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1 May 2007 : Column 403WH—continued
Ms Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab):
On the SNP’s policy of introducing a local income tax, does not my hon. Friend think that it is yet another example of the fact that, although the SNP might claim
to be progressive, when it comes to the crunch, it does not put the interests of ordinary families in Scotland and of Scotland’s poorest at the top of its agenda? Does he also agree that the SNP’s recent decision to drop policies on bringing the railways under public control and regulating bus services in Scotland might have something to do with the recent large donation that it received from Brian Souter?
Jim Sheridan: My hon. Friend is correct. It is strange that nationalist policies on transport have changed since the donation from Mr. Souter, raising the question of cash for policies. On council tax, it is a rather strange, tooth-fairy world in nationalist politics. The idea that one can pay nothing and get the same public services is just untrue, as the figures confirm.
On the potential conflict, the SNP has made it clear that it will table a motion for an independence referendum in the first 100 days. By stating that a referendum on independence would happen in 2010, it is attempting to convince the Scottish people that they can defer the constitutional question for four years, but the SNP strategy for tax and turmoil would leave Scotland facing instability and uncertainty from day one.
From day one, the SNP intends actively to seek out and create conflict with Westminster. The SNP has made it clear that it seeks power in the Scottish Parliament for one purpose only—to take Scotland to the brink of independence and beyond. It will pick fights to use the Scottish Parliament as a battering ram to bring about dispute and discord.
Within 100 days, the SNP would introduce an independence Bill. It would tear up the Treasury rule and discipline that have brought economic stability to Scotland, re-create the battles of the 1970s for oil and gas and use every issue from gun laws to Olympic athletes to create tension between the north and the south. The SNP sees every fight within the UK Government as a way of building the case for independence. One SNP insider pointed out last month that the election will give the incoming Government a mandate to open talks with Downing street, saying, “If we don’t get what we want, what better case could there be for independence?”
Within 100 days, the SNP will begin squabbling with London over who owns the oil and gas in the North sea. Taking a step back in time, it wants to re-create the arguments of the 1970s. It is time that the SNP understood that Scotland has moved on.
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab): On revenue from North sea oil, it is interesting to note that the SNP liked what the Financial Times said about the current price of oil and gas—that Scotland would have a surplus this year if it got 95 per cent. of the revenue. But in future years, when gas is a bigger part of the North sea flow and prices come down, there would be a clear deficit in the Scottish budget if Scotland relied upon even 95 per cent. of the revenue from oil and gas. Is it not a false economy to make such plans when it is quite clear that prices will come down, the flow will slow and the revenue will not be there?
Jim Sheridan: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. To base a whole country’s economy on such a volatile product is irresponsible. There is a danger in it, and the people of Scotland must understand exactly what that danger is.
I could go on about the SNP’s policies on independence, but I am sure that some of my colleagues who have kindly come today are more than capable of doing so. As someone who is deeply proud of my Scottish roots, I am equally passionate about my Britishness. That is why I firmly believe that we are stronger together than apart. Unity is strength, as they say in the trade union movement, and that is equally relevant for the Union of the United Kingdom.
11.20 am
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP): I congratulate the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire, North (Jim Sheridan) on securing such an important debate on such an inauspicious day. I was almost detained in getting here today, trying as I was to get through the cheering, flag-waving crowds. Everybody is out celebrating the coming together of our two great nations.
More importantly, the hon. Gentleman secured this debate in what is likely to be one of the most dramatic and significant weeks in Scottish politics. You have probably not been to Scotland much in the past few weeks, Mr. Cummings, but one can sense the feeling there that change is coming. Scotland is about to move forward with hope, aspiration and ambition.
Ms Katy Clark: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Pete Wishart: I will give way, but I would like to tell Labour Members that I will not be up and down like a jack-in-the-box, taking tedious, depressing and negative interventions. My contribution will be the only one that hon. Members will hear this morning from this side of the debate, and they will have plenty of time to catch your eye, Mr. Cummings. I will take the intervention, but could I plead with the hon. Lady to say something positive this time around? I challenge her to do so—go on.
Ms Clark: The hon. Gentleman is well aware of the fact that I often make very positive contributions. He has already quoted opinion polls this morning, and I have no doubt that he will refer to other opinion polls in the rest of his contribution. However, the most recent opinion poll on independence for Scotland showed that only 22 per cent. of the Scottish people are in favour of it. Does he not agree that it would be completely inappropriate for the Scottish National party to proceed with their policy on a referendum if such a small minority of the people are in favour of independence?
Pete Wishart: I knew that it would be a task too far for the hon. Lady to say something positive, but I commend her for raising a point about opinion polls. The last opinion poll was issued by ICM on Sunday, and it showed that 41 per cent. of the Scottish people are in favour of independence. Curiously, it found that 56 per cent. of the English people are also in favour of it. It would seem that the English people are way ahead of the English political parties in this debate, and it seems curious that that is not reflected at all in the policies of many major parties in Westminster.
Mr. Liddell-Grainger:
I am a Scotsman who represents an English seat in Somerset. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that that is not the case—the Scottish
question does not raise its head at all. My constituents know my background; they know who I am. I am sorry to say that, as usual, he is talking through his hat.
Pete Wishart: I do not doubt the hon. Gentleman’s Scottish credentials, but the question was put to English people by ICM, and 56 per cent. said that Scotland should be independent. That is what the survey found, and it is consistent with several opinion polls that canvassed the people of England on the matter. It seems that the English people are way ahead of the hon. Gentleman and his party.
Getting back to the debate about Government policy on Scotland, which I am sure you are keen for us to do, Mr. Cummings, it is clear that the Scottish people have decided that it is time to move on. It is time to put an end to the mediocrity that has been a feature of the Scottish government since its inception. It is time to remove the dead hand of the Labour hegemony and Labour politics in Scotland. Fifty years of the dead hand of Labour is coming to an end—it will be part of history. Scotland will move on to a new chapter of its story that will be characterised by hope, optimism, ambition and aspiration.
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con): Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?
Pete Wishart: I might give way later, but I will not give way just now. I want to try to make a bit of progress. [Interruption.] All right, I give way to the hon. Gentleman.
David Mundell: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could tell us what will happen to the hand of the Liberal Democrats, who have also been in government in Scotland for the past eight years. Will their hand be cast aside, or will it be grasped?
Pete Wishart: I have nothing but respect for my Liberal colleagues. I have long been an admirer of their long-standing principles—a person knows what they will get with the Liberal Democrats. One could not hope to find a finer bunch of people in Scottish politics, and we are very much looking forward to coming to some arrangement with our Liberal colleagues in the next few days.
What we are saying in the debate about Government policy on Scotland is that it is time to move on. If the debate can be characterised by having been for and against anything in the past few years—[Interruption.] I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Stewart Hosie).
The debate has been about hope and fear. On the one hand, there is a positive vision of Scotland. The SNP has an innate belief in the Scottish people and their abilities, talent and creativity. It takes the view that Scotland could be so much better than it is, that it could aspire to greater things and do so much more.
Compare and contrast our vision with the doom and gloom that we have heard from Labour Members. Their comments are negative: Scotland cannot do that, that is not possible, Armageddon will come if they do that, and the deficit will be bigger than that of the Gaza strip. They have tried to suggest that the Scottish
people, almost uniquely among the European peoples, would make a failure of running their country on their own.
Call me old fashioned, but if a party wants to win an election, it should try its best to gear itself to the electorate, not disparage and insult them, which is exactly what Labour Members have been doing. That is why they will take such a hiding this week. Their campaign of negativity has been a disaster for them, and they are likely to realise that on Thursday.
Some of the things that I have heard have been truly outrageous and quite hysterical. Do you remember, Mr. Cummings, when Labour came to Oban a few months ago? There was a massed chorus of doom and gloom. The funniest comments that weekend came from the Home Secretary, who portrayed a Scotland infested by al-Qaeda members who happened to get over the barbed wire and evade the border guards that he believed would be installed.
The other hysterical incident was when the Prime Minister walked into the classic trap that we set. He came to Scotland one morning and managed to insult and disparage one of Scotland’s most successful businessmen. He described George Mathewson, who was responsible for the success of the Royal Bank of Scotland, Scotland’s most important financial institution, as self-indulgent and, I believe, egocentric because he dared to present an opposing political opinion.
Michael Connarty: I wish to correct the hon. Gentleman. That was the story reported by the press, but the full statement was nothing like that. In fact, the Prime Minister praised Mr. Mathewson for all that he did in business but said that his decision to support the SNP was egocentric and, in fact, out of character. The full statement was not about him as a person or his business ideals. Like many people, I believe that people are being self-indulgent and gambling with Scotland’s future by thinking that the SNP could lead the country better than the Labour-Liberal coalition has led it.
Pete Wishart: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman cleared that up. The Prime Minister is in Scotland again today.
David Cairns: The hon. Gentleman prayed in aid the support of George Mathewson, as his party has done incessantly throughout the campaign. Mr. Mathewson did play a large, important and significant part in building up Scotland’s financial services sector. Would the hon. Gentleman reflect on and care to comment on what part George Mitchell, Sir Peter Burt and Jim Spowatt played? Did they play any role whatsoever in building up Scotland’s financial services industry, or were they just bit-part players? If they played any role at all, what is the hon. Gentleman’s view on their opinion that separating Scotland from the UK would be a disaster for financial services institutions in Scotland?
Pete Wishart:
Of course those people are entitled to their opinions, and I hope that they make them clear. We want to hear the opinions of business people throughout the course of the debate. However, there is no way that members of my party would get into the
game of insulting such people, unlike the Prime Minister, who spoke about George Mathewson. I shall not disparage and insult the people whom we saw this morning, for example. They are entitled to their views. We will leave such actions to the Prime Minister, if the Minister does not mind.
As I said, the Prime Minister is back in Scotland today. We know how bad it is for the Prime Minister because when he last came to Scotland, he pleaded with the Scottish people not to give him one more kicking. “I am going away,” he assured them, and for that they will be eternally grateful. “Do not give me one last kicking,” he said.
We Scots are a reasonable people, and, as far as possible, we would like to oblige and indulge the Prime Minister. However, we will give him one hell of a kicking on Thursday. The Scottish people will have their say about him, and it will not be a pretty sight. It will not be a pretty sight for the Prime Minister and it will not be a pretty sight for the Chancellor, who is probably now even more unpopular than the most unpopular Prime Minister since records began. The elections will be a disaster for the Chancellor in his own back yard because he will be defeated. What type of Prime Minister will he be then?
I make a plea to Labour Members: please keep the Prime Minister in Scotland until Thursday. We want to ensure that we get our vote out so that we have as large a majority as possible. Will they keep the Prime Minister in Scotland for as long as they can? His presence in Scotland has focused attention on the Government’s policy in Scotland. Why has the negativity failed this time? Labour Members thought that they simply needed to put the frighteners on the Scottish people one more time and they would all fall into line. That will not happen and there are two very good reasons why it will not. First and most important, the Scottish people do not believe a word that this Government and the Prime Minister say anymore. If this Prime Minister and the Government are prepared to tell untruths—I will not go into why—about why this country went to war, which is the most important fundamental decision that a Government can make, why should the Scottish people believe them about anything else? Why should they believe what the Government say about the details and features of our policy to replace the hated council tax when they tell such huge whoppers about going to war? Of course, people do not believe a word that the Government say anymore.
Jim Sheridan: The hon. Gentleman’s comments are synonymous with exactly how the election campaign is going. Not once has he mentioned any of the issues that will be pertinent on Thursday—health, education, law. All he wants to talk about is what is happening at Westminster. The elections on Thursday are not about issues at Westminster.
Pete Wishart: I do not know whether I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. I assure him that I will come to the issues that he has mentioned—he will have to be patient.
David Cairns:
The hon. Gentleman is generous in giving way. He spoke about council tax and what he claimed was a misrepresentation of his policy. Will he
answer a simple, clear question with a figure rather than windy rhetoric? How much would a two-income couple in a band D property—not a band F property—have to earn before they paid more in local income tax than in council tax?
Pete Wishart: It is strange that the debate about the future of local government finance has become the predominant parliamentary issue in the elections. In the debate about the future of council tax versus local income tax, the First Minister himself could not even come close to saying that the current council tax policy is fair. We believe that our policy is fair and the Scottish people believe that the policy is fair. The Scottish people will have a decision and a choice to make on Thursday: continue with the Labour party and its unfair council tax or move to a much fairer local income tax, as suggested by the Scottish National party. The second reason—
David Cairns: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Pete Wishart: I will not give way. [Interruption.]
John Cummings (in the Chair): Order.
Pete Wishart: In addition to the Scottish people not believing one word that Labour Members say, the second reason why the Scottish people will not believe in the negativity this time is that they are much more confident and self-assured. The Scottish people have had eight years of running their own Government and Parliament, and they know what it is like to do that. Labour Members suggest to the Scottish people that they can confidently run issues such as health and education—as the Scottish people have done already—but that they cannot somehow run defence, foreign affairs or pensions. The Scottish people are saying that that does not chime with their experience and, in that respect, a negative policy does not work anymore.
Mr. Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD): rose—
Pete Wishart: I will, of course, give way to my hon. Friend—well I hope that he is.
Mr. Carmichael: If the hon. Gentleman wishes to put in an application to join my party, it will be considered in due course. That is how he can become my hon. Friend.
Will the hon. Gentleman explain why his party thinks that an independent Scotland would not be capable of having its own currency or setting its own interest rate?
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