Prime Minister (Meetings)
First Minister's Question Time
Scottish Parliament debates, 5 November 2009, 11:59 am
Annabel Goldie (Conservative)
To ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Prime Minister. (S3F-1977)
Rt Hon Alex Salmond (Scottish National Party)
I have no plans to meet the Prime Minister in the near future.
Annabel Goldie (Conservative)
The Audit Scotland report on public finances that was published today is extremely worrying in identifying up to £3.8 billion in budget cuts. That must be a wake-up call for the Scottish Government. The report is Labour's legacy, but it is the Scottish National Party Government's problem. It blows out of the water the First Minister's pretence that he can prevent budget cuts in Scotland. Gordon Brown had to be dragged kicking and screaming to admit that cuts were necessary. In the light of Audit Scotland's report, does the First Minister now accept that cuts are unavoidable?
Rt Hon Alex Salmond (Scottish National Party)
We have already faced up to the first real-terms cut in Scottish public spending in a generation—that is what the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth has done in setting the Scottish budget. I hope that the parties across the chamber will start to address the reality that, under the Labour Party—or,
Annabel Goldie (Conservative)
The figures are not my rhetorical invention; they are in an independent report and cover the next four to five years of the Parliament's activities and the Government's responsibilities. If the First Minister is not prepared to accept an entirely independent report on our public finances, how can anyone look to his Government to provide leadership through these desperately difficult times? Let us get back home to Scotland and the problems that confront us now. Will the First Minister now consider taking Scottish Water out of public control? Will he reconsider his plans to give free prescriptions and free school meals to people who can already afford to pay for them? If he will not do any of those things, what will he do or, on the issue of budget cuts, is Alex Salmond lost for words for the first time in his life?
Rt Hon Alex Salmond (Scottish National Party)
The figures that are quoted in the Audit Scotland report are the same as the forecasts by the Centre for Public Policy for Regions that I brought to the chamber's attention at First Minister's question time on 10 September. Incidentally, when I did so Andy Kerr told me to
"focus on the facts and not on the fictional forecasts."—[Official Report, 10 September 2009; c 19503.]
Annabel Goldie should concede that the Government has been first to identify the £500 million cut from Westminster in Scottish public spending this year and the danger of looming cuts under Labour or the Conservatives in the medium-term outlook for public spending. John Swinney's management of the Scottish budget has allowed us to identify efficiency savings that put us in a much better place than we would otherwise be in.
If Annabel Goldie is asking me whether there are real choices to be made about what is really important for the future of public spending in Scotland, I absolutely agree with her. That is why I do not want £100,000 million to be wasted on nuclear missiles in the Clyde when it could be invested in jobs and services in Scotland. In the headlong rush, as the mask slips on Tory privatisation plans, perhaps Annabel Goldie should remember that Scottish Water is providing a better service, at lower cost, to businesses and people in Scotland than any of the English privatised water companies, on average. If privatisation is the Tories' renewed agenda, let