and people from Scotland? I am descended from the Stewarts of the lowlands of Scotland, so I am probably Scottish, maybe from before some people were—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. Mr Shannon, I am sure we are all fascinated by from whom you are descended, but could I respectfully point out that Members who have not been in the Chamber for the bulk of this debate should not be making lengthy interventions?
Dr Arthur
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. Earlier, we heard about how the Scottish child payment has cut child poverty in Scotland. That is something that we all welcome, but it has only happened because of the Barnett consequentials that come to Scotland—because of those, public spending in Scotland is higher. If they were to go overnight, which some people want, Scotland as a whole would be poorer. I am convinced that Scotland will never vote to be poorer.
Getting back to the speech and my positivity, over the past year in this place, we have seen a real enthusiasm and energy about devolving powers to local democracy in England. That is something I see every single week on the Transport Committee—a lot of the powers being rolled out relate to transport—and we can see the difference that Andy Burnham is making in Manchester. It is a real shame that in Scotland, we do not see the same transfer of powers from the centre, Holyrood, into local authorities. Without a doubt, that is what is holding Scotland back.
The situation of housing in Scotland is particularly disheartening. After the Scottish Government declared a national housing emergency—one that they created through their cuts, but they did declare a housing emergency none the less—I expected to see a major and concerted effort to reverse the awful trend in the housing situation. Instead, the number of completed affordable homes fell this year by 22%, and new housing starts are also falling. There is a human cost to this. It is not just about statistics. In Scotland 10,000 children are living in temporary accommodation, and more people are living in temporary accommodation in Glasgow than in the whole of Wales. Those are incredible statistics, but we have to be careful: this is not a failure of devolution, but a failure of government.
Tourism, which was mentioned a few seconds ago, is a vital part of the Scottish economy, and a vital part of Edinburgh’s economy—it must employ at least one person in every street. However, the lack of decisive action has been clear. The Scottish Government are too focused on accumulating powers rather than using them. I love Edinburgh, and I am proud that people come from all over the world to see it, but I am sometimes ashamed of what they see. The amount of tourism coming into the city does have an impact, and the city itself gains very little direct cash benefit from the tourism industry. The solution was, of course, a tourist tax—about which I know my Conservative friends have their concerns.
I was on Edinburgh council between 2017 and 2024, and throughout that time we campaigned for a tourist tax power. Indeed, I think the council campaigned for it for nearly 10 years in the run-up to that. However, for reasons unclear to me, the SNP Government opposed it. Since then, they have started to support it, and more recently they have tried to take the credit for giving Edinburgh a power for which it had fought for years. They should be apologising instead, because their dithering has cost Edinburgh millions of pounds that could have been invested in our city to make it better for its residents and for the tourists who choose to come here. The prolonged guddle around the tourist tax raises serious questions about the SNP Government’s use of devolved powers.
Another fantastic example is the Scottish Government’s powers relating to the use of fireworks. I accept that the powers on fireworks are divided between this place and Holyrood, but I have met police officers in Edinburgh who have lasting injuries caused by fireworks, and indeed I have met police officers and fire brigade personnel who have had fireworks fired at them. I have met someone who runs a care home that was besieged by young adults with fireworks. Nevertheless, the Scottish Government say that there is insufficient evidence for them to take action on the use of fireworks in Edinburgh. It is absolutely mind-boggling: they could act, but they choose not to do so.
However, the most concerning issue relating to the use of powers in Scotland is healthcare, which others have already mentioned. As we heard earlier, this is not about NHS staff—such as my wife—but about how the NHS has been resourced and supported. Cancer waiting times were mentioned a few minutes ago; in Scotland they have never been worse. The situation is quite incredible for people who are waiting and waiting for a diagnosis, and it should shame us all. As of June 2025, 7,800 patients in Scotland have been waiting for in-patient or day-case treatment for more than two years, and in Edinburgh the number is 979. That figure stands in sharp contrast to the NHS England figure, which I think has also been mentioned: only 161 people, in a nation of about 50 million people, have been waiting for more than two years. Is that not incredible?
Devolution was never simply about giving Scotland more powers. It was always about wielding those powers with accountability—that important word—and competence, which is another important word, to improve the lives of people in Scotland. Rather than just being held on to, the powers should be used, and should be deployed to local authorities. Talking of local authorities, another issue is council tax. One of the reasons the SNP won the election in 2007 was its pledge to scrap council tax, but we are still waiting for that to happen. “Scrap the hated council tax” is the slogan that we have seen on billboards.
The current SNP Government have demonstrated a complete inability to meet their fundamental responsibility. Another example is shipbuilding. That Government own a shipyard in Scotland, which is fantastic, but they choose to send their own shipbuilding contracts to Poland and Turkey. Meanwhile, it is left to the UK Government—and let us give credit to the great work done by the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) in this regard—to go to Norway to bring contracts to those Scottish yards. Where is the Scottish Government’s priority when it comes to shipbuilding? It is non-existent.
Patricia Ferguson
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is ironic that it is only because BAE Systems won the contract with Norway that it is able to give work to Ferguson Marine, which is owned by the Scottish Government, to keep it going? At the time, the Scottish Government were saying, “We will not have anything to do with defence procurement.” The irony of that is appalling, given that people’s jobs are at stake.
Dr Arthur
Yes, I do. It is fantastic that the contracts came from Norway to the UK, and they will keep households in jobs for many years to come. It is a fantastic vote of confidence in that workforce and the whole supply chain, but the very, very quiet thank you from the Scottish Government was utterly shameful.
It is time for a new Government who will not just set ambitious targets, but deliver them and improve the lives of people in Scotland. People will not be surprised to hear that I think that new Government should be led by Anas Sarwar.
I want to make one last point. We have spoken about parent and child Parliaments, and about levels of government. There is nothing that we can do here today to improve the relationship between the Scottish Government and councils in Scotland, but when we talk about the issues in Scotland, we have to remember that there is not a hierarchy of councillors, MSPs and MPs. We are all elected by the same people, we are all equal and we are all here to serve those people. If we use that kind of language more in our constituencies, residents will come with us on the argument about empowering our councils to make a real difference in our communities. That is the devolution that Scotland needs.
Chris Murray
My hon. Friend makes an important point. The concentration of power in the Scottish Parliament does not work for cities, rural areas, the central belt or the highlands and islands, because it treats Scotland as one monolithic whole and does not address the differences in its communities.
That brings me to my next point. Although devolution has been successful in establishing the Scottish Parliament, we have to be honest about where it has fallen short. Many hon. Members have laid out a litany of failures: poorer health outcomes, falling schools standards that were once the envy of Europe, a housing emergency and stubbornly high poverty, and the drugs crisis, which shames us all. We once led the world in setting climate targets, but we now lead the world in ditching them. We must understand why that happened.
If we think of devolution only as the establishment of the Scottish Parliament, we get it wrong. In 1999, another institution was created—the Scottish Government, then the Scottish Executive.
Dr Arthur
I envy the jewels in my hon. Friend’s constituency. The Scottish Government—and the Greens, who were complicit—really got climate targets wrong. The targets were set in law and endorsed via an election, but they dumped them overnight. Is that not one of the most shameful things to have happened in Holyrood?
Chris Murray
My hon. Friend gets exactly to the nub of the issue. We have seen good debate, gestures and discussion in Scotland, but we have not seen the concomitant focus on policy, delivery and outcomes. The Scottish Parliament has been a success; the Scottish Government have not. It is important to draw that distinction.
A highly centralised structure has concentrated decision-making in St Andrew’s House, to the detriment of local communities. As we have heard, councils have had their funding and influence hollowed out. There has been a proliferation of quangos and agencies; there are now more quangos in Scotland than there are Members of the Scottish Parliament. That breeds a clientelism and elitism that shut ordinary people out of decision-making processes.
Richard Baker (Glenrothes and Mid Fife) (Lab)
I congratulate my good friend the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) on securing this debate, which he led with the same erudition and success with which he led the victorious Scottish Parliament “University Challenge” team against our dear colleagues in the Welsh Parliament. Madam Deputy Speaker, this was an early win for Scottish devolution. I know that this debate is particularly close to his heart, as it is to the heart of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson) and to mine, as former Members of the Scottish Parliament, where we had the privilege to serve.
Today, more than 25 years after the Parliament opened in 1999, it is an appropriate point to look back over what has been accomplished through devolution. I remain proud that it was the 1997 Labour Government, through the Scotland Act, who paved the way to our Parliament. Since that principle has been established in Scotland, so many regions and cities across the UK have also embraced the principle of devolution with great success. As we look to the future of our constitutional settlement and reforms of this Parliament—independence for Scotland or further devolution is not the only constitutional debate we have—I hope we will see a greater role still for our nations and regions here, along the lines envisioned by Gordon Brown in the excellent report by his Commission on the UK’s Future.
That we have seen devolution of power across the UK since the foundation of the Scottish Parliament is, I believe, a positive reflection on devolution in Scotland being the settled and tested will of the Scottish people. Since 1999, significant additional powers have been devolved to Holyrood, not least around income tax. It is so disappointing, therefore, that while the Scottish National party has been quick to demand greater devolution of powers to Scotland, it has been unable and unwilling to devolve power to local communities in Scotland. This debate is titled “Devolution in Scotland”, but the sad fact is that there has been precious little devolution in Scotland under the SNP. Ministers in Edinburgh have centralised power at every turn and eviscerated the budgets of our local authorities.
What have the Scottish Government achieved with the powers they have so ruthlessly retained for themselves, instead of devolving them to local communities, and with the £5.2 billion additional funding given to the Scottish Government in the Budget this year? The SNP has presided over a rate of economic growth in Scotland that has lagged behind that in the rest of the United Kingdom, and it has failed to support our teachers and pupils. The reputation of our education system in Scotland —once the great pride of our country—has been battered because of the incompetence of SNP Ministers.
While NHS waiting lists in England are shrinking thanks to the investment secured by the Chancellor, and the successful stewardship of health services by the Secretary of State, Ministers in Scotland are squandering billions of pounds extra on our health services. In Fife, we face some of the longest waiting times for surgery anywhere in Scotland. The hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) mentioned the sorry statistics on drug deaths in Scotland. The issue is taking a tragic toll on many communities and families in my constituency. On the wider provision of health services, particularly with regard to primary care, it was frankly beyond belief to hear some of the promises made by John Swinney on walk-in appointments at GP surgeries. Lochgelly in my constituency is still waiting for any indication that work will begin on a new health centre that is badly needed by the local community. SNP Ministers first promised it more than 15 years ago.
We have also discussed the centralisation of police and fire services in Scotland. What has been its result? Certainly in my constituency, police numbers are being cut in the face of rising concerns about antisocial behaviour. On fire and rescue services, Lochgelly faces the removal of a fire engine and a reduced number of firefighters, and another appliance is to be removed in either Glenrothes or Methil. It is no wonder that in a debate on devolution, SNP Members want only to talk about independence, given their woeful record in government under devolution.
What a contrast with what Labour Ministers in Westminster are delivering for Scotland, and what Scottish Labour offers next year—not a tired Government out of ideas, but a Government who will fix our NHS, restore our schools, close the opportunity gap, grow our economy and bring back community policing for safer communities. Labour will ensure that the record funding in public services in Scotland is not wasted, but actually results in the improvements that people expect, need and deserve. It is Labour Ministers who are actually devolving power on decision making, ensuring that communities have a real say in what will make a difference for them. Two pride in place schemes in Fife are bringing £40 million of investment into the communities where it is most needed.
In his famous address at the opening of the Scottish Parliament, Donald Dewar spoke of the
“shout of the welder in the din of the great Clyde shipyards”.
This Government have secured the future of 2,000 jobs at the Clyde shipyard with a £10 billion deal with Norway for new frigates. In my constituency, the Methil yard was saved from bankruptcy by the actions of this Government, as Ministers succeeded in ensuring that it was purchased by Navantia UK, along with Arnish in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton), saving the jobs of 200 skilled workers and apprentices in Methil, and allowing the yard to look to a bright future.
Richard Baker
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those kind words. I am renowned for my modesty, as he knows. Equally modest are my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) and Labour Ministers, who did much work on these key issues for our local community.
In May, Scotland will have the chance of a bright future if it elects a new Government, who actually want devolution to work, with Anas Sarwar as First Minister. Scotland should replace a tired Scottish Government who have run out of ideas with new leadership that has already shown that it is ambitious for Scotland and ready to deliver on the promise of devolution.