Engagements

– in the Scottish Parliament at on 5 November 2015.

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Photo of Kezia Dugdale Kezia Dugdale Labour

1. To ask the First Minister what engagements she has planned for the rest of the day. (S4F-03031)

Photo of Nicola Sturgeon Nicola Sturgeon Scottish National Party

This morning, I convened a meeting of the Scottish Government’s resilience committee to discuss the on-going suspension of flights to and from Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt. My officials are in close contact with United Kingdom Government officials and will continue to be so. We understand that there are currently around 20,000 British nationals in Sharm el Sheikh and we estimate at this stage that at least several hundred of them are Scots. Transport Scotland is in touch with Thomson Holidays to discuss the support and advice that are being provided. I assure the chamber that the Scottish Government will continue to liaise closely with UK Government colleagues to ensure that all appropriate support is in place.

Later today, I will have engagements to take forward the Government’s programme for Scotland.

Photo of Kezia Dugdale Kezia Dugdale Labour

Across the UK, Labour will fight the Tory Government’s attempts to cut tax credits. We want George Osborne to scrap his plan altogether but, if he does not, the Scottish Parliament must act to protect working families.

Despite days of protesting that it was not possible, yesterday the Scottish National Party Government finally admitted that we will have the power to restore money lost through tax credit cuts. The Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Communities and Pensioners’ Rights said that measures would be outlined after the autumn statement but, unlike on its £250 million plan to abolish air passenger duty, we have no detail on how much the SNP is willing to spend to protect working families. In fact, for weeks, the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Constitution and Economy said that restoring tax credits was unaffordable. Does the First Minister agree with her finance secretary that spending hundreds of millions of pounds to make airline tickets cheaper is affordable but restoring tax credits is not?

The First Minister:

Let me set out the Scottish Government’s position. First, over the next three weeks, we intend to keep up the pressure on George Osborne to drop his plans for tax credit cuts. Unlike Labour, which, members should remember, initially abstained in the House of Commons on the issue, the SNP has consistently opposed the cuts. It is all too typical of Scottish Labour that, just when the pressure on George Osborne is building across the UK, the party eases up on the Tories and attacks the SNP instead. It seems that old habits and old friendships die hard.

We will keep up the pressure on the Tories to drop the cuts altogether and, if they do not completely reverse them, we, as a responsible Government, will introduce credible, deliverable and affordable plans to protect low-income households, just as we did on the bedroom tax. [Interruption.]

The First Minister:

As we remember, first of all on the bedroom tax, Labour brought forward a plan that would have been illegal and unworkable; the Government brought forward one that worked. To be frank, that is a far better plan and it is far fairer for people who are affected by the cuts than back-of-a-fag-packet proposals from a party that knows that it has little chance of ever being in a position to implement them.

Photo of Kezia Dugdale Kezia Dugdale Labour

The First Minister forgets that a Labour Government introduced tax credits. We will do everything that we can to protect them, including using the powers of this Parliament.

No matter what George Osborne does at the autumn statement, we in Scottish Labour are committed to restoring the money that is lost through tax credit cuts for working families because we have made a choice. We know that it is affordable. We have costed it at its most expensive and we know that any concessions from the chancellor will only reduce that cost. We think that it is more important than a multimillion-pound plan to reduce the cost of airline tickets. [Interruption.]

Photo of Tricia Marwick Tricia Marwick None

Order. Continue, Ms Dugdale. [Interruption.] Order. Let us hear Ms Dugdale.

Photo of Kezia Dugdale Kezia Dugdale Labour

There are 6,000 families in the First Minister’s constituency who rely on tax credits and they deserve a bit more than a vague assurance from the Scottish National Party that the Government will act. Can the First Minister confirm to those 6,000 families and the thousands more across the country that the Scottish Government’s proposals will ensure that, when the new powers are available, every family will receive the same entitlement from the Government as they do now—yes or no?

The First Minister:

Let me repeat what I said in my first answer: we will continue to oppose the proposed cuts at source, unlike Labour, which abstained when it came to a vote in the House of Commons on tax credit cuts. We will oppose the cuts, but if they go ahead, we will bring forward a credible, workable, deliverable and affordable plan—

The First Minister:

—to protect low-income households.

I say to Kezia Dugdale that the detail of this matters to the families out there who are affected. One of the details that matter most is how the tax credits policy would be paid for. Kezia Dugdale has mentioned air passenger duty as the source—or a source—of the funding for it.

For today’s purposes, let us put to one side the fact that that money would not be available when Kezia Dugdale was required to pay for the tax credits policy and consider what she had to say about air passenger duty the day before she announced that policy. In an interview in Holyrood magazine the day before she announced her position on tax credits, she said that Labour would scrap the air passenger duty measure and spend that money on education, so in the space of 24 hours Labour managed to spend the same sum of money twice over. I say in all seriousness to Kezia Dugdale that that is basic incompetence and, frankly, the people of Scotland deserve better.

We have known for some time that the public think that Labour is unelectable. What we have found out this week is that Labour thinks that Labour is unelectable. It is less Keir Hardie, more Laurel and Hardy.

Photo of Tricia Marwick Tricia Marwick None

Ms Dugdale, will you try to keep your question brief? First Minister, will you try to keep your next answer brief, too?

Photo of Kezia Dugdale Kezia Dugdale Labour

All that from a party that has had three different positions on tax credits in the past 24 hours. If the past few days have taught us anything, it is that this Government needs to be held to account.

Yesterday in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister told working families that they would just have to wait and see what happened next. Today in this chamber, the First Minister is saying exactly the same thing. I have listened to Nicola Sturgeon very carefully, and I listened very carefully to Alex Neil on the television last night. Both of them have said that they will ensure that the income of those who are in receipt of tax credits does not fall, but that sounds a little like the Tory argument that higher wages will automatically make up the difference.

Therefore, I again ask the First Minister whether, under the Scottish Government’s proposal, every family will receive the same entitlement from the Government as they do now.

The First Minister:

I am not quite sure what it is that is difficult to understand. I do not yet accept that the proposed cuts will take place, because pressure is building on George Osborne to reverse them, so I think that, right now, we should be united in making sure that the pressure stays on the Tories. If George Osborne does the wrong thing, we will come forward with credible proposals to protect low-income families. People around this country who are worried about their tax credits deserve more than slogans. [Interruption.]

The First Minister:

They deserve detail from a Government that they know can deliver.

Earlier on, I referred to Kezia Dugdale’s interview in Holyrood magazine. Something else in that interview was illuminating. She narrated a conversation with a Welsh minister in which she had asked him,

“‘where are you finding the money from for these ... big commitments?’” and he had said that

“they would worry about that later.”

Kezia said:

“I was quite impressed by ... the boldness ... of that”.

Most people would be utterly appalled by the incompetence of that. I will leave Labour in the la-la land that it increasingly inhabits and get on with the job of governing the country in the interests of the people we serve.

Photo of Kezia Dugdale Kezia Dugdale Labour

The truth is that this is the week in which the SNP’s constitutional games came unstuck. After years of responding to every problem with complaints about the constitution, Alex Neil finally gave the game away. This is the week in which the SNP had to admit that the new powers that are heading our way can transform Scotland and had to confront the fact that difficult choices will have to be made. Will the First Minister now give up the politics of grievance? Will she now look to the future of what is possible, move on from the past and just get on with delivering a fairer Scotland?

The First Minister:

There is one place only in the UK where Labour can be judged on its actions, not its words. In Wales, which I referred to a moment ago, Labour does not even mitigate the bedroom tax. That is the reality of Labour in government.

I will continue to concentrate first on forcing the Tories to abandon the cuts. The reason why Labour will not do likewise is that, in the words of its shadow chancellor last weekend, the SNP is “the real enemy”. That is the nub of the matter. Labour is not motivated by concern for ordinary people, and it has not been for a long time. [Interruption.]

The First Minister:

Labour is motivated by its tribal hatred of the SNP. I think that the Tories are the enemy of working people in Scotland. It is just a shame that Labour seems to have forgotten that.