Richard Leonard: ...that are raised as a result of Scottish Parliament fiscal policy decisions, but what is not so good is that, if the Scottish economy performs poorly compared to the rest of the UK, including London and the south-east, if we have no economic plan, no industrial strategy and no jobs-first just transition plan but leave it to market forces, and if we experience a downturn in a sector like oil...
Richard Leonard: ...who care about our railways, but to all those who care about parliamentary democracy and open government. Next month marks 150 years of an overnight rail sleeper service running from Scotland to London, but this is a service that cannot merely be consigned to its glorious past; it demands active support in the present to secure a bright future as an integral part of a wider and longer-term...
Richard Leonard: I thank the minister for that response. As a low-carbon transport link between Scotland’s two largest cities and London, the Caledonian sleeper route has a central role to play in getting people on to public transport, yet Serco, which is responsible for running the franchise, has managed to cause not one but two disputes with its workers and their union—the National Union of Rail,...
Richard Leonard: ...constant threat of takeover. Everyone is agreed that we need longer time horizons and more patient capital. We need industrial interests to predominate—not the commercial interests of the City of London. We need to rebalance our economy and tackle the highly centralised UK economy. We will not solve every problem in the Scottish economy with this bill and the establishment of a national...
Richard Leonard: .... It is not between the people in Aberdeen who voted to remain and those in Abergavenny who voted to leave, and it is not between working-class families in Scotland and working-class families in London or Wales. Those are false divisions, propagated by those whose sole purpose is to divide communities and to wield power for its own sake. Our purpose is not to divide people; it is to bring...
Richard Leonard: ...relations—and, so, power relations—unreformed. Simply transferring power from one Parliament to another or from one group of politicians to another, whether from Strasbourg and Brussels to London or from London to Edinburgh, will not address the real democratic deficit that exists. People need more than a vote; they need a voice. That is why for us the answer is to be found first and...
Richard Leonard: ...in Scotland are not scaled up; they are taken over. The result is that a third of the Scottish economy is overseas owned. That is a higher level than in all other parts of the UK, including London and the south-east of England. There is a deeper-seated problem lying at the heart of the conclusions of the report. Although we acknowledge that the problem’s roots go back some considerable...
Richard Leonard: ...cent and in England by 15 per cent, but we simply do not know precisely how much it is increasing in Scotland, because the Scottish Government does not comprehensively measure that. Not only does London comprehensively count the number of rough sleepers, but the information is systematically shared across all relevant public agencies and homelessness organisations in the city. Will the...
Richard Leonard: ...vehicle charging points. What struck me about my meeting was that here was a company based in central Scotland supplying the rest of the UK market, with contracts with York NHS, contracts with the London Fire Brigade for two electric vehicle charging points at each of the 75 fire stations in London and contracts across England with the Environment Agency, but only a limited number of...
Richard Leonard: ...parts of the UK. The level of external ownership of the Scottish economy stands at 34.6 per cent. The other part of the UK that is nearest to that is the West Midlands of England with 30 per cent. London has 27 per cent, which is about the average for the UK. That has huge implications for how the economy functions and where decisions are made, but it also means—this is the point that is...