Small Business

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at 3:16 pm on 7 March 2007.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Fergus Ewing Fergus Ewing Scottish National Party 3:16, 7 March 2007

That is one of the minister's many suggestions that we will not take up.

Can members think of any other country in the world that has a sustainable industry, such as the whisky industry, which produces so much wealth, which is exported throughout the world and which has almost unparalleled opportunities for growth in the century ahead, as the people of the world become more able to afford our national product? Every country in the world would give its eye teeth for such a product.

The point that I am making is that Scotland has wealth in abundance, both in natural and human resources. At the beginning of this century, as we look forward to the next 100 years, we must ask ourselves what the nation most values. The answer is not oil—even though we still have it in abundance, to the tune of £6 billion or more a year—which was the gift of the last century, but it might well be water, natural resources or renewable energy, all of which Scotland has in abundance.

I turn from Tomatin to Trident, which, surprisingly, Mr Chisholm failed to mention in his tour de table, although he spoke about the alleged financial deficit that there would under the SNP. Of course, the UK runs a deficit every year. If we take Scotland's share of it and then add back the oil revenues, there is either no deficit or it is very small. The deficit argument is simply an attempt to scare the Scottish people out of their birthright, which is independence. We hear about the deficit—as members know, we hear about it all too frequently—because it is designed deliberately and calculatedly to scare Scotland out of the birthright that every other country in the world takes for granted.

One of the benefits of independence will be that we will be able to make the right choices. I have always thought that tolerance is among the many pleasing qualities of the good people of England. They have a lot to tolerate, given the number of Scots members in the Cabinet who are misgoverning their country, as they have in the past and will do in the future. No doubt, Mr Chisholm will agree that, instead of spending money on a replacement for the Trident system, we could spend it on all kinds of alternatives. The Trident costs were originally estimated at £15 billion; now, the figure is over £100 billion. The Government at Westminster is also considering investing £9 billion in the London Olympics—originally, the figure was £3 billion. We can see that the choices that Scotland will have made for it if we remain in the union will be simply the wrong choices. With independence, we will have the ability to decide how our money will be spent.