Society

– in the Scottish Parliament at on 18 April 2013.

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Photo of John Scott John Scott Conservative

Good afternoon. The first item of business is a debate, in the name of the Scottish Green Party and Independent group, on “There is still such a thing as society.” This is a debate without motion.

Photo of Patrick Harvie Patrick Harvie Green

I say at the outset how pleased we all are that there is such a strong turnout from all parties.

Over the past 10 days, the reaction to the death of Margaret Thatcher has, perhaps predictably, divided between hero worship on the one hand and demonisation on the other. This debate is intended to involve neither. Members will certainly not hear any hero worship from this part of the chamber, but they will not hear me demonise Margaret Thatcher either. I urge all members to move beyond that polarity of debate.

It is important to debate Margaret Thatcher’s political legacy. She has, of course, been out of office for more than 20 years, but the ideas that she embodied remain regrettably dominant in our politics. The debate is intended to provoke some meaningful reflection on that political legacy, and I am glad that a compromise on timing was possible to ensure that all are able to participate.

In proposing a debate without a motion and with a title that I regard as every bit as open to interpretation as the quote to which it refers, we hope that Parliament will focus on the ideas more than the person and that the approach will allow all sides to contribute to the debate as they see fit.

So, what of that legacy, the ideas that Margaret Thatcher embodied and the impact that they have had? Members across the chamber may pick on many particular aspects, such as the direct economic damage of deindustrialisation, the requirement to support the communities most directly affected that was given little more than lip service, or the economic and social impact of those changes that still, even now, echo through the generations.

I have received correspondence to suggest that, as a Green politician, I should welcome the closing down of polluting energy intensive industries. In reality, of course, they were not closed down but offshored, often to countries with greatly inferior social and environmental standards.

Some members might reflect on the homophobic policy of the Government of that day. In her 1987 conference speech, Margaret Thatcher complained that children were being taught that they even had a right to be gay. A year later, section 28 was introduced, which was the first homophobic legislation for many generations.

Some may focus on the disgraceful stance taken in relation to many international issues—for example, the treating of General Pinochet as a friend and the describing of Nelson Mandela as a terrorist.

Others, I am sure, will focus on the implacable opposition of the Thatcher Government to permitting Scottish self-government of any kind, even if some people think that that opposition ultimately helped galvanise the movement to create this Parliament. There are no doubt other aspects of her treatment of Scotland, from her using it as a test bed for the poll tax to her commitment to stationing Trident here against the popular will, that will be addressed.

Photo of Margo MacDonald Margo MacDonald Independent

I regret putting this myth to rest, but I really must do so in all conscience. Mrs Thatcher did not dream up the poll tax and foist it on Scotland. It was the Tory MPs of the time in Scotland who, following a disastrous rates revaluation, demanded that it be put in place. I can tell the member later how I know that from personal experience.

Photo of Patrick Harvie Patrick Harvie Green

I thank Margo MacDonald. I think that I used the phrase “the Thatcher Government”, but I will check the Official Report later today.

All those aspects might come up in the debate today, but it is on the economic policies and what they did to society that the greatest critics and defenders of Thatcherism will most often focus. The relentless focus on individualism to the exclusion of every collective solution to problems; the privatisation of public assets; and the market fundamentalism all strike me now—as they did then—as characteristic of a Government that knew the price of everything and the value of nothing.

The quote to which our debate title refers is:

“There is no such thing as society”.

There are those who complain that it is quoted out of context and that it is in fact justified by its context. I have the whole 27-odd pages of the original interview in front of me. We do need to understand what was meant. Mrs Thatcher said:

“I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand ‘I have a problem, it is the Government’s job to cope with it!’ or ‘I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!’, ‘I am homeless, the Government must house me!’ and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.”

The implication of the quotation, even in context, is profound. The implication is that the Government should not accept a responsibility to provide housing for the homeless and that it should not provide grants. In today’s context, we have just seen the Government here provide a grant—taxpayers’ money—to KPMG, a very profitable company, to enable it to make more profits from helping other companies pay less tax. I venture to suggest that Margaret Thatcher might have been proud of such a grant rather than condemning it.

To say that there is no such thing as society is justified only if we are reductive to the level of being metaphysical, at which point there is no such thing as the market either, only the individual spending decisions of people; no such thing as culture; and no acceptance of any collective aspect of human existence. This is what the debate comes down to: the tension between, on one hand, the common good and, on the other, the ideological obsession with private interest and the culture of selfishness and greed that grew up because of it.

Much of the economic legacy was based on the theft of past and future generations’ assets, such as the selling off of the social housing built up by previous generations; the promoting of a consumer spending boom funded by the release of private housing assets through equity release; and the burning away of finite fossil fuels regardless of the consequences for other generations.

The statement that “there are only individuals”, which implies that there are only those who are here right now spending money and casting votes, is utterly opposed to the idea of intergenerational equity that I hope that people today value.

Photo of Gavin Brown Gavin Brown Conservative

At the start of his speech, Mr Harvie said that he hoped that the chamber could move beyond the polarity of hero worship and demonisation. Does that not apply to him too?

Photo of Patrick Harvie Patrick Harvie Green

Absolutely. I have been making an effort to ensure that I am talking about the ideas, not the person, and I will continue to do so.

Just as mainstream economic policy recognises only the part of the economy that is captured by financial transactions and gross domestic product, and the rest of the economy—the core economy, as it used to be called—is ignored, so it seemed at the time that the only people who mattered were those who could spend money in the here and now. Intergenerational equity, or equity between and within generations, was lacking. That undermines the collective nature of ourselves as human beings.

I have been told by others that I should congratulate Margaret Thatcher and her Government on an understanding of climate change. To be sure, that Government was among the first Governments in this country to even speak that term. To avoid demonisation and give credit where it is due, I point out that Margaret Thatcher as an individual was a trained scientist, and I am sure that she understood the scientific principles involved. However, the Government at the time continued its commitment to an economic model that drove the problem.

That economic model says that private ownership of everything must take precedence and that common ownership and public ownership are burdens to be jettisoned in society. The model promotes a continual dependence on a level of economic growth that outstrips the ecological resources that are available to us, whether they are finite energy resources or the planet’s carrying capacity. The resource depletion and the economic and social injustice that arise because of it can be traced absolutely to the economic model that was pursued, which turned every resource not into something to be cherished or nurtured but into a pure financial value to spend now, regardless of unfair distribution. The model ignored the externalised costs on society and the environment.

That analysis might strike some as overly partisan—a Green analysis—but even on its own terms the record of the Thatcherite economic model fails. It is certainly nowhere near the economic success story that some would have us believe. The Government enjoyed a windfall boost to the economy of some £70 billion from North Sea oil and a fire sale of public assets, from major industries to the housing stock. Those privatisations were, of course, were extremely profitable for the City of London and represented a vast transfer of wealth from public to private hands. The Government did not so much flog off the family silver as flog off the family home and then rent it back.

What did that achieve? Unlike what happened in countries that invested resources for the long term and now share the benefit for the common good, resources were frittered away. There was barely 2 per cent annual growth, even in GDP terms, over the period of Mrs Thatcher’s time in office, unemployment reached 3 million, and there were deficits in all but two of her 11 years in office. Even in conventional right-wing terms, that does not sound like a legacy of unrivalled and unparalleled success.

Photo of John Lamont John Lamont Conservative

The member referred to United Kingdom figures. Does he think that the electorate were wrong to elect Mrs Thatcher on three occasions? Despite what he has just described, the voters still had great confidence in Mrs Thatcher, thought that she was doing the right thing, and re-elected her twice.

Photo of Patrick Harvie Patrick Harvie Green

I hope that I will not at all surprise the member by saying that I think that the electorate were wrong to elect Mrs Thatcher repeatedly.

The rest of the economic agenda at the time included the deregulation of the City of London and the promotion of consumer spending fuelled by debt or equity release, which I mentioned earlier. Both trends began under Mrs Thatcher’s Government and continued under new Labour, and we can trace fundamental aspects of our current economic crisis back to those actions. The deregulated free market model has failed us, but it has not died—it remains undead. For far too many people, economic recovery means little more that the reanimation of the corpse of that economic model.

Photo of Elizabeth Smith Elizabeth Smith Conservative

Does the member advocate that we should return to the economies of the 1970s?

Photo of Patrick Harvie Patrick Harvie Green

I am afraid that in my last minute I do not have time to set out the Green approach to economic recovery, so perhaps we can save that for another time. I might send the member links to my previous speeches. [Interruption.] She might have nothing better to do with her time.

The deregulated free market model continues to dominate UK political parties far too much. The danger that we allow that model also to dominate Scotland’s political landscape must be avoided. New Labour did not overturn that model but entrenched it while adding divisive language that undermines the ethos of the welfare state—so much so that Mr Cameron was able to keep a straight face when claiming that we are all Thatcherites now. To quote the lady, “No, no, no”—we are not. The failure of that model is abundantly clear.

In the context of Scotland today, when we are on the verge of making a crucial decision on either moving to independence or remaining inside the UK, there are on both sides of that debate those who seek to challenge the legacy of Thatcherism and to overturn the ideas that it represents. We all have our positions on independence, but there is common ground despite that divide.

For those who share an opposition to that centre-right consensus, shifting the political language and landscape must be at least as important as achieving our desired outcome in the referendum. The referendum debate must be about the kind of society that we wish to become rather than just about the geographic location of power. For me, just as for many on the left of the no side, that must mean restoring to our political debate the importance of collective solutions to problems, the values of the core parts of the economy that markets can never capture but only undermine and, fundamentally, a recognition that there is such a thing as society.

Finally—

Photo of Patrick Harvie Patrick Harvie Green

Finally, one thing that I will say about Mrs Thatcher’s personality and characteristics is that she was clearly someone who knew what she wanted to achieve and set about it with great determination. I need such determination, as do we all if we are to prove ourselves capable of overturning the failed values of the past, building a better society and creating a more equal and sustainable economy. We all need to find greater determination than we may think ourselves capable of.

There is no motion to move, but I welcome the contributions of all members to the debate.

Photo of Derek Mackay Derek Mackay Scottish National Party

The Scottish Government believes that there is such a thing as society, that there is such a thing as Scottish society and that there is such a thing as global society. However, our society is not an equal one, and we know that the UK is becoming less equal.

Jimmy Reid argued that the worth of a society should be judged

“not by the affluence of the strong or the greedy, but by how it cared for the most defenceless sections of the community, the very young, the very old, the physically or mentally handicapped.”

He described a Scottish tradition of compassion, egalitarianism and empathy and the sense of community that binds us together.

We do not enter this world as equals. Disadvantage even pre-birth sets children up with barriers and immense challenges. That is why the Government is undertaking a bold early years strategy and preventative approach:

“Early action—acting before problems arise rather than waiting to deal with the consequences—is common sense across the world but not yet common practice. Scotland is doing more than other countries to overcome this, in attempting to turn a strong Government commitment to early action into changes in public service delivery that don’t just tackle the stubborn social challenges Scotland faces but prevent them.”

Those are not my words or the words of the Scottish Government but the words of Will Horwitz, who is policy adviser to the UK’s early action task force.

Photo of Margo MacDonald Margo MacDonald Independent

I appreciate the quotation, but I hope that the minister does not set his store entirely by that. He sounded very much like what Labour used to sound like when it said, “Oh, the Scottish Parliament is the Scottish solution to Scottish problems.” It is nothing of the kind. It is the opportunity to make us bigger and better and to think more adventurously and more creatively. That is what we have a Parliament for.

Photo of Derek Mackay Derek Mackay Scottish National Party

I agree with the member. We do not believe that our Scottish society is better, but we are no worse than any other society in the world. We just want to be equal and to share that compassionate egalitarianism, given the powers that we could have with independence.

We have charted a different course on social policies that more closely reflect Scottish values. Free education, a national health service that is free at the point of use and progressive taxation and welfare policies that protect rather than demonise the most vulnerable are just some of those values.

Sustainable economic growth is the objective of the Scottish Government. However, our national wellbeing will be judged not solely on economic growth, measures of GDP or economic value, but, through our national performance framework, on a range of measures assessing whether we are making Scotland fairer, healthier, stronger, greener and safer.

This week, the Parliament debated universal services. I did not hear a critique of why the policies that the Government has continued with—the council tax freeze, free education, free prescriptions and free personal care—are misguided. They were described as popular. Is that not because they connect with the Scottish people’s sense of fairness?

Photo of Elizabeth Smith Elizabeth Smith Conservative

One of Mrs Thatcher’s principles was always to spend within one’s means. The Scottish Government has said clearly that there is to be a widespread universalism when it comes to public services. How will that be paid for?

Photo of Derek Mackay Derek Mackay Scottish National Party

If the member has studied closely Scotland’s fiscal position as published by John Swinney, she will be aware of Scotland’s fiscal strength and of how we could have more opportunities to build a fairer society by maintaining universal services with full access to Scotland’s resources.

That helpfully brings us to the affordability of those prizes of devolution. Apparently, the criticism in the debate was around affordability—those policies must be surrendered in the straitjacket of being within the United Kingdom. With the resources available to us, we have been able to protect the national health service—resisting the dismantling and privatisation of the NHS that is taking place south of the border—and to protect, relatively speaking, local government to ensure that our front-line services are protected. The UK cuts are biting hard, but this country could do so much more with access to our own resources.

Over the period 1980-81 to 2011-12, Scotland is estimated to have run an average annual net fiscal surplus equivalent to 0.2 per cent of GDP while the UK is estimated to have run an average annual net fiscal deficit worth 3.2 per cent of GDP. We could afford to be a fairer, more compassionate country with access to our own resources. On the most recent analysis, compared with the equivalent UK figures, Scotland’s public spending and spending on social protection are lower as a share of GDP, the total tax receipts in Scotland are higher per head and the net fiscal debt is lower. Scotland is ranked eighth in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development league table of developed nations in terms of GDP. Scotland pays her way and her hard-working people do not expect and have not asked for something for nothing; they ask that we use the wealth to build a strong and fairer society.

Photo of James Kelly James Kelly Labour

How does Mr Mackay respond to the recent “Government Expenditure & Revenue Scotland” figures, which show that we spend £7.7 billion more than we take in in taxes? Those are the facts.

Photo of Derek Mackay Derek Mackay Scottish National Party

The figures show that Scotland, like most developed nations, has an issue with debt. However, our debt position is much stronger than the position of the United Kingdom. It is not a choice between austerity and debt. The fiscal position that Scotland could be in gives us a better way—it gives us choices of increased spending, reduced debt and an independence dividend from Scotland’s being able to tailor its economic and social policies to its own circumstances.

Photo of Malcolm Chisholm Malcolm Chisholm Labour

We could have predicted that this would turn into a constitutional debate, although not in quite such a blatant way as we are seeing. However, that seems to be the way that the minister wants to have it. Did not the Institute for Fiscal Studies, in its December report, say that spending per head on social protection is more than £4,000 in Scotland whereas it is £3,700 in England? Is not the real thing to consider the ratio of the spending per head to the revenue per head? Since 1990, that has been higher in Scotland than in England.

Photo of Derek Mackay Derek Mackay Scottish National Party

Absolutely. Tax revenue per head of population is higher in Scotland than the equivalent UK figure, which allows us to invest in our people and presents us with the ability to make choices about the kind of society that we want to build.

On choices, for other Governments, unemployment has been a price worth paying whereas, for this Government, it is a call to action. The spending decisions and dedication of ministers such as Angela Constance, as well as an all-Government and all-Scotland approach, have produced lower unemployment, higher employment and lower youth unemployment compared to the situation in the United Kingdom as a whole.

For many, the UK big society has meant, “You’re on your own.” The Scottish Government has mitigated the impact of welfare changes through the council tax reduction scheme to protect the recipients of council tax benefit, the Scottish welfare fund and increased advice support. However, mitigation can go only so far.

The UK Government has chosen to reduce personal taxation for the richest and it is desperate to reduce inheritance tax, while its pernicious bedroom tax and other welfare changes leave us with the impression that it cares more about the dead rich than it does about the living poor. The society that Jimmy Reid spoke of is made up of the very people whom the UK Government is targeting. They are being demonised as a burden by a Government that Scotland did not elect. Nine out of 10 of Scotland’s members of Parliament at Westminster voted against the coalition approach. That is not the Scotland that we seek and it is not our society.

We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity, through a yes vote, to create a constitution for Scotland that is based on consensus and engagement through a constitutional convention. Our ideas include rights on education and housing, a ban on nuclear weapons and setting of parameters of conflict, as well as constitutional protection for local government.

What of global society and issues such as climate justice, trade, peace and international development? This year, Scotland achieved fair trade nation status. We have set the most ambitious climate change targets in the world and reinforced our links with developing nations. We share an enduring partnership and friendship with Malawi.

Through the tough consequences of the economic downturn, Scotland has showed pay restraint. Tough as that is as the cost of living rises, it has helped to sustain many jobs in the public sector. The implementation and promotion of the living wage, allied to our pay strategy, has supported those who were previously affected by low pay.

Just as we believe that the people of Scotland are best placed to make decisions about their future, we believe that the same is true of our local communities. We are blessed with immense natural resources but, as Jimmy Reid said,

“The untapped resources of the North Sea are as nothing compared to the untapped resources of our people.”

That is why the Government has been consulting on and will deliver a community empowerment and renewal bill. Communities must have a greater say in how their destinies are shaped. Just as we seek the powers to transform Scotland from Westminster Government, we can further transfer powers to local communities.

The Deputy Presiding Officer:

You should be drawing to a close, please.

Photo of Derek Mackay Derek Mackay Scottish National Party

Those are not powers for their own sake, but a means to create the society and the Scotland that we seek. Social progress has been made with devolution, and the status quo has been challenged, with Scotland’s political parties across the Parliament pioneering ambitious legislation.

The Deputy Presiding Officer:

I would be grateful if you could close, minister.

Photo of Derek Mackay Derek Mackay Scottish National Party

With a yes vote, progressive voices would be able to do as they say rather than simply say what they would do if only we had the power. With a yes vote, there will be nothing to stop us building the society that we seek.

The Deputy Presiding Officer:

Thank you. I point out that we are extremely short of time. I call James Kelly, who has up to seven minutes.

Photo of James Kelly James Kelly Labour

I want to reflect on Margaret Thatcher’s leadership, the policies of the Conservative Party in her time in power, the impact that they had and the legacy that we have been left with. At the outset, I offer my condolences to the members of the Conservative family, who have suffered the loss of someone who for them was a revered past leader.

I want to go back to 4 May 1979 and the declaration that Margaret Thatcher made in Downing Street, when she echoed the words of St Francis of Assisi. Never can the words of a saint have been so misconstrued. On that day, Margaret Thatcher declared:

“Where there is discord, may we bring harmony.”

Photo of James Kelly James Kelly Labour

I want to develop my point before I let the member in.

The declaration rang hollow in Cambuslang, where I grew up and which I have the honour to represent as the constituency MSP, because there was much disharmony when the local steelworks closed and many people were thrown on to the scrapheap. There were men of only 50 who lost their jobs and never worked again, and there were younger men whose lives fell into disrepair—they could not find a job and they went to an early grave. There was much discord and very little harmony.

Photo of Alex Johnstone Alex Johnstone Conservative

I presume that, once again, the Labour Party is taking the year zero approach. I remind James Kelly that 4 May 1979 was not year zero but the result of the experience of the 1970s, which had broken this country. As a result of the behaviour of the unions, in particular, the election of Margaret Thatcher was an inevitability in the United Kingdom by 1979.

Photo of James Kelly James Kelly Labour

On that day, Margaret Thatcher went on to say:

“Where there is doubt, may we bring faith.”

If Mr Johnstone is telling us that the 1970s were a bad example, then we should have had much faith in the 1980s. However, the reality is that factories closed, we were told that there was no alternative, and people’s faith was destroyed.

Last week I spoke to a retired schoolteacher in Blantyre, in my constituency. He told me that he still sees pupils whom he taught in the 1980s, who have led lives of desolation because of the impact of the Conservative Party’s policies in the 1980s—broken spirits and loss of opportunity.

Margaret Thatcher also said:

“where there is despair, may we bring hope”.

We did not see much hope and we saw too much despair in the 1984 miners’ strike, when communities were brought to their knees. Margaret Thatcher was a class warrior, who respected no borders or boundaries. Whether they came from Bilston Glen, Durham, Polkemmet or Orgreave, Margaret Thatcher regarded the miners as “the enemy within”.

When the miners returned to work after a year, in 1985, they marched behind their vans and banners, along with their supporters. What dignity. What strength. What resolve. Let us contrast that with the spirit that the Conservatives promoted in the 1980s, when the greed-is-good share sharks were earning a quick buck.

Photo of Mary Scanlon Mary Scanlon Conservative

I thank James Kelly for his opening remarks, which were very much welcomed by Conservatives.

I remind the member that Harold Wilson closed more than 100 more mines than Mrs Thatcher did during her reign. If Mrs Thatcher’s economic and trade union policies were so bad, why did not the Labour Party reverse any of them in 13 years in government?

Photo of James Kelly James Kelly Labour

It was obvious that there would be changes as industrial policy developed. I recognise that. However, the Conservative approach differed from that of previous Governments in that no alternative employment for people was sought. That demonstrates the emptiness and cynicism of the approach of the 1980s, when the Tories simply adopted a policy that resulted in the destruction of manufacturing industry, including mines and steelworks. As far as the Conservatives were concerned, that was the policy to pursue; they did not care that there were no alternatives for people in the communities that were affected. That is the difference between the 1980s and the period before that.

I agree with Margaret Thatcher that politics should be about the clash of political ideas. Values should be central to that. It should be about a sense of community and society, and it should be about how we treat people. Back in the 1980s, the Conservative Party pursued policies that broke people’s hearts and destroyed their dignity. Politicians must resolve that that must never be allowed to happen again.

Photo of Ruth Davidson Ruth Davidson Conservative

I begin by paying tribute, on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives, to the late Baroness Thatcher, who died last Monday morning and whose passing was mourned yesterday at her funeral in St Paul’s cathedral. She was a remarkable, ground-breaking woman and a true Conservative revolutionary. I also offer, on my party’s behalf, our profound condolences to Margaret Thatcher’s family at this time.

I express my gratitude to the Parliamentary Bureau for allowing this debate to be moved from yesterday. As my colleague, John Lamont, explained, it was not the subject but the timing to which we objected. Even in conflict, one is given leave to bury one’s dead, and so it should be in politics, too. Conservatives wanted to mark the passing of a former leader and Prime Minister yesterday. It was right for us to do so, and I thank everyone in the chamber for allowing it to happen.

I never knew Margaret Thatcher. She left office years before I was even eligible to vote. However, she—more than any other politician or public figure—shaped the Scotland and the Europe that I grew up in and in which we live today. The corruption of the quote on which today’s debate is based is often used to try to portray Margaret Thatcher as an anti-society individualist who did not care about communities. Patrick Harvie quoted what came before, but not what came after, and, as the Bishop of London pointed out so eloquently in his funeral address, even a cursory glance at her words makes clear that the opposite is true.

Speaking in the right-wing publication of choice for capitalist running dogs everywhere—the Woman’s Own—Margaret Thatcher completed her thought with these words:

“There is a living tapestry of men and women and people, and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate.”

Photo of Jamie Hepburn Jamie Hepburn Scottish National Party

Is that, therefore, how the member would define society?

Photo of Ruth Davidson Ruth Davidson Conservative

I would say that Margaret Thatcher’s interpretation was that society is not the same as the state. She did not believe that it was about Government departments or faceless bureaucracies. She believed in people, and she believed that the tapestry that she spoke of was woven house by house, street by street and town by town. I believe that, too. I believe that all our lives are improved by the contributions of men and women who decide to take responsibility for their community and who contribute to the wellbeing of their fellow citizens.

Indeed, large parts of that interview—which I believe that Patrick Harvie said was 27 pages long—were devoted to Margaret Thatcher’s anxiety that too much government had weakened the social institutions that best foster self-respect and respect for others: families, churches, schools and voluntary associations.

Margaret Thatcher expanded on that during her sermon on the Mound, when she addressed the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. She said:

“We are all responsible for our own actions. We can’t blame society if we disobey the law. We simply can’t delegate the exercise of mercy and generosity to others.”

However much her detractors attempt to distort her words, it is clear that her belief in human decency was at the heart of her view of society.

Photo of Jim Eadie Jim Eadie Scottish National Party

Is the member aware that the proper assessment of Margaret Thatcher’s legacy by her biographer, John Campbell, is that

“her words were not a misquotation or taken out of context”?

His assessment is that she was taking the view that there was no such thing as society, and that she expressed that view in many interviews.

Photo of Ruth Davidson Ruth Davidson Conservative

I read out that portion of the interview, and I believe that an explanation is given there.

I do not believe that Margaret Thatcher’s determination during her premiership was driven only by her values. She was motivated by the state that the country was in when she came to office in 1979. For those who argue that her reforms were harmful or unnecessary, it is worth looking briefly at the state of Britain when she came to power. The Government controlled prices, dividends, wages and even how much money people could take abroad on their holidays. Our economy was hopelessly uncompetitive—that was certainly the view of the Soviet Union, which indicated in 1979 a reluctance to buy from Britain because of the poor quality of goods and the unreliability of deliveries. The General Post Office could take two years to issue a phone line. State-owned utilities were losing hundreds of millions of pounds each year. British Steel took twice as many man hours to make one tonne of steel as its European competitors.

Photo of Ruth Davidson Ruth Davidson Conservative

No. I want to make progress.

With the dead left unburied, rubbish piling up in the streets and union militants standing guard outside hospitals deciding which patients could be admitted, it was clear that Labour’s failure was costing Britain dear. That failure was clearly recognised by the SNP, which supported Margaret Thatcher’s motion of no confidence in the Government, which led to the election and propelled her into power.

Let me deal in hard facts instead of myths. Scotland’s economy grew by an average of 2.5 per cent a year between 1979 and 1990, going from a position in which the economy lagged behind the rest of the UK to one in which Scottish GDP per capita was higher. Even the First Minister has grudgingly recognised those achievements, saying of Baroness Thatcher’s policies in an interview that he

“didn’t mind the economic side”.

Why would he, with living standards increasing and employment going up during her premiership? However uncomfortable, the facts show that when Baroness Thatcher left office, there was a new prosperity in Scotland as a result of the difficult decisions that she took.

Margaret Thatcher was also a global figure, saying loudly and clearly that Mikhail Gorbachev was a man with whom she could do business. She was the first western leader to meet Solidarity’s Lech Walesa. The Berlin wall fell the night before my 10th birthday, changing the established world order. She played her part in that through her efforts to spread democracy.

The Deputy Presiding Officer:

The member is in her last minute.

Photo of Ruth Davidson Ruth Davidson Conservative

That is why President Obama described her as

“one of the great champions of freedom and liberty”.

Margaret Thatcher’s opponents’ deliberate distortion of her achievements is, in many ways, a tribute to her. The only line of attack is to bend the truth out of all recognition. Did she want to impose the community charge on Scotland as an experiment? No. As Margo MacDonald said, she wanted gradual, UK-wide introduction but Scottish ministers pleaded for early change because of the rates review. Did she shut Ravenscraig? No. It worked for another two years, until she left power. Did the miners’ strike wipe out the mining industry? No. In 1983, there were 174 working pits; the strike was over the closure of 20 uneconomic mines.

Margaret Thatcher’s achievements speak for themselves. She allowed thousands of people to take control of their lives through home ownership. She freed up inefficient, loss-making, state-owned monopolies to become profitable businesses. She turned Britain from a strike-bound and demoralised nation into a country of ambition that rewarded hard work. She laid the foundations of London and Edinburgh as global financial centres. She played a pivotal role in the fall of communism, and she gave Britain back its pride by standing firm against a fascist dictatorship.

Margaret Thatcher was a Prime Minister who believed in Britain and one who believed in people. She knew that the beautiful tapestry of our nation is woven family by family, house by house, street by street and town by town, and thousands of Scots believe that, too.

Photo of Alison McInnes Alison McInnes Liberal Democrat

Margaret Thatcher was a politician of world renown who achieved a great deal. The country’s longest serving peacetime Prime Minister, she won three consecutive elections. People often ignore that she had that clear democratic mandate. She was courageous in the face of great difficulties—the Falklands war, the Irish Republican Army bombing in Brighton and the murders of her colleagues Airey Neave and Ian Gow. She was a conviction politician who demonstrated remarkable resolve, but she could also be strident and self-righteous.

I recently came across an assessment of Margaret Roberts from 1948 that said:

“This woman is headstrong, obstinate and dangerously self-opinionated.”

Well, of course she was. How else could she possibly have become the first female leader of the Conservative Party?

I said that Margaret Thatcher achieved a great deal but was any of it great? Some of her objectives were good. Britain needed a shake-up. We needed lower inflation, more competitive industry and a prospect of industrial growth. Let us not forget that her trade union reforms survived. New Labour left them unchallenged. However, the way she went about those reforms was so divisive and corrosive that many communities still bear the scars.

David Steel and Roy Jenkins argued in the 1983 Liberal-Social Democratic Party alliance programme for government that

“The Conservative and Labour parties between them have made an industrial wasteland out of a country which was once the workshop of the world.”

They went on to say:

Mrs Thatcher’s government stands idly by, hoping that the blind forces of the marketplace will restore the jobs and factories that its indifference has destroyed. The Labour Party’s response is massive further nationalisation, a centralised state socialist economy and rigid controls over enterprise.”

They argued:

“The choice which Tories and Socialists offer at this election is one between neglect and interference.”

The alliance offered an alternative to the politics of confrontation. It recognised that it was only by working together in the companies and communities of Britain that we could overcome the economic problems. It offered the chance to reduce unemployment by 1 million in two years by providing jobs for the long-term unemployed through a programme of housing and environmental improvement; extending youth training schemes for all 16 and 17-year-olds; and creating more jobs and labour-intensive social services. It would be pointless to wonder how different things might have been with a fair voting system.

Photo of Alison McInnes Alison McInnes Liberal Democrat

I want to make progress.

The 1980s were a time of immense upheaval, but it is simplistic to attribute all the wrongs of that time to one individual. It is always dangerous to demonise individuals and I do not believe that Margaret Thatcher’s Government would have been able to wreak such damage if it were not for that other most divisive figure that she pitted herself against: Arthur Scargill, whose militant rhetoric gave her stance a kind of popular legitimacy.

Instead of asking whether there was a sustainable role for our manufacturing industry in an overdeveloped industrial economy, and instead of looking to other countries such as Germany for models of efficiency, improved management structures and better industrial relations, Margaret Thatcher sacrificed whole industries and the communities that depended on them in an appalling face-off with militant trade unionists. She did not care about the impact on individuals in that battle, and the collateral damage was certainly immense. What compounded it all was that once those industries closed, her Government offered no coherent strategy to support those damaged communities by bringing new work or new hope.

The reservoir of damage is deep in the communities that once hosted shipyards, mines, car factories or steelworks. At the time, the desperation that was caused by high unemployment was memorably captured by Alan Bleasdale in “Boys from the Blackstuff”.

More recently, I was reminded of just how deep the damage goes when I attended a lecture by Sir Harry Burns. He talked about the links between alienation and ill health; about how a sense of purpose and community is essential to human wellbeing; and about the importance to people of feeling that their environment is predictable and understandable. He argued that it is the chronic stress bred by despair and hopelessness that has led to Scotland’s high rates of early mortality from alcoholism, violence and suicide.

Margaret Thatcher liked to portray herself as a canny housewife, but she was not prudent with the country’s assets. Selling off council houses—a popular and populist policy—was not wrong in itself; the policy was flawed because it had no strategy for replacement houses. Privatisation of state-owned business was not necessarily wrong in principle; it was wrong because she used the money to cut taxes rather than diversify the economy or improve services—that is, she used it to buy votes rather than lay the money down for the future.

In 1979, I was just a year out of university. Like many others, I was on a job creation scheme. When I secured a proper job with the Science and Engineering Research Council I witnessed at first hand her attack on scientific research. There was a dramatic reduction in research activity—surely a strange contradiction from someone who was herself a scientist.

Photo of Alison McInnes Alison McInnes Liberal Democrat

I am nearly finished.

Margaret Thatcher’s approach to the apartheid regime in South Africa deeply angered me. There is much more to lament: her attacks on Europe; section 28; the poll tax; and her failure to recognise the value of arts and social sciences. Despite being the first female Prime Minister, she did nothing to champion women or to help their struggle for equality.

For many of us, Thatcherism will forever be defined by the generations of hopes dashed and of potential unrealised. Of course there is such a thing as society, but ours here in Scotland is not as healthy as it should be, or as it could have been. This week, a melancholic piece of music—one bit in particular—has been running through my head, a leitmotif of the time. The song is “Shipbuilding”, sung by Robert Wyatt:

“Diving for dear life

When we could be diving for pearls.”

Photo of Joan McAlpine Joan McAlpine Scottish National Party

Unlike Ruth Davidson, I grew up in the 60s and 70s, and I do not recognise the picture that she paints of this country as a Dantesque vision of hell. I grew up in a council house—a nice council house with a garden—and I went to a modern, well-equipped school. Then I went to university without having to worry about how I was going to pay for it

My father was born in a single end and had to leave school to become a boy labourer at 14. It was not Margaret Thatcher who liberated his daughters to do better than he did; it was the post-war consensus, which was fashioned by Clement Attlee, and the struggles of generations of working people.

We in Scotland never took to Thatcherism. The sermon on the Mound that Ms Davidson mentioned earlier was greeted by a stony silence from the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. When Mrs Thatcher had finished lecturing the churchmen about theology, the Moderator of the General Assembly on that occasion handed her two works that the Church of Scotland had done on housing and poverty. He did not have to say anything—everybody knew what it meant.

When considering the assertion “there is no such thing as society” it is important to understand what motivated Mrs Thatcher ideologically. The main influence on her thinking was the Austrian economist, Friedrich von Hayek and, in particular, his 1944 book, “The Road to Serfdom”, which she read as an undergraduate at Oxford. According to the Margaret Thatcher Foundation, the central message of “The Road to Serfdom” is

“that you cannot compromise with socialism, even in ... social democratic forms, because ... socialism tends always to totalitarian outcomes”.

By “socialism”, however, Hayek and Thatcher meant any approach underlined by collective responsibility, social purpose and action. They believed that the politics of consensus would lead to Stalinism.

Photo of Joan McAlpine Joan McAlpine Scottish National Party

It is very interesting to hear the member chuckling at that.

According to the Margaret Thatcher Foundation,

“consensus itself was always a concept that disturbed her”.

That sounds completely potty now. Does anyone seriously think that President Obama stepping in to rescue the United States car industry will inevitably lead to the collectivisation of farms in Kansas? That is what Margaret Thatcher and her followers believed.

Photo of Ruth Davidson Ruth Davidson Conservative

It is interesting to hear the member talk about Hayek and his economic policies, and about how the expansion of the state creates the possibility for serfdom among people who live within that state. Writing recently in a national newspaper, Jim Sillars, who will not be unknown to the member, said:

“Hayek was right and the left wrong.”

Does the member agree?

Photo of Joan McAlpine Joan McAlpine Scottish National Party

When Mrs Thatcher said that there was no such thing as society, it caused a storm not because it was said out of context, but because it was such a clear articulation of what she had done in office. Her approach to government was described by Professor Stuart Hall, who first coined the term “Thatcherism”, as “authoritarian populism”. She quite deliberately used the forces of the state to destroy the institutions of the post-war consensus, which she considered a threat.

Photo of Joan McAlpine Joan McAlpine Scottish National Party

No, I would like to make progress.

Margaret Thatcher did not stop at the trade unions.

Alex Johnstone rose—

The Deputy Presiding Officer:

Mr Johnstone, the member is not taking an intervention.

Photo of Joan McAlpine Joan McAlpine Scottish National Party

Her politics were designed to reposition the country on the right in order to destroy anything that could be viewed as a vehicle for consensus and social democracy. The Thatcherites set out to destroy large manufacturing concerns and national utilities because labour was organised in those industries. They wished to break areas of potential opposition, whether in English local authorities or in anti-Thatcher Scotland. The main purpose of the poll tax, for example, was to encourage a rightward shift in local authorities. It did not work, but that was the main purpose.

This past week, we have been told that the UK in 1979 was the sick man of Europe and that Thatcherism was the shock therapy, but Thatcherism was all shock and no therapy. Interest rates were 12 per cent when Mrs Thatcher took office in 1979, and they rose under her premiership. At one point they reached 17 per cent, which immediately made industry uncompetitive and destroyed huge swathes of our manufacturing base. Countries such as Germany, the United States and Japan all increased their manufacturing production substantially over that period, but it contracted sharply in Britain.

Photo of Ruth Davidson Ruth Davidson Conservative

Does the member recognise that Scotland exported more manufactured goods than Japan by 1990, reaching the highest levels ever, and that manufacturing increased by 26 per cent in real terms between 1979 and 1990?

The Deputy Presiding Officer:

Ms McAlpine, you are now in your last minute.

Photo of Joan McAlpine Joan McAlpine Scottish National Party

The Office for National Statistics figures are clear that manufacturing accounted for 20 per cent of UK GDP in 1979 but that the figure went down to 9 per cent by the eve of the banking collapse in 2008.

In Scotland, Mrs Thatcher opposed devolution for the same reasons that she tried to smash trade unions, the manufacturing industry and local authorities. She thought that Scotland, left to itself, would become socialist. Scotland had to be put back in its box, like the steel and engineering industries and the Greater London Council. She opposed the African National Congress in South Africa for probably the same reason—she believed that black majority rule, too, would lead to socialism. She was wrong in her assumptions about Scotland, but she was correct in her suspicion that a Scottish Parliament would be a bastion of social democratic values, which her followers considered abhorrent.

Photo of Joan McAlpine Joan McAlpine Scottish National Party

This is the only place in the UK that has set about dismantling some of Margaret Thatcher’s key policies, most notably the right to buy social housing and the creeping privatisation of the NHS and higher education. However, the only way in which we will be able to roll back for good the damage that she has done is by getting all the powers that we need for this Parliament, and we will get that only through the full powers of independence.

The Deputy Presiding Officer:

I must impress on members that time is very short in the debate and that interventions really have to be taken within members’ own time.

Photo of Hanzala Malik Hanzala Malik Labour

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate, headed “There is Still Such a Thing as Society”. I want to refer to Margaret Thatcher’s statement to Woman’s Own magazine in 1987. I want to look at what she said, then I will discuss what she did later. She said:

“I think we’ve been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it’s the government’s job to cope with. ‘I have a problem, I’ll get a grant.’ ‘I’m homeless, the government must house me.’ They’re casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It’s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There’s no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation.”

I respect the Thatcher family’s loss of a mother and grandmother and I offer my condolences at this time. However, I cannot agree with her policies; we will not rewrite history because she has died. Under the Thatcher Government, poverty and inequality increased and unemployment hit levels that the UK had not seen since the great depression. Her belief in a small state and in the deregulation of the financial markets amounted to selective prosperity. It left many, including mining and steel industry communities and working families at large, feeling misled and ignored.

Margaret Thatcher may have died but, unfortunately, Thatcherism lives on. It will take decades to recover from its impact on Scotland and on the people of Scotland: unemployment rose by 16 per cent; interest rates rose in November 1990 to 13.88 per cent; poverty increased by 13.4 per cent; and inequality increased from a ratio of 0.25 to 0.34—and we are supposed to wonder whether there is such a thing as society.

Societies are built by love, care and guidance, not by destroying communities and their livelihoods. What was done by the Thatcher Government to the people of Scotland was nothing less than criminal. Destroying our fruitful steel industry and growing mining industry was unforgivable. It led to devastated communities, and we recognise that we need to rebuild our society as we know it.

So, what is society? What are society’s responsibilities and who is responsible for building societies? That responsibility lies on our shoulders—on all of us collectively. Governments will come and go, but the responsibility for building a society ultimately lies on the shoulders of individuals and communities. More important, people say, “I didn’t vote for the Thatcher Government,” but we all voted; we may not have voted for her, but we all had a democratic vote. We all then suffered or succeeded, depending on where we were.

The vast majority of people in Scotland did not benefit from the Thatcher Government, so there is a lot of ill feeling towards it. We lost a booming industry. I remember the time when I was doing my degree, when the steel industry at Ravenscraig was closed down.

Photo of John Lamont John Lamont Conservative

Does the member accept and recognise that Ravenscraig was shut in 1992, two years after Mrs Thatcher left office?

Photo of Hanzala Malik Hanzala Malik Labour

Yes, I do, but we need to look at why it was closed down. What was the root cause? [Interruption.]

Photo of Hanzala Malik Hanzala Malik Labour

The root cause was quite clear. The European Union had told the British Government at the time that it needed to rationalise the steel industry, and the rationalisation was sought by the Conservative Government. There were three factories in the UK and the only one that was making money was Ravenscraig. What did the Government do? It closed Ravenscraig. The member should not try to lay the blame on somebody else’s shoulders. That was a direct result of Margaret Thatcher’s Government negotiating badly for us.

There was no replacement for the jobs that were lost in the industry. The community was devastated at Ravenscraig—and not only there, because right across Scotland the jobs of many highly skilled workers were allowed to disappear without any compensation or reskilling.

The Deputy Presiding Officer:

The member must conclude.

Photo of Hanzala Malik Hanzala Malik Labour

Scotland did not benefit from the policies that were implemented and we are still trying to recover from them. Now that the responsibility lies on our shoulders, we have to ensure that we do not make the same mistakes. I therefore ask the current Administration to do its best to ensure that we do not make the same mistakes with the cuts that are being introduced.

The Deputy Presiding Officer:

Once again, I reiterate—and say that I am going to be more strict about—the fact that members have only six minutes, and I am afraid that interventions must be contained within that time.

Photo of Gordon MacDonald Gordon MacDonald Scottish National Party

On Tuesday morning, I attended two events in my constituency. One was at a local charity in Sighthill called Little Steps Baby and Toddler Group, which is a playgroup for the under-fives that is in the running for an international award hosted by What’s On 4 Ltd. The other involved the national charity Marie Curie Cancer Care, which operates a hospice at Fairmilehead that has just undergone a £2.6 million refurbishment. The link between the two charities is that each depends for its survival on volunteers to provide staff, funding or both.

That reminded me of the other organisations in my constituency that depend on volunteers to help them provide a service to their community. There is Dads Rock, which is Scotland’s only playgroup for fathers and their children—I have to declare an interest here, as I am an unpaid trustee of that new charity. Then there are the many uniformed organisations, such as the scouts and the guides, that help youngsters to reach their full potential and play a hugely constructive role in the development of our young people. There are the coaches who manage youth football teams most of the year round and give teenagers an opportunity to take part in a competitive sport and use up some of the excess energy that they have.

Apart from those who are involved in youth activities, there are others who give their time freely to stand as community councillors, organise gala days, operate food banks and so on, and they are motivated at least in part by a desire to help those in our communities who are less fortunate. People join together to organise litter picking in the Pentland hills or to establish environmental groups, because they are concerned about their local area. Balerno village screen even organises a community cinema so that families get a night out for free.

The common thread between all the individuals who are involved in those diverse groups is that they give their time free of charge to make our communities better places to live in. Of course there is such a thing as society, and the people who are involved in the range of activities that I have mentioned prove it every day.

Photo of Gordon MacDonald Gordon MacDonald Scottish National Party

No, thank you. I only have six minutes.

However there is one issue, perhaps more than any other, that we all know destroys communities, and that is unemployment. Britain’s unemployment rate hit a record 12 per cent in February 1984 and the result was that whole communities were devastated. People, especially those whose towns and villages had grown up around a single employer, lost their income, their sense of purpose and even their self-respect.

Throughout that period, Scotland voted Labour in large numbers, but that did nothing to stop the devastation as our heavy industries disappeared one by one. Even with the election of 50 Labour MPs in 1987, who were dubbed “the feeble 50”, Ravenscraig still closed, Caterpillar closed and the Scott Lithgow shipyard closed, as did numerous pits.

Jump forward to the present day, and we can see from the latest unemployment figures that, thanks to the policies of this Scottish Government, unemployment—although still too high—is heading in the right direction. Over the three months to February, youth unemployment in Scotland fell to 16.1 per cent, while the UK rate hovers at around 20.6 per cent. Total unemployment in Scotland fell by 11,000 to 7.3 per cent, while the UK rate rose to 7.9 per cent. I will put that in perspective: the average UK unemployment rate for the past 40 years is 7.26 per cent, and Scotland is reaching that level at a time when the rest of the UK is heading for a triple-dip recession.

That is being achieved despite not having the full powers of an independent country and the full use of our own resources to tackle the problems of poor health, damp housing and poverty that still exist in some of our communities. Over the past 30 years, official figures show that, at today’s prices, Scotland has contributed £222 billion more in tax revenues than we would have done had we just matched the per capita contributions of the UK. We could have used that money to make Scotland a fairer and more equal society, but instead we are tied to a union—the UK—which is the fourth most unequal country in the developed world, and is on track to becoming the most unequal.

We are part of a union in which income inequality has increased over decades, including during the 13 years of the most recent Labour Government at Westminster, unlike small independent countries such as Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and the Czech Republic, which are repeatedly in the top 10 of most-equal countries. We are part of a union in which the Con-Dem Government’s most recent welfare cuts will take a further £210 million out of the pockets of hard working Scottish families.

An International Monetary Fund working paper on labour market regulations explained why welfare cuts are economically damaging. It stated:

“In times of crisis, the ability of workers who lose their jobs to retain their purchasing power has important social and economic implications. A high replacement rate ensures that the negative effects of rising unemployment on aggregate demand are mitigated. It also prevents workers from falling into poverty when they lose their jobs.”

Of the 51 countries who supplied benefit data for the study, the UK was in 46th place, behind Netherlands, Switzerland and Sweden, which took the top three places.

Scotland is a wealthy country: we have the resources, we have a well-educated population and we are of such a size that we can match the standards of other high-performing, small European countries. We have an opportunity to make Scotland a fairer, more prosperous and more equal country for our children and our grandchildren

I look forward to the yes vote in September 2014, which will give the people of Scotland the opportunity to elect Governments that they vote for.

Photo of Elaine Murray Elaine Murray Labour

However fundamentally I disagree with Margaret Thatcher’s political philosophy and however angry I feel about the effects that her Government’s policies had and, indeed, are still having on many of my constituents, I begin by recognising that this debate has been prompted by a person’s death: a woman who had family, friends, followers and party colleagues who mourn her passing. Those of us who recall the passing of John Smith and Donald Dewar understand the pain that Conservative Party members are going through, and I offer them my condolences, as do my colleagues. I am pleased that the timing of the debate has changed, as to have had it on the same day as Mrs Thatcher’s funeral would have been distasteful.

Former MSP Lord James Douglas-Hamilton used to like to tease me by pointing out similarities between Mrs Thatcher and me, including an appreciation of whisky. She was, like me, originally trained as a physical chemist. I have always been perplexed not only by her dislike of scientists once she got into power, but that she did not use a more scientific approach in politics and was such an avid proponent of assertion trumping evidence. Some people call that conviction politics, others the inability to accept that you might possibly sometimes be wrong, and others might describe it as a narcissistic personality disorder—if it is that, it is probably quite common among successful politicians. However it is described, it is very much at odds with scientific training.

Many words have been spoken about Mrs Thatcher’s legacy. Those who journey up the A76 from Dumfries through Sanquhar and Kirkconnell into the former East Ayrshire coal-mining areas such as New Cumnock will see part of that legacy. Communities had arisen because of the deep-mining industry; they were situated there because that is where the pits were, and those communities are still struggling to find an alternative economic role. Moreover, the housing waiting lists for councils or housing associations are the legacy of her housing policy, with dozens—in some areas, hundreds—of applicants waiting for properties in areas where the annual turnover is perhaps in single figures.

Because her Government and ministers inflicted the poll tax on Scotland a year ahead of the rest of the UK and because the manufacturing industries that their policies decimated were essential parts of many Scottish communities, Mrs Thatcher and her Government are often perceived as being particularly anti-Scottish. However, I think that that is a mistake.

Photo of Elaine Murray Elaine Murray Labour

I am sorry, but no. I am pushed for time.

I lived for all but the last two years of Mrs Thatcher’s reign in the south of England and married a miner’s son from the north of England who was the first person in his family ever to attend university and came from a community that is very similar to those on the A76 and which is still suffering from the same consequences. People up and down the UK, including in the south of England, were affected; trade unionists, north or south, were the enemy within; and manufacturing throughout the UK was abandoned in favour of financial and other service industries—and we all know where that brought us. Although I will never blame any tenant who bought their council house under the right to buy, the aversion to replacing those houses made social housing rarer and rarer and turned it into the housing of last resort rather than the mainstay of many communities and the first home for young people setting up on their own.

The perception that everyone in the south of England was well off and benefited from the Tory Government’s actions in the 1980s at Scotland’s expense was as untrue then as it is now. Sections of the population there were also affected by poverty, unemployment and poor housing. Entire communities might not have been written off in the manner that they were in the northern parts of the UK, but many individuals still suffered the same deprivations.

One of the most frequently used adjectives applied to Mrs Thatcher has been “divisive”. However, that should be no surprise, given that division is fundamental to right-wing ideology. We cannot understand how Mrs Thatcher’s Government operated if we fail to accept that it involved that old-fashioned concept—class. While serving the interests of financiers and big business, her Government sought to appeal to the middle class and those who aspired to be middle class. Right-wing politics succeeds through division by saying to the majority that outsiders and the less deserving, whether they be working-class trade unionists in Mrs Thatcher’s time, current recipients of welfare, the unemployed, single mothers and—as far as the UK Independence Party is concerned—foreigners, are somehow benefiting at their expense. We need only look at the right-wing press. We delude ourselves if we think that no one in Scotland is susceptible to those siren voices; I have certainly heard those views expressed on the doorsteps in my very own constituency.

Photo of Margo MacDonald Margo MacDonald Independent

Surely as a scientist who understands the importance of proof the member cannot be suggesting that because he was a socialist Arthur Scargill was a healer and a consensus-maker. What she is talking about can happen on the left as well.

Photo of Elaine Murray Elaine Murray Labour

That is doubtless the case, but I am arguing that division is fundamental to right-wing ideology and that we need to understand that if we are to combat it.

Despite the many good things that happened to me during the 1980s, the most important of which was the birth of my children, I look back at that decade with a feeling of distaste. It epitomised greed, selfishness and a lack of social conscience. Those who had paraded their wealth in the faces of those who had not; the view was that anyone could succeed and that if someone did not it was their own fault.

Mrs Thatcher’s political children in the present UK Government have embarked on a savage attack on the poor in Britain. Mr Cameron has said that she “saved Britain”, but what did she save it from? From having a manufacturing base? From the scourge of available social housing? From the social chapter and the minimum wage? From having a social conscience? From being tolerant towards sexual diversity? From believing that poverty and unemployment are stains on society that reflect badly on us all? No, she did not save Britain.

Photo of Jamie Hepburn Jamie Hepburn Scottish National Party

At the outset, I want to say that I believe that there is such a thing as society. As members will be aware, Margaret Thatcher was elected on 3 May 1979; 18 days later happened to be the day of my birth. I mention this not to demonstrate my comparative youthfulness but to suggest that if anyone could be described as a child of the Thatcher age, it could be me. Of course, I use that term very carefully; I am not a child of Thatcher, which I think has a rather different meaning.

Clearly, I was not immediately aware of her existence, but I became so. Growing up in Glasgow in the 1980s and 1990s, I was aware of a general disdain for her politics and those of her successors and I became aware that that was the view held by my own family.

My mother was a public sector worker at the time—she was a teacher in Drumchapel. She saw first hand the damage done to the confidence of young people in one of the poorest parts of Scotland. She also saw the attacks on teachers undermining the profession. I remember the teachers’ strike of the mid-1980s. Although, I was probably not aware that it was a strike, I remember being taken to the rallies. The damaging effect of that undermining of the teaching profession was felt in Scottish society for a long time.

I also remember the concerns about the poll tax being discussed at home and in wider society. Clearly, I would not have understood its implications at the time, but it was an absolutely outrageous form of taxation and one that bore no relation to the ability to pay.

Photo of Nanette Milne Nanette Milne Conservative

Does the member not agree that the community tax was a much fairer tax for people such as my mother, who was widowed when I was 19 and was living on an unsupplemented widow’s pension? Before that tax was introduced, she was paying the same rates as a neighbouring family who had five incomes coming in.

Photo of Jamie Hepburn Jamie Hepburn Scottish National Party

I do not accept that the poll tax was a fair form of taxation. As was mentioned, it was defended on the basis that it was Scottish Tories who argued for its early implementation in Scotland. To argue that it was Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Party, as represented by the Scottish rump, that demanded its early implementation is a poor form of defence.

I am also aware of Thatcher’s negative impact on wider society. I represent a former mining area. I must be fair and acknowledge that the closures of the pits in my constituency were long ago and pre-dated Margaret Thatcher’s Government. However, there is a clear sense of community in those former mining areas. That sense of community—which is strong in my constituency—is a vital component of our sense of society. Not long ago, Clare Adamson secured a debate on the steelworkers’ memorial fund, and the strong sense of community in those former steel working areas was made clear in that debate.

The deindustrialisation process of the Thatcher Government gave no thought to that sense of community. Undoubtedly, the nationalised industries needed reform—they were centralised and allowed the industrial conflict that has been mentioned to take place. I suggest, though, that they needed to be reformed, not killed off. I do not always agree with James Kelly, but I absolutely agreed with his point that the industries were being closed when no alternative forms of employment were being created in those same communities. That process, although it is wholly consistent with Margaret Thatcher’s unseen hand approach to the economy, could be described as not being consistent with a view that there is no such a thing as a society.

Let me turn to Margaret Thatcher’s quote that is the subject of the debate. As has been mentioned, she remarked to Woman’s Own:

“there’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families.”

Clearly, there are individual men, women and families. There are also neighbours, friends, work colleagues and clubs and organisations that bring together like-minded people, which was a point made by Gordon MacDonald. There are communities in villages, towns and cities across our country. There is such a thing as society.

What type of society should we seek here in Scotland? That was an issue mentioned by the Minister for Local Government and Planning. I believe in a society in which access to education for our pupils is based on their ability to learn, not pay; in which the 600,000 people in Scotland who earn under £16,000 a year who used to have to pay for their medication no longer have to worry about doing so; and in which single parents who have their children at the weekend are not financially penalised by a bedroom tax. I believe in a Scottish society that is underpinned by cohesion and solidarity and in which the markets are servants of people, not their masters. I believe in a Scotland where we need not suffer a Government that hammers our people and that we did not elect. I believe that there is still such a thing as society.

Photo of John Lamont John Lamont Conservative

To paraphrase John Donne, any man or woman’s death diminishes us. It diminishes us because we are all involved in mankind. When the death is that of a woman as towering in stature as Margaret Thatcher, the loss to many, as well as to society, is all the greater.

The loss to our society with the death of Margaret Thatcher is pertinent to us in the chamber today as the debate asks us to consider whether there is such a thing as society. As we have heard, Margaret Thatcher had a lot to say about society. We have already heard that she apparently declared that there was “no such thing”. However, her point was more nuanced than the soundbite would suggest. Her point was that there is such a thing as society; it is just not the same as the state.

Margaret Thatcher believed in a strong society. She believed in a great Britain and she was convinced that that required strong individuals—self-reliant citizens who wanted to get on in life, who did not want the state to interfere with their projects and who did not want to have to fill out a form for Government approval to own a telephone.

Photo of John Lamont John Lamont Conservative

I will give way later, but I want to make some progress if I may.

The state was of course rightly there for those who were less fortunate, but those who could get on with their lives were expected to do just that. There was no entitlement without first an obligation.

We have already heard old myths peddled and Margaret Thatcher’s society demonised by those who frankly ought to know better. What kind of society was it in reality? It was a society in which the state gave back to the people power over their own lives and livelihoods and over the decisions that mattered most to them and their family, from which school was right for their children to which doctor they wanted to look after their health. It was a society in which government was by democratically elected representatives, not by the consent of unelected trade unionists. It was a society in which our Government’s right-to-buy initiative spread the benefit of home ownership to nearly half a million Scottish families.

Photo of Margo MacDonald Margo MacDonald Independent

It is important to make this point. Much of what has been said about Mrs Thatcher’s legacy in housing is true. I was the director of Shelter when the policies were introduced. However, she did not realise that she was trapping some people, such as in East and South Ayrshire. People were trapped because they did not have houses that they could go to. Even if they managed to go to houses, there was no job there for them.

Photo of John Lamont John Lamont Conservative

One of the great myths about Mrs Thatcher’s premiership is that she did not build social housing. Official Government figures show that, during her premiership, on average 5,316 new social houses were built each year. Compare that to what Labour and the Liberals achieved, which was fewer than 4,000 each year, and what the SNP has been able to achieve, which is fewer than 5,000 each year. Mrs Thatcher has a very proud record not just in giving people the right to own their own house.

Margaret Thatcher’s society was one in which more people than ever before also owned a stake in the company for which they worked. The number of people who owned shares nearly quadrupled from 3 million to more than 11 million.

Margaret Thatcher’s society was a more prosperous one, too. Between 1979 and 1990, the Scottish economy grew at an average rate of 2.5 per cent. GDP per capita increased by more than 150 per cent and the disposable incomes of hard-working Scots more than doubled as a result of her policies. Indeed, all levels of income in all income groups increased under her Conservative Government.

It was a society in which workers got to keep more of what they earned, with the basic rate of income tax falling from 33 to 25 per cent and the personal allowance increasing by nearly £1,000.

It was a more enterprising society, too. Service sector employment grew by 147,000 jobs between 1983 and 1990 and the number of companies registered in Scotland increased by 62 per cent during the 1980s.

Scots not only had more freedom, more choice, more prosperity and more wealth under Margaret Thatcher’s Government; they also produced more than ever before. Far from there being a decline in manufacturing, under Margaret Thatcher’s premiership it boomed. As we have already heard from Ruth Davidson, Scotland’s manufactured exports increased by 26 per cent in real terms over that decade. By 1990, Scotland was exporting more goods than even Japan—that is a fact.

When Margaret Thatcher left office in November 1990, that was the society that she left. That was the Scotland that she had created and it is a Scotland of which we can rightly be proud.

Of course, the process of change was painful at times—I do not deny that—but profound and far-reaching reform is rarely accomplished without pain. Margaret Thatcher had the courage of her convictions to revolutionise our country and our society, and there was a new prosperity in Scotland as a result when she left office. Indeed, her politics have endured far beyond her premiership, and we continue to live in a society that has in many respects been shaped by her legacy. We are all the better for that. We have heard much rhetoric from other members, but surely they would not want to return to 1970s socialism and the sickness that we all had to deal with then.

Margaret Thatcher was a revolutionary Prime Minister who smashed the class as well as the glass ceiling. She taught people like me who grew up under her premiership that it does not matter what they are or where they come from; life is really about who they want to become and where they are going.

Margaret Thatcher changed the face of our country and the face of our politics as we knew them. She found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.

Photo of Christine Grahame Christine Grahame Scottish National Party

Not surprisingly, my speech will be somewhat different from John Lamont’s.

I am pleased that the debate was moved from the day of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral, because I think that, if it had taken place then, the emphasis would have been not on what we said but on why we were having the debate on that day. I want us to consider what we are saying.

What does the word “society” mean? The definition in the “Oxford English Dictionary” is:

“the community of people living in a particular country or region and having shared customs, laws and organizations”.

I thank Joan McAlpine for her earlier exposé of Margaret Thatcher’s political philosophy. Mrs Thatcher always lauded her political philosophy as being the result of an ordinary upbringing living above the grocer’s shop. In my book, that is challengeable. I come from a council estate and a family with five children, and she was distinctly middle class to me. She thrived on division—she was pleased to be divisive—and that self-reliance, for want of a better word, translated, whether or not she knew it at the time, into a culture of selfishness and greed. In the end, by her ruthless destruction of manufacturing and the communities that had grown up around it, as Elaine Murray said, she almost destroyed the communities themselves. I say to Ruth Davidson that, if there was a tapestry, Mrs Thatcher set about ripping it to shreds.

The proposition that we should all be house-owning and share-owning citizens has sown the seeds of property inflation. It denuded councils of rented properties, bred a series of champagne Charlies who toasted their bonuses on the streets of London, and rewarded self, not society. The rich became richer and the poor became poorer, and poverty ghettos were created that remain to this day. I recall broadcast images of pinstriped and manicured traders juxtaposed with images of police horses charging their way through miners who were desperate to save their pits, not just for themselves, but for their neighbours and communities. Throughout Scotland, a slash-and-burn economic policy destroyed our manufacturing industries—our coal, steel and textile industries—and all but destroyed the communities that serviced them.

There was no investment of precious North Sea oil revenues in modernisation in the same way that, in Germany, for example, there was investment. It is no wonder that in Newtongrange, Gorebridge and mining communities elsewhere in my constituency, Mrs Thatcher’s death has not been met by the establishment’s policed deference and a deal of hypocrisy but by celebrations. To be frank, splendid though the Scottish mining museum in Newtongrange is, the key word is “museum”. We have far too many industrial museums. Despite Thatcherism’s ravages of Scotland’s manufacturing and the squandering of oil and gas revenues on the millions condemned to unemployment during Mrs Thatcher’s reign—it was a reign—communities such as Newtongrange, Gorebridge and Galashiels remain as proud of their identity and defend their communities as never before.

Across Scotland, the injustice of the poll tax galvanised not just those who could not pay but those who could. The bedroom tax, which is a recasting of the poll tax, will do the same.

We cannot help ourselves in Scotland. We are a community—the community of Scotland and of our cities, towns, villages and streets. That is reflected in our mainstream political parties, despite our differences—and those differences are not always large. That is why our NHS remains our NHS and has closed its doors to privatisation; why our elderly have free personal care and concessionary bus passes; why people who are sick do not pay prescription charges; and why people do not pay to go to university. We pay tax so that we have a health service and universities not just for ourselves or our children or our grandchildren but for our neighbours near and far.

The irony of the better together campaign is that that is the opposite of the reality. How can Labour activists and politicians sit beside Tory activists and claim that they are better together? Indeed, how can they sit with the Liberals, who have provided a bouquet of fig-leaves for a Tory chancellor who is one of the many Westminster Cabinet millionaires? Of those who can attend the coalition Cabinet meeting, 23 out of 29 are millionaires, yet we are grandly told by these people what is good for us and for the benefits system. They are not one of us. The coalition sets the deserving poor against the undeserving poor. Live on £53 a week? That will be cold baked beans all round, breakfast, noon and night.

Give me the people of Newtongrange, Gorebridge, Gala, Peebles, Melrose, Walkerburn, Innerleithen, Broughton, Auchendinny and all any day. They know the meaning of community. Give me an independent Scotland and with it a Labour Party—and even a Liberal party—that is at last free to practise what it preaches.

Photo of Malcolm Chisholm Malcolm Chisholm Labour

I would like to start by repeating the condolences that I expressed last Monday to Margaret Thatcher’s family and to all who loved her. I always think that it is important in politics to oppose and attack ideas, policies and, if necessary, ideologies but not individuals. That is why I regret some of the responses to the death of Margaret Thatcher.

Over the past few days, the article that has most impressed me was Tony Benn’s piece in last Tuesday’s edition of The Guardian. In that article, Tony Benn of course attacked quite a lot of what Mrs Thatcher did, but he finished by saying that it is important that we show respect. He told the story of how at Eric Heffer’s funeral—as members may recall, Eric Heffer had been a hard-left MP—Mrs Thatcher came up to him and, Tony Benn says, she was in tears. She was showing respect to someone whose views she profoundly disagreed with.

People will take different views about the role of individuals and of social forces within history—over the past few days, many historians have tended to emphasise the latter—but, whichever way we look at it, 1979 was a decisive year in the history of the 20th century because it was the year in which the post-war consensus was broken. Viewed from the perspective of 2013, it is interesting that 1979 is now 34 years ago, and 34 years before that was the election of a Labour Government and of a Prime Minister whom, with all due respect to Conservative colleagues, I regard as the greatest peacetime Prime Minister of the 20th century. His Government established a post-war consensus that was broken in 1979.

In a sense, that was what brought me into party politics. Although I had been interested in politics in the broad sense throughout the 1960s and 1970s, it was only after the election of Margaret Thatcher that I joined the Labour Party. With that divergence of views in 1979, there was a sense in which one had to take sides in that fundamental argument. The two issues that first brought me in were the state of the economy in the early years of the Thatcher Government and the issue of nuclear weapons.

It is still worth looking at the economic record of the Thatcher Government. I thought at the time, and still think today, that the obsession with monetarist policy, particularly in the early years of her Government, was very odd. Younger members will not recall this, but there was an obsession with what was called M3. There was an attempt to target the money supply and, if that was wrong, the Government had to put up interest rates. Of course, if interest rates went up, the exchange rate went up and industry was slaughtered as a result. To me, it was strange that there was such an obsession with monetarism and with the public sector borrowing requirement, which resulted in big cuts to public expenditure.

If we look at the economic record of the Conservatives for that whole decade, as the figures that have been quoted today show, we see that growth was 2.4 per cent per year, which—guess what—is exactly the same as the figure for what the Conservatives would describe as the disastrous 1970s. There were lots of problems in the 1970s and I accept that those had to be dealt with, but that is an important comparison.

Photo of Elizabeth Smith Elizabeth Smith Conservative

I congratulate Malcolm Chisholm on making what I think is a very eloquent speech. One reason behind the change from Keynesian to monetarist economics was to try to stimulate the supply side, which had suffered very badly in the 1970s. Does he acknowledge that Mrs Thatcher tried to address that concern?

Photo of Malcolm Chisholm Malcolm Chisholm Labour

I am sure that Mrs Thatcher tried to address that, but the growth figures went down further in the early 1990s as well. I do not think that the record justifies her policy, but I accept that she was trying to do that. No doubt, others would say that she was trying to increase the profits of those who owned industries as well.

The other two great institutions that Margaret Thatcher attacked—they were not the only two, but my time is running out fast—were local government and the trade unions. Members will certainly say that something had to be done about the powers of the trade unions, but surely nobody can justify the behaviour of the Conservative Government of the time in relation to the miners. One of the worst things that Mrs Thatcher said at the time was that the miners were “the enemy within”. That contrasts significantly to what her predecessor, Harold Macmillan, then Lord Stockton, said in the House of Lords in 1984 at the age of 90. He said that the miners were

“the best men in the world.”

For me, that encapsulates the difference between Mrs Thatcher and the old one-nation Conservatives of the post-war consensus.

Photo of Malcolm Chisholm Malcolm Chisholm Labour

I have not got time to give way, I am afraid. I might have, but I do not think that I do.

I also want to mention the attack on local government. It is ironic that, historically, Conservatives have often criticised the idea of a centralised state yet, through the controls on local government, culminating in the poll tax, they created the most centralised state in western Europe.

Photo of Malcolm Chisholm Malcolm Chisholm Labour

I do not think that I have time to take an intervention, because I want to finish—

Photo of John Scott John Scott Conservative

No, you do not. You are now in your last minute.

Photo of Malcolm Chisholm Malcolm Chisholm Labour

I will take a very brief one.

Photo of Margo MacDonald Margo MacDonald Independent

Arthur Scargill was the leader of the miners only because Mick McGahey, who would not have led the same strike, was diddled out of the leadership. Diddling went on on both sides.

Photo of Malcolm Chisholm Malcolm Chisholm Labour

I have no time to comment on that.

The Deputy Presiding Officer:

You have 45 seconds.

Photo of Malcolm Chisholm Malcolm Chisholm Labour

I will end with two ironies. Margaret Thatcher famously inspired a generation of Eurosceptics, which may be one of the main reasons why she fell, yet she was the Prime Minister who signed the Single European Act, which Conservatives now rail against, and who took the Conservatives into the exchange rate mechanism, the precursor of the euro. Ironically, it was leaving the exchange rate mechanism that destroyed the Conservatives’ reputation—such as it was—for economic competence and led to a Labour Government.

The final irony, which has been mentioned by several members here as well as in the past few days, is that Margaret Thatcher was one of the principal architects of the Scottish Parliament. It is no wonder, therefore, that Andrew Rawnsley, writing in The Observer on Sunday, said that she was not just the “Iron Lady” but the “Ironic Lady”.

Photo of Mark McDonald Mark McDonald Scottish National Party

I, too, grew up during the Margaret Thatcher era. I was born in 1980, one year after Jamie Hepburn and two years after the leader of the Scottish Conservatives—a point of mathematics that makes me think that she might want to check how old she actually was when the Berlin wall came down. I am sure that she was not 10—I think that she will find that it was her 11th birthday rather than her 10th birthday.

Mr Lamont’s point that we surely would not want to go back to what life was like before Thatcher brought to mind the book “Animal Farm” by George Orwell, in which the animals are constantly told by the pigs that, although things might be bad right now, they would not want Farmer Jones back and to go back to the way that it was before. The idea is that things might be bad now, but they were a whole lot worse before. John Lamont also told us about the Conservative Party’s bid to tackle the culture of entitlement. When I am being lectured on the culture of entitlement, I always think of those silver-spoon inherited millionaires in the Tory Cabinet.

A number of Conservative members mentioned the quote on which the debate is founded and said that Margaret Thatcher’s comments were about individuals’ reliance on the state for support. Why she did not just say that, instead of saying that there is no such thing as society, only she would have known. However, people can often require the support of the state as a result of the policies of the state. When the state’s economic policies have led to individuals becoming unemployed and, as a consequence of that unemployment, losing the roof over their head, it is perfectly acceptable for those people to feel that the state has some duty to house them.

The notion that the state has a role—nay, a duty—to provide support is absolutely one of the bedrocks. The state’s duty to protect its citizens extends beyond defence of the realm and is as much about social and economic policy as it is about defence policy. Nobody is born into our society owing it a thing, and we should never think that that is the case; however, it does not mean that the state does not have duties towards people even if they have not yet made any contribution to society.

I take a different view on the right to buy from that articulated by some members. I consider that the right to buy was absolutely the wrong policy, not just because its mechanics did not allow for the replacement of the social housing that was sold off but because, by its creation, it established a stigma around the concept of home ownership, rental and social housing in general—a stigma that persists to this day.

Although the Scottish Government has taken the not only welcome but necessary step of ending the right to buy, that stigma around home ownership and rental is being entrenched as a result of the introduction of the vile bedroom tax by the Government south of the border. I accept that the bedroom tax applies not only to those in housing association or council homes but to those in the private rented sector, but we should accept that the measure is part of the overall stigmatisation of those who do not own their home because of their personal economic circumstances or simply because they choose not to do so. We should never forget that choosing not to own a property is a valid choice.

One consequence of the bedroom tax has been highlighted in my area of Aberdeen by a constituent, Tracy Mahoney, who came to me following the publicising of her case. She has a son who is autistic and who requires his own bedroom because his sleeping patterns are disrupted. He and his brother need to have separate bedrooms so that they can both get a good night’s sleep and so that their lives can have some form of normality. Tracy has been affected by the bedroom tax and the policies that the Government down south is pursuing. That flies very much in the face of the notion of the state supporting individuals and ensuring that those who require help receive it.

The debate is on the concept that there is such a thing as society. Therefore, having done a little deconstruction of some of the Thatcherite myths that are often perpetuated, I will end on an uplifting note that I think underlines the fact that, here in Scotland, we have a strong society. I will tell the story of a little boy in Aberdeen called Baxter Dick, who is 18 months old and who has spina bifida and hydrocephalus. He requires a buggy with supportive seating to help with his positioning, but it costs about £3,000, which his parents cannot pay. They have therefore taken a novel approach and set up a website called “Baxter Needs A Buggy!”, which they highlighted through Facebook and their friends and family.

So far, 134 people have contributed through the website to raise the £3,000 necessary to buy Baxter his buggy and ensure that he can get around and enjoy the most fulfilling life. His mother made it clear when she spoke to the Aberdeen Evening Express that she and Baxter’s father could not have done that without the help of other people, some of whom did not even know them and who had no connection to them whatsoever. To me, that is what society is about—it is about individuals looking out for one another.

Photo of Mark McDonald Mark McDonald Scottish National Party

No—it is about individuals looking out for one another, not for themselves. That is what society is; it is not what Mrs Thatcher said in her interview.

Photo of Alex Johnstone Alex Johnstone Conservative

George Osborne was not the only man to shed a tear yesterday. It was certainly an emotional day for me, too, as we have lost Margaret Thatcher, the woman whom I would without hesitation describe as the greatest peacetime Prime Minister that this country has ever seen. I was not old enough to vote for her in 1979—I missed it by a couple of months. I was close to my 18th birthday but had not quite made it. However, that meant that I was old enough to have lived all the way through the 1970s, so I know what happened to Britain and Scotland in those years.

Last week, I read with interest a piece by left-wing commentator Gerry Hassan in which he talked about the memory of Thatcher in Scotland and coined the phrase “Scotland’s collective false memory syndrome”. During the debate, we have seen Scotland’s collective false memory syndrome wheeled out on a large scale.

What Margaret Thatcher proposed was that people should take responsibility for themselves. She knew that not everyone was able to do that. She was a firm supporter of the welfare state and the national health service, but she did not think that those facilities were put in place so that everyone could simply choose to give up their responsibilities and take advantage of those facilities.

Margaret Thatcher expected people to go out and do their best to create wealth, and then to pay tax, to pay for public services. That is how a country works. It always amazes me that in Scotland today far too many people want to talk about how we redistribute wealth without realising that it might be useful if we created a bit of wealth at the same time.

Photo of Alex Johnstone Alex Johnstone Conservative

No, I will not take an intervention.

I will talk about the few years before Margaret Thatcher was elected, because it cannot be anything other than the case that she was a product of her time. I will not blame the Labour Party for everything, because I have to say that, in the 1970s, the Conservatives were at least as guilty. At the start of the 1970s, there was a Conservative Government that seemed just as determined to nationalise everything and close down the means of production. It made the grave error of backing down before the trade unions—something that the Labour Party went on to do on a huge scale. The failure of industrial relations in the 1970s set us apart from our colleagues in Germany, for example, where people managed to get through the period without having the problems that we had.

The lowest point of the 1970s—the deepest trough—came without a doubt in 1976, when a morally bankrupt Labour Government went on to become a fiscally bankrupt Labour Government. The Labour chancellor had to go to the International Monetary Fund and beg for money to bail out the Government. The newly appointed Opposition leader, a young Margaret Thatcher, took the opportunity to make the point that the problem with socialism is that, eventually, socialists run out of other people’s money. That was the problem that she had to address.

Photo of Alex Johnstone Alex Johnstone Conservative

No, thank you.

So many accusations are levelled at Margaret Thatcher. The key accusation is that she somehow shut down Scotland’s industry. That is simply not the case. I will return to industrial relations to explain why that was very much not her responsibility.

During the 1980s, change was necessary. It had become necessary because of what had happened in the previous decade. For people who rose to the challenge, there were opportunities. Let us never forget that it was not the whole mining industry that challenged Margaret Thatcher in 1984; it was Arthur Scargill’s National Union of Mineworkers that did so—and perhaps it was more Arthur Scargill than the NUM. The Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire coalfields worked on—they negotiated with the Government of the day and were rewarded for the hard work that they put in.

Photo of Alex Johnstone Alex Johnstone Conservative

No, thank you.

In fact, the closure of Scotland’s mines, which had become an economic necessity, was only the end of a process that the Labour Party began in government in 1964. It is ironic that Margaret Thatcher has been blamed today for a series of events that started as early as 1964 and did not finish until 2008. That collective false memory syndrome is coming back into play.

There is the accusation about Ravenscraig. During the 1980s, British Steel was a nationalised industry, and the Conservative Government decided to reinvest in the steel industry. The target for reinvestment was steel plants throughout the United Kingdom and, at the end of the process, Britain’s steel industry was better than it had ever been. However, the determination of Scottish Conservative politicians to ensure that Ravenscraig was included in the investment was unfortunately undermined by the same old problem of industrial relations.

It is important that we remember what Margaret Thatcher contributed to this country. Scotland’s culture of collective false memory syndrome does it no justice whatever.

Photo of Clare Adamson Clare Adamson Scottish National Party

An old Chinese proverb says that, if someone gets to the end of their life without having made an enemy, they have not lived. Margaret Thatcher lived.

That being said, I associate myself with the condolences to Margaret Thatcher’s family and friends. As a humanitarian to whom all life is precious, I take no pleasure in her passing. However, I will celebrate and take pleasure on the day that my nation is raised from the shadow of Thatcherism by becoming independent and able to elect a Government that reflects my nation’s values and my society’s values of egalitarianism and social justice.

I am a child of Thatcher’s era. When I reflect on growing up in Lanarkshire, it is the slogans of the time that still resonate with me. The first political slogan that I was aware of was, “Thatcher Thatcher, milk snatcher.” It was dispiriting to learn the meaning of the word “scab”, as my immediate society at that time was made up of my friends and my comrades in the community, and when I sat in classes with compatriots whose fathers were miners, steelworkers and policemen, our friendship and camaraderie were strained by the knowledge that picket lines outside Ravenscraig were battle zones, where workers were pitted against one another and against the police. That is when I began to ask myself, “Is this the society that I want?”

I was also aware of the playground banter and of the phrase, “Gizza job,” which was on the lips of many of my friends. There has been much comment about the country’s response to Thatcherism. My conviction is that our writers and artists hold the social conscience of our nation in the way that—as Alison McInnes has said—Alan Bleasdale’s “Boys from the Blackstuff” did. I vividly remember Bernard Hill’s portrayal of a man driven to the edge by poverty and unemployment. “Brassed Off” represented the plight of former mining communities in a similar manner.

Alison McInnes referred to Mrs Thatcher being a scientist. The editorial in this month’s New Scientist gives a not-too-favourable view of what she did for science. It says:

“Thatcher’s hard-nosed policies on privatisation and manufacturing led to a dramatic reduction in research activity in the UK ... In general, however, Thatcher’s policies were driven by free-market ideology, not science. Spending on R&D has never fully recovered; meaningful action on climate change was long deferred.”

Another slogan of the time was, “Can’t pay, won’t pay.” That was a cry from Scotland that fell on deaf ears. It took riots in London to reverse the perverse and socially unfair poll tax, which had been imposed on the Scottish people.

I respect the view of people who have said that Margaret Thatcher put the great in Great Britain. However, for me, she is the person who put the con in Conservative. She perpetrated the con of selling the assets of our country back to the people who already owned them. The selling-off of our utilities has created crippling fuel poverty.

If I am ever going to quote the Daily Mail in the chamber, today is the day to do it. In 2012, Alex Brummer said in that paper that

“with so much of our vital utility companies in foreign hands, we are now at the mercy of conglomerates that could bring Britain Plc to a shuddering halt.”

In an article in Utility Week entitled, “Does it matter who owns the UK’s utilities?”, Roger Barnard, a barrister who was head of regulatory law at EDF Energy, says:

“We urgently need a robust process with more appropriate assessment criteria for ensuring that any government is able to safeguard the nation’s energy security interests against the potential for political intervention under a commercial guise”.

If we were to call Sid today, we would need an international dialling code.

Photo of Clare Adamson Clare Adamson Scottish National Party

No, I do not have time.

Much has been made of the supposed success of the right-to-buy policy, which, again, sold what was already ours. Shamefully—and unforgivably—it broke the social housing contract in doing so. By preventing the revenue from council house sales from being reinvested, it led to the housing crisis today, to which the new Thatcherite solution is the pernicious bedroom tax. Despite the opportunity that Labour had, it took an SNP cabinet secretary, Nicola Sturgeon, to reforge that social contract when she exempted new-build housing from the right to buy.

Thatcherism brought me to my belief that the only protection from Thatcherite right-wing ideology is an independent Scotland. I despair that Labour reversed none of the anti-trade union laws imposed by Thatcher in the six bills that were passed. I also regret that it sold what remained of our assets in the gold reserves at rock-bottom prices, at an estimated cost of £7 billion to the taxpayer.

I cannot laud any ideology when I measure its success against Gowkthrapple in Wishaw, in my constituency. Following the closure of Ravenscraig, Gowkthrapple had the highest male unemployment rate in Europe. Despite a period of Labour control at all levels of government, it remains one of the poorest places in Britain.

We have another choice in Scotland. We have the choice to reject right-wing Governments, whether they be Tory, Labour or UKIP, for a choice of social justice and universal services. We have the opportunity to choose education over nuclear weapons. We have the opportunity that independence gives us.

Photo of Margo MacDonald Margo MacDonald Independent

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I appreciate the gesture.

I wonder whether I can put something straight on Ravenscraig. The reason why Ravenscraig was closed, as opposed to the other three steel plants that might have been closed, was that the European Union changed the steel quotas, so it was very nice and tidy to get rid of one steel plant, and Scotland’s was the steel plant without representation in Europe. I was told that by Irish politicians who, at the time, managed to hold on to their teensy-weensy Irish industry, because they were in Europe and we were not. Even then, the consequence of not being independent was showing through.

It is wrong to pick up the housing issue simplistically. Although I was up to my neck, I could see why Mrs Thatcher wanted to do what she did. She wanted to make people feel more responsible, adventurous and so on. Had she allowed councils to use their receipts to rebuild what they needed to rebuild, we would all have been applauding her today. However, she was short-sighted, and she was like a mule when she could not see something herself.

On the mining communities, the minute that Arthur Scargill was elected president of the NUM, it was “Ta-ta” to mining. He was a dreadful leader: he took the miners out on strike when the coal stocks were high and the summer was coming in. Had Mick McGahey not been diddled out of the presidency when Joe Gormley stayed on for a few more weeks, which meant that Mick was age barred, I am sure that there would not have been the strike that there was and that it would have been an entirely different story.

There are a lot of myths about Mrs Thatcher. She certainly brought about a social revolution in which some people became more adventurous and creative; some people became obscenely rich. However, my objection to Mrs Thatcher is that she divided society between those who have and those who have not. The Labour Party has done very little to correct that.

The Deputy Presiding Officer:

We now move to the closing speeches.

Photo of Jackson Carlaw Jackson Carlaw Conservative

I begin by placing on record my gratitude for the attendance of the Presiding Officer and the First Minister at the funeral of Lady Thatcher in St Paul’s cathedral yesterday afternoon. I was also charmed to see that Jim Murphy and other senior figures from Scottish Labour were at the funeral to commemorate Lady Thatcher and to pay their respects.

This afternoon’s debate has included two types of contribution. Some I regard as being the typical polemic that I expected from opponents whom I do not expect to convince otherwise this afternoon. There were some really heartfelt and sincere speeches in opposition to the record of Margaret Thatcher. I do not agree with that opposition, but I respect it and understand what underpinned it and I respect the ways in which those expressions were given.

I was, 13 years ago, sitting on a beach in the north of Majorca on holiday, in one of those little huts. I was at a hotel at which one was allocated one’s space for the week. A gentleman arrived at the hotel, and they thought they had better find him someone who was interested in politics to sit beside. I was reading a biography of Margaret Thatcher at the time. The gentleman came up to me immediately and we continued to speak for the rest of the week. That man was Mikhail Gorbachev. He said, “I want you to know that Margaret Thatcher, together with me and Ronald Reagan, was equally responsible for the great changes that came about in Europe. Those changes came about as a result of the efforts that we made. Each one of us was responsible for that, and don’t let anybody ever tell you otherwise.” So, yes—there is such a thing as society. It is free and at peace in countries across the whole of eastern Europe that were previously part of the Soviet bloc.

I say to the mover of the motion, Mr Harvie, that he owes everything to Margaret Thatcher, because it was Margaret Thatcher who was the first statesman of any international repute to put climate change on the agenda. I often wonder whether there is any unforeseen consequence of Margaret Thatcher’s time in office that I regret, and I think of Mr Harvie.

What was this land of milk and honey that people talk about prior to Margaret Thatcher? Was it the one where Governments routinely gave in to terrorism and negotiated with terrorists?

Photo of Jackson Carlaw Jackson Carlaw Conservative

No. The Thatcherite in my spine tells me not to give way in the short time that I have.

Was it the land where Governments frequently surrendered to terrorism? Mrs Thatcher took a different approach during the 1981 embassy siege in London, which became the example around the world. If there are societies at peace today in Northern Ireland, it is because the IRA came to understand that it could not bomb its way to its objectives, but had to renounce violence and seek what it wanted through peaceful means. That allowed John Major and then Tony Blair to achieve their subsequent success.

Was it this great society where there was a stampede for industrial candles and small camping stoves to allow us to see and eat during the three-day week of 1974? Was it the land where the Labour Party of all parties, the only party in the history of this country to do so, cut nurses’ pay—it did not just peg it; it cut it—in 1976? Was it the land where 29 million days were lost through industrial disputes, but where, by the time Mrs Thatcher left office, the number had declined to just 1 million days? Was it the land where there was a two-year wait for a telephone and where one had to apply for one? Was it the country where the Government owned Pickfords the removal company and the Gleneagles, Turnberry and Glasgow Central hotels?

By the end of the 1970s, Britain was at the end of the road. As one former Prime Minister put it:

“The rest of the world is very sorry, but the rest of the world regrets it is unable to oblige any longer”, so Margaret Thatcher was elected.

As Tony Blair subsequently said,

“To decide is to divide,” and on so many of the big issues, Mrs Thatcher realised that Britain needed to take decisions. They were divisive because there was no consensus as to how we should go forward. Somebody had to act; she acted and I believe that the country is the better for it.

More homes are now owned in Scotland and more social houses were built by Margaret Thatcher—64,000—than in the entire period subsequent to that, almost. There were more share owners, more cars—giving people personal mobility—and more people in further education. Here in Scotland, in each of the three elections that Margaret Thatcher fought, she fought the SNP into a cocked hat. She returned more members of the Conservative Party in Scotland by a ratio of 10:1 than there were SNP members.

The Labour Party mounted a greater defence, but let us just check the record, because in each of the elections that Margaret Thatcher fought as leader, the share of the vote that the Labour Party obtained in Scotland was less than the share of the vote that Margaret Thatcher obtained throughout the rest of the United Kingdom in total. Yes, there was a coalition against Margaret Thatcher, but there was no coalition in Scotland in favour of any other political party, so she was able to proceed and to change things in Scotland—I believe for the better.

I knew Margaret Thatcher; it was the great privilege of my life. I met and talked to her maybe only 100 times—clearly I know less about her than the many members who have spoken who never met her at all. I admired her courage. I was at Brighton in front of the Grand hotel when it was bombed—when the bomb went off in the bedroom of my friends Donald and Muriel Maclean. Muriel Maclean died a month later from the injuries that she received. I remember Mrs Thatcher’s resolution the next day when she stood and spoke for the country in the face of that tyranny and terrorism.

I admired Margaret Thatcher’s conviction and, contrary to what Elaine Murray said, Margaret Thatcher began every argument that I ever had with her by saying, “Now, Jackson, what are the facts?” It was the facts on which she wanted to argue, and by God you had to know them.

Photo of Jackson Carlaw Jackson Carlaw Conservative

I will not, on this occasion.

I admired her tenacity, I admired her truth and integrity and I admired her sheer capacity for leadership. I have to say that the equal of that has yet to be found in this devolved Parliament in all the years that it has been here so far.

Margaret Thatcher taught me that one should stand up for one’s beliefs and not follow the crowd, and that one should not necessarily court popularity—if you believe something, you stand up and fight for it. I believe that Margaret Thatcher was good for Scotland, for the United Kingdom and for the world. Until my dying day in politics, I will stand up and defend the record of Margaret Thatcher, and the lady herself.

Photo of Mark Griffin Mark Griffin Labour

This has been a good debate, which has on the whole presented a more accurate view of Margaret Thatcher’s legacy in the UK than has been presented elsewhere, including in parts of the press. I cannot help but admire some of the personal attributes of Mrs Thatcher that Mr Carlaw mentioned, but I will concentrate more on the political impact of her legacy.

I was born when Thatcherism was at its peak. The impact of the 1984-85 miners’ strike was felt across the UK. Despair was rife throughout once thriving industrial communities, many of which would become derelict wastelands within 10 years. Coming from an area that is steeped in mining tradition, I know the impact that Thatcherism had on hard-working men and women. An article that I read in The Guardian earlier in the week about one miner’s struggle brought back memories of the tales that are told so often in places such as Croy Miners Welfare Charitable Society. That miner said of the Thatcher Government’s policies at the time:

“She said we were the enemy within. We weren’t. We were just looking after our lives, our families, our kids and our properties, everything that we ever had.”

From the start, the self-centred, individualistic nature of Thatcherism did not play well in industrial towns in Scotland or in much of England and Wales, and it ultimately led to a less equal and more conflict-ridden Britain.

Photo of Derek Mackay Derek Mackay Scottish National Party

We all understand the expression of Thatcherism and conservatism around wealth creation, but over that period starting in 1979 and through the 1980s, inequality increased, unemployment spiked to record levels, child poverty increased, pensioner poverty increased and income inequality rose. That is the reality of Thatcherism’s wealth creation, right across these islands.

Photo of Mark Griffin Mark Griffin Labour

I am not arguing with that. That is why I am proud of the Labour Government, which introduced the minimum wage when it came into power and helped to reduce that income inequality.

It quickly became clear that the Thatcher Government was intent on destroying trade unions. Believing that they had brought down the Governments of Ted Heath and James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher was ultimately victorious in curbing union power, and she used her victory to follow an unrelenting path that would lead to the destruction of our manufacturing and heavy industries in favour of financial sector and service sector growth, as was pointed out by Ruth Davidson. The result of that was that the rich got richer and working-class men and women in Scotland, in Yorkshire, in the north-east, in Wales and beyond were forced into poverty and hardship.

As a Lanarkshire MSP, it would be remiss of me not to talk about Ravenscraig and the ripping apart of Scotland’s steel industry. Only now, 20 years after the policies of Thatcherism brought it down, are moves being made to redevelop the site. At one time home to 13,000 workers and taking on hundreds of apprentices a year, Ravenscraig closed in 1992. Similarly, with the closure of Gartcosh in 1986, the impact was felt not just by the workers at the plants who lost their jobs, but by the tens of thousands of other workers from elsewhere in Scotland who supplied materials to the plants and who lost their jobs, too.

Photo of Mark Griffin Mark Griffin Labour

I am sorry, but I am struggling for time.

The fall-out from those closures dealt a blow to Lanarkshire towns that had the heart and soul ripped out of them and would struggle to recover. For those who were forced from Ravenscraig, from Gartcosh, from shipyards in Glasgow, from car plants in Renfrewshire and from mines in Ayrshire, Fife and Lanarkshire—as well as people in the areas that Christine Grahame mentioned, in what I thought was an excellent speech, for the most part—what hope did Thatcherism give? This point has been made by James Kelly and Jamie Hepburn: Thatcherism gave no opportunities to those who lost their jobs with little chance of getting a new one. Many of them were blacklisted through their involvement in trade unions and were simply left on the dole. Apparently, that was a price worth paying.

By the late 1980s, not only had Scotland borne much of the hardship of Thatcher’s ideological direction, but its people were set to endure further pain from the roll-out of the poll tax by Conservative MPs a year before its introduction in England and Wales. That added to the anger of Scots, and non-payment was widespread. The stubbornness of Margaret Thatcher on the poll tax, as on other issues, including Europe, ultimately led to her downfall. Unfortunately, it was not at the hands of the electorate but at the hands of her own colleagues.

Many have gone on record over the past few days to say that she saved Britain. The experience of people in my home town of Kilsyth and across Lanarkshire and Scotland counters that myth. She did not save the country; she almost destroyed it. She wrecked whole communities, ruined lives and polarized the very society that, as today’s debate highlights, she did not believe existed.

My condolences go out to Margaret Thatcher’s family, who have lost a mother and grandmother. However, in terms of today’s debate, we do not need to remember the legacy of Thatcher or Thatcherism, because we still see its effects today. It lives on in David Cameron, George Osborne and lain Duncan Smith. The horrors were felt—and are still being felt in some cases—in towns and villages across Scotland and the rest of the UK. When we look out over the barren landscapes that were once home to hundreds and thousands of workers, we will always remember the ever-present stain of the Thatcher Government on our society.

Photo of Angela Constance Angela Constance Scottish National Party

I start by expressing my condolences to members of the Conservative Party, because at the end of the day Margaret Thatcher was a mother and grandmother and a colleague and friend to many on the Conservative side of the chamber. The passing of anyone is always a deeply difficult time.

It is of course heartening to hear from Jackson Carlaw that Mrs Thatcher was less interested in popularity and more interested in the issues. I will do my best to focus my contribution on the issues. However, I am not going to pretend to be unbiased.

Like James Kelly, I have the privilege of representing the constituency in which I grew up, so my contribution to the debate will be very much shaped by the fact that I grew up in West Lothian in the 1980s. All that I can say to Malcolm Chisholm is that I will mention the constitution at some point, because it was my experience in the 1980s that drove me to join the SNP—it was probably the single most important reason.

I have long been of the view that, in response to the social and economic strife of the 1980s, there arose an overwhelming need and desire to establish a Parliament—this Parliament—for Scotland and her people: a Parliament that could express a different concept of society; a Parliament and society that recognise that everyone makes a contribution and that therefore everyone should receive something in return. To put it another way, it is a something for something society, a concept that was so passionately articulated by Christine Grahame earlier.

This Parliament has, largely, used its powers progressively. This Scottish Government has sought to build on the good work of others and on previous progress, and to articulate, develop and entrench the social contract and, in particular, the social wage. Others have mentioned that the distinctive approach of this Parliament and—I believe—the distinctive aspirations of the people of Scotland are seen in policies such as free personal care for the elderly, no tuition fees for students and increasing hours for the early years, and the fact that 1.2 million older and disabled people receive concessionary travel and that everyone benefits from free prescriptions.

I believe that our society is aspiring to a building-up rather than a stripping-down of the progressive platform of social policy. However, that progressive platform is, of course, increasingly under threat. For example, our colleagues in the Labour Party are doing a bit of backsliding; the UK Government is undertaking practices that are in some ways reminiscent of the 1980s; and there is a mismatch, I believe, in outlook, values and priorities between Scotland and the UK Government.

There exists once again, as in the 1980s, a democratic deficit, and the most obvious topical example is the bedroom tax. Nine out of 10 Scottish MPs voted against it, and Dennis Canavan commented on television last night that he considers it to be as bad as, if not worse than, the poll tax. I have to ask whether this Parliament would have introduced the bedroom tax, and I feel that I can say with confidence that the answer is absolutely not.

Alison McInnes made a thoughtful speech. She spoke of the failure in the Thatcher years to lay down for the future and of the lost opportunities.

Photo of Angela Constance Angela Constance Scottish National Party

In a moment.

She is right, because income inequality has increased more quickly in the UK than in any other OECD country. Scotland is a resource-rich country, but we are a much poorer society than we could and should be.

Photo of Hanzala Malik Hanzala Malik Labour

The minister mentioned the bedroom tax. The Scottish Government can change that and intervene to stop the Scottish community suffering from it. Why is it not taking steps to do so?

Photo of Angela Constance Angela Constance Scottish National Party

Of course, welfare powers are reserved to the United Kingdom. I would have hoped that our colleagues in the Labour Party would join with the Scottish Government and others, and with the Scottish population, all of whom want welfare powers to be devolved to Scotland. I hope that the other side will recognise that we will act when we can mitigate the effects—for example, this Government has invested £40 million in relation to the cuts to council tax benefit. However, is the extent of our aspiration only to mitigate the bad decisions of a bad Government? Our aspirations and our ambition have to be far greater than that.

Photo of Angela Constance Angela Constance Scottish National Party

No, thank you. I do not want to be churlish or unkind, but I noticed that Mr Johnstone did not take any interventions.

We heard a lot of statistics from Mr Johnstone and indeed Mr Lamont. We will study those later at our leisure, but the statistics that they omitted and never once quoted are the statistics on unemployment and poverty.

Photo of Angela Constance Angela Constance Scottish National Party

Not just now, because I am trying to develop a point.

The statistic that no one on the Conservative benches quoted is that, from 1979 to 1990, poverty in the UK rose from 13 to 22 per cent. That increase represents 5 million more people in poverty. The relative poverty rate in Scotland today is 15 per cent, which is of course far too high. Poverty is most certainly not inevitable. Derek Mackay was right to say in his opening speech that children are born unequal in Scotland, but we cannot let poverty be inevitable—and neither is unemployment inevitable.

My memories and view of the 1980s are scarred by unemployment because my father—

Photo of Angela Constance Angela Constance Scottish National Party

No. I am concluding.

My father—this is a personal point—was unemployed between 1982 and 1984, and that had a huge impact on my family. I am fortunate in the sense that I grew up in a loving, caring and stable family, but for me tackling unemployment is not just political—it is absolutely personal. We talk about the claimant count but, as we all now know, it underestimates the true unemployment rate. Nevertheless, the claimant count in Scotland peaked at 13 per cent in January 1987, which represented 334,000 Scots. The claimant count today is 4.9 per cent, which represents 136,000 Scots. That is still far too high.

As for youth unemployment, the claimant count, which I repeat underrepresents true unemployment, peaked at nearly 116,000 in 1985. The comparable figure today is 38,200. That is still too high, even though we can point to progress and the move in the right direction in the most recent youth unemployment figures.

The Deputy Presiding Officer:

You should be drawing to a close, minister.

Photo of Angela Constance Angela Constance Scottish National Party

My lesson from the 1980s is that we need the economic powers of any other normal, progressive, modern society to ensure that we are not blown off course with the good progress that we are making in tackling youth unemployment and other social issues.

Photo of John Finnie John Finnie Independent

This debate was meant to be a meaningful reflection on a political legacy and I hope that has been achieved. The tone that was set initially by Patrick Harvie, when he said that the debate was about ideas and not persons, was largely followed.

The ideas continue 20 years on and are regrettably very dominant, as has been said by a number of people. There was a lot of talk in the debate about economic damage, not least to our mining and steel communities. Patrick Harvie also mentioned homophobic policies, which are perhaps one instance where there has been progress and some cross-party consensus and where we have moved on.

There were reflections on Pinochet versus Mandela. Who would want to associate with one and vilify the other? That is not a legacy that people would be proud of.

Patrick Harvie’s speech was a critique of individualism. There was some dubiety about who was responsible for the imposition of the poll tax in Scotland and its timing, but to the Scottish population that is entirely academic. They felt the full effects of it, and that is what has mattered to them.

Privatisation of public assets has been mentioned by a number of members. Patrick Harvie referred to it as a transfer of wealth, which is an accurate reflection of what it was.

Photo of Ruth Davidson Ruth Davidson Conservative

It is worth recognising that Margaret Thatcher left office 23 years ago and since then there has been no significant push by anybody in any party to renationalise anything. Is that something that anybody, including John Finnie, would ask for?

Photo of John Finnie John Finnie Independent

Yes, I certainly would be fully in support of nationalising, which I will come to later. Take, for instance, energy supplies: rather than the public being served, international shareholders are being served with vile and obscene profits. I will come back to that.

Market fundamentalism—the price of everything and value of nothing—was touched on. Patrick Harvie talked about dependence on growth and the resource depletion, economic injustice and environmental crisis that that gives rise to. There was also mention of the £70 billion of North Sea oil reserves.

The reality is that successive London Governments have continued Thatcher’s approach. The other day, the UK Prime Minister made the bizarre assertion that “we are all Thatcherites”. I do not think that that phrase has much resonance in Scotland. We will have an opportunity to change that approach.

The next speaker in the debate was the Minister for Local Government and Planning, who touched on society, internationalism and equality. If I noted down correctly what he said, it was that we should

“use the wealth to build a strong and fairer society.”

I think that we would all agree with that. The references that I heard seemed to reflect Oxfam’s humankind index.

Margo MacDonald intervened to encourage us all to think creatively, and thereafter the minister talked about Jimmy Reid. The debate would have been greatly enhanced had Mr Reid been here to contribute to it. Although he would share a lot of the views expressed, the present Government’s policy on corporation tax, for instance, would not enjoy his support—nor does it enjoy mine.

James Kelly gave an excellent speech—one of the best that we heard today. It was very much from the heart. He spoke about the implications for his neighbours and friends and talked about desolate lives. Hanzala Malik and Malcolm Chisholm also touched on the implications for the steel community.

Thereafter, Ruth Davidson talked about the living tapestry. I do not know whether that tapestry was intended to include the mining villages or the steelworkers—Christine Grahame alluded to that. If there was a tapestry, it was ripped apart in many communities.

I warmed to the speech that Alison McInnes gave. Thereafter we had Joan McAlpine, very much speaking for herself and no other man or woman. It was an excellent critique, in which she used the phrase

“all shock and no therapy”, with which we can all readily identify.

A number of members, including Gordon MacDonald and Jamie Hepburn, spoke about communities, which clearly are societies. Elaine Murray made another excellent speech, in which she said that Mrs Thatcher believed that assertion trumped evidence. Certainly, Mrs Thatcher’s strident style lent itself to that.

John Lamont talked about pain, which was a very gracious acknowledgement. Mark McDonald picked up on that point when he talked about the analogy of “Animal Farm” and the role of the state as being the bedrock in many instances. The story of Baxter Dick’s buggy was important and salutary, because I would look for Baxter to be provided with a buggy by the state rather than by the generosity of others through social media.

In the time that is left I will touch on a number of areas in which the legacy lives on, one of which is the banking industry, where unregulated greed has led us to the crisis we are in at the moment and obscene private profit has seen us all become bank owners. We did not use to, but we own two banks now—not that small businesses would be aware of that, because there is still a reluctance to lend to them.

Recently, the UK Prime Minster referred to equality impact assessments as “nonsense” and he takes a similar approach to health and safety, which is another example of the legacy living on. In the area of health and safety, reduced inspections, investigations and prosecutions can only make our workers and our workplaces more vulnerable.

There was a lot of discussion on housing and the sell-off of housing and Margo MacDonald’s point about the receipts, which others picked up on, is very relevant. With 11,000 folk on the waiting list in Highland, the overcrowding of properties, the absence of sufficient three-bedroom properties and a significant dearth of one-bedroom properties have all been compounded by the bedroom tax. I am sure that Mrs Thatcher would have been very proud of the bedroom tax. I for one am delighted that that is being addressed by an increase in social housing.

Ruth Davidson talked about nationalisation. We have fuel poverty in the energy-rich country of Scotland and a 10-year inquiry into SSE, which has refused to accept blame for ripping off customers despite the fact that it was fined £10.5 million that has gone straight to the Treasury. That is an insignificant sum given the £1.3 billion profit that it has made. That was a racket that was revealed by the regulator, the Office of the Gas and Electricity Markets.

If we look at transport, the east coast service was being run very well by the state after two failed attempts by the private sector. After three years and £600 million in premiums and profits, the plan is to return it to the private sector that failed on two occasions. I should say that that was without any reference to Scotland’s Minister for Transport and Veterans.

The greatest legacy of Mrs Thatcher’s era is probably in welfare. Most of us believe that there is a requirement to assess need and then put in place mechanisms to meet that need. Those mechanisms—I welcome the discussions that we have had on universalism—include progressive taxation to meet those needs. That would clearly rule out the recent reduction in the top rate of income tax from 50p to 45p and it would also rule out cuts in corporation tax for multinationals.

Policing is another area in which we have a very clear assurance from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice in Scotland that there will be no privatisation. The police workforce terms and conditions have been protected. It is quite the reverse in England where we see a greater intrusion by the private sector into a very important public service, which is to be regretted.

We also have Virgin healthcare in the health service south of the border, where there will be an absence of public scrutiny because we will be told that it is a commercial and confidential deal. Similarly, the fact that Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust was declared bankrupt this week shows that the legacy is very much alive.

I turn to the question of attitudes and, unusually, find myself quoting Boris Johnson who said:

“Thatcherism was not about exalting the rich and grinding the faces of the poor. It was the exact opposite.”

My assertion is that successive London Governments have serviced Britain’s elites—the bankers, the public schools, the military and the arms dealers. There is an opportunity next year and, in the meantime, there is an opportunity for debate—as in Iceland—about a written constitution to enshrine and respect human rights, education and housing, and to ensure that our country is nuclear free and committed to no wars of aggression and that we have an elected head of state.

We all have a choice: the continuing mindless pursuit of self and wealth or the chance to prioritise the common good—because there is such a thing as society.