Holyrood Project

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at 3:37 pm on 5 April 2000.

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Photo of Michael Russell Michael Russell Scottish National Party 3:37, 5 April 2000

I want to start by refuting Gordon Jackson's closing remarks. He said that building a building would be a great enterprise; however, the great enterprise was the establishment of the Scottish Parliament, and we, the 129 MSPs in this chamber, are that Parliament—not some building with foundations that was designed elsewhere. Indeed, our great enterprise is perverted if we think that our job is simply to build a building. Our job is to serve the people of Scotland, and we will not be doing that if we go ahead with the motion before us.

We have a unique chance to revisit and correct a decision made on 17 June last year that was based on false information. There is no doubt about that. The resolution on 17 June was fatally flawed in four ways. First, there was a basic flaw at the heart of the resolution. Every Parliament should have the right to choose its own destiny in terms of where it sits and what it does. This Parliament was not given that choice. The root of the whole problem is that that decision was made before we were even elected.

The second flaw is the figure of £109 million on which the resolution was based, and I am sorry to hear Sir David Steel repeat the figure today. Mr Spencely's report tells the truth about the matter. The figure was not £109 million; it was £27 million more than that, even on 17 June. As the Parliament did not have the correct information, the resolution was based on a figure that was not true.

Thirdly, the 17 June resolution talked about fulfilling the contract within the time scale. That has not been possible, as the corporate body knows, for some months now. Therefore, that decision cannot stand. The resolution is flawed in a fourth regard, because it talks about doing it within the budget—a budget that was not true then, was not true at the start of this year and is not true now.

In all those regards, the motion that we passed on 17 June last year cannot be fulfilled. Therefore, we have an obligation to revisit the issue and make a decision, on behalf of the Parliament, as to what we should do next.

The worst decision to make would be the one that Mr Jackson proposes. He is essentially trying to repeat history. We got it wrong on 17 June, because the figures were wrong and we thought that we would just say that it could be done for that. We are now being told, from figures plucked out of the air, that it can be done for a certain figure. The Spencely report told us that there is no plan, there is no final cost. Who on earth, in those circumstances, would say, "This is the cost, this is the time scale, just go ahead"? That amendment repeats the error of last year.

We must examine what we can do from now on. That is why I and many of my colleagues support the Gorrie amendment, which takes a sensible position. It acknowledges that we were wrong last year and that we now have to make a choice. The worst argument against that is the one that we are hearing again this afternoon—that a delay would cost too much. This morning, I reread the debate from last June. We were told then that it would cost £1 million or £2 million to delay; at one stage we were told that it would cost £3 million to delay. The cost of going ahead has been another £40 million. That is the difference between the real figure last June and the figure now. Failing to delay has cost us £140,000 a day. There is no question that we must stop now and consider what we should do. If we do not do so, we will compound the errors that we made last year.