Malcolm Chisholm: Is the cabinet secretary aware that literally hundreds of my constituents are appalled at the decision of one Scottish Government reporter, against the unanimous view of the City of Edinburgh Council’s planning committee, to allow the demolition of a much-loved restaurant at Canonmills in order for it to be replaced by an unattractive building that blocks a beautiful vista of the Water of...
Malcolm Chisholm: I congratulate the Deputy First Minister and the First Minister on securing the deal. In the First Minister’s statement on Tuesday, she said that the block grant adjustment would be based on an annual adjustment to a Treasury methodology, which now appears to be tax capacity adjusted levels deduction. Is she absolutely certain that an annual population adjustment to that methodology will...
Malcolm Chisholm: Context is all when it comes to tax decisions, and the context today is an all-out assault on public services that we have the power to prevent. That is why, throughout all the budget stages in February, Labour has been absolutely focused in saying that the priority for extra resources has to be local services in general and education in particular. We have also been absolutely clear in...
Malcolm Chisholm: To take £20,000 as an example, someone with that income would pay £5 a month extra. That puts it in context, when one thinks of the massive sums of extra money that would come from people on £100,000 or £200,000. That sudden attack on income tax from a party that is still considering a local income tax and which proposed a penny increase on income tax when public expenditure was...
Malcolm Chisholm: This is, I believe, the fourth year that I have had cause to thank Dennis Robertson for bringing discussion of eating disorders to the Parliament. It is a subject of profound importance, and this week affords the opportunity to reach out to sufferers, challenge stigma and make a clear statement that this is a mental health problem with serious physical and emotional repercussions. Many...
Malcolm Chisholm: I thank the member for reinforcing that point. Finding the right path to recovery starts with an informed and sensitive GP who recognises the real courage that it takes to present as a patient with an eating disorder. That cannot be emphasised enough: recovery starts when a person builds up the courage to speak out. The GP is the vital first step, and can direct the vulnerable person to the...
Malcolm Chisholm: The Health and Sport Committee focused in particular on the provisions relating to pregnancy loss, stillbirth and infant loss, and heard a great deal about the poor practices of the past, which the bill must ensure are kept very firmly in the past. I thank everyone who gave evidence to us, particularly those parents who had suffered a terrible loss. I also want to mention not just those who...
Malcolm Chisholm: Surely it is clear to everyone except the UK Government that population increase is relevant when analysing the growth of tax receipts. Is it not therefore essential to focus on the growth of the UK tax base per capita in order to be true to the no-detriment principle, to treat Scotland and the rest of the UK equally, and to avoid money being withdrawn from Scotland simply because the English...
Malcolm Chisholm: In spite of what my colleague has said, it is always a pleasure—as it was last week—to follow Joan McAlpine in a debate. She helpfully reminded us of the time when public expenditure through the Labour Government was increasing significantly. Ironically, the SNP was then proposing an increase in income tax when it was not necessary, but is now opposing such an increase when it is...
Malcolm Chisholm: I know the City of Edinburgh Council a bit better than I know Aberdeen City Council. I have looked at the budget for Edinburgh: there will be nearly 2,000 job losses and there will certainly be cuts to bits of the education budget. There is a coalition in Edinburgh council and the SNP leader of that coalition, Sandy Howat, has said: “A revenue cut of this scale would be very damaging for...
Malcolm Chisholm: I commend Margaret McCulloch for taking this opportunity to mark the international day of zero tolerance for female genital mutilation—a practice that infringes the basic human rights and health of women across the world. This cruel practice, which is often carried out with crude tools and without anaesthetic, has no basis in medical necessity but is embedded in a long-standing cultural...
Malcolm Chisholm: I thank Anne McTaggart for all her great work on the bill, and Kenneth Gibson and those of his colleagues who have been supporting such legislation for some time—longer than I have. I changed my mind just during the course of this parliamentary session and was very happy to be in the minority of the committee in respect of the report that we are debating. The context is the yawning gap...
Malcolm Chisholm: I am in my last minute, so I do not think that I can take an intervention. The fact of the matter is that if people do not like the detail of the bill, they can amend it. However, we are voting today on the general principles of the bill. People should be absolutely clear about that and not pretend that they support soft opt-out in general and then vote against the bill. Finally, 62 per cent...
Malcolm Chisholm: I do not wish to speak to the group.
Malcolm Chisholm: 3. To ask the Scottish Government what recent discussions it has had with the United Kingdom Government about the Trade Union Bill. (S4O-05516)
Malcolm Chisholm: I support any and all means to defeat this appalling bill and its intrusion on areas of devolved competence. However, if all else fails, will the Scottish Government join councils in Scotland in refusing to comply with the legislation?
Malcolm Chisholm: Context is everything when it comes to decisions about tax. The context today is the biggest cut to local government budgets in my lifetime. The Finance Committee accepts the SPICe figure of a 5.2 per cent cut to local authority budgets and, on pages 40 and 41 of its report on the draft budget, makes a fairly sharp critique of the nonsense that we have heard from the Government about the cut...
Malcolm Chisholm: Joan McAlpine completely misunderstands the point that I made and the significance of her cabinet secretary’s letter. Councils would lose all that money just if they did not do one thing. If they did not have a council tax freeze, they would lose all the social care money. That is a completely different point from the one that Joan McAlpine makes. That is the wider context in which Labour...
Malcolm Chisholm: Why is the SNP not looking at the effect of the change that we are proposing on people’s actual incomes? I will deal with that issue once Mark McDonald has made his intervention.
Malcolm Chisholm: I certainly know what Stephen Boyd was saying yesterday, and I have heard many speakers from the trade unions and the rally outside a couple of hours ago who were not saying that. As I was saying, let us look at the effect on incomes. David Eiser, who I am sure that Mark McDonald respects as a good economist and who he has heard at the Finance Committee, has said: “in assessing the...
