4. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s response is to reports that an independent Scotland will not be able to support the state pension. (S4F-02251)

As one of the richest countries in the world, there is no doubt that an independent Scotland could afford a high-quality state pension system. Social protection spending as a percentage of both gross domestic product and tax revenues is lower in Scotland than in the rest of the United Kingdom and has been for each of the past five years.

I was interested in the responsible comments of the UK pensions minister, Steve Webb, who confirmed that state pensions built up prior to independence would continue to be paid to the people of Scotland. On 6 May, he said:

“It is what you have put into the ... national insurance system prior to independence ... They are entitled to that money.”

For the first Parliament of an independent Scotland, existing pensioners will have their state pensions updated by the triple lock. That means that their pension will increase by 2.5 per cent, in line with the increase of inflation or in line with the increase in average earnings, whichever of those three is the highest. I hope that Christine Grahame welcomes that reassurance as we seek to explain to the people of Scotland that yet another of project fear’s favourite stories is based on no foundation whatsoever.

As a pensioner, I welcome that assurance and thank the First Minister for his comprehensive answer. However, the issue remains of private pensions—paid now or in the future—which many pensioners fear will be under threat with independence. Does the First Minister agree that those pensions are a matter of contract and payable under the terms of contract, whether in an independent Scotland, the rest of the United Kingdom or elsewhere? Does he agree that with a yes vote we have an opportunity to use Scotland’s wealth to develop sustainable and better pensions for Scotland’s pensioners now and in the future?

I think that I can claim an unimpeachable authority for that point: the Daily Mail newspaper, of course. There have been a number of speculations in that and other newspapers about the position of private pensions. One of the yes campaigners, who wants to remain anonymous—probably because he is an ex-employee of the Daily Mail—wrote to the Daily Mail pension provider, Daily Mail and General Trust, asking about such claims. He received the following reply:

“I can confirm that should there be a yes vote in the 2014 Scotland referendum the benefit that you have accrued in the scheme will be unaffected. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to telephone me”.

We should all telephone the Daily Mail to ask why its pension provider is giving its pensioners the reassurance that, as yet, it is unfortunately not prepared to give to its readers.

Whatever the Daily Mail has said, we have all read what the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth said to his Cabinet colleagues when he warned that the volatility of oil revenues would compromise the affordability of pensions in an independent Scotland.

Yesterday, we saw that the previous year’s oil revenues were half what the Scottish Government had told us that they would be. Does that not just show us how right Mr Swinney was to flag up the threat to pensions from a yes vote next month?

With his unerring sense of timing, Iain Gray has managed to make that point on the day that Sir Donald MacKay, 25 years an adviser to successive Labour and Conservative secretaries of state for Scotland and a doyen of oil economists in Scotland, has described the Office for Budget Responsibility’s figures as “precisely wrong” and produced forecasts that back the Scottish Government’s assessment of oil revenues.

I welcome the fact that Iain Gray mentions oil and its forecasts. The difficulty for the unionist parties is their apparent suggestion that oil and gas are some tragic burden on the people of Scotland whereas, for every other country in the world, they are substantial assets. Those substantial assets will continue, and the best thing about it is that, at last, the resources of Scotland will benefit the people of Scotland, not the London Treasury.

The official Scottish Government pensions paper contains 30 key proposals but only four of those proposals are costed. Given the importance of pensions to the people of Scotland, will the First Minister agree to update his pensions paper and put costings next to all 30 proposals?

I do not accept the premise of the question. The white paper was quite specific about our proposals on pensions; the guarantee that pensions would continue to be paid and why they would continue to be paid; our explanation of affordability; the proposal for the triple lock; and our consideration of the retirement age, which is an important issue for the Scottish population. That is a significant body of work, and I suggest that the member reconsult it. He will see that the Scottish Government’s proposals on pensions give more guarantees, more assurance and, above all, more fairness than anything that has come from Tory or Labour Governments.