Dave Doogan
Main Page: Dave Doogan (Scottish National Party - Angus)Department Debates - View all Dave Doogan's debates with the HM Treasury
(11 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
Poverty fuelled by the Tory cost of living crisis is a scourge on all communities. I am certain that right hon. and hon. Members across the Chamber have done their best to mitigate the effects of that Tory cost of living crisis and the poverty that it inflicts on constituents—that is, after all, what we are paid to do. That must be pretty awkward for those on the Government Benches, but I am sure that they do it. I see those effects as a constituency MP and I saw them before as a local councillor working to try to help people in the most difficult circumstances.
Most of us in this place will understand that education is the route out of poverty, but that is made all the harder when the macroeconomic position in which people find themselves is set up against them.
Douglas Ross
The hon. Gentleman mentioned education. How does he view the defining mission that Nicola Sturgeon set to completely eradicate the attainment gap in Scotland? Was it a success or not?
Dave Doogan
As much as it pains me, I credit the hon. Member with a little more wit than that. If he thinks that 300 years of this Union and its effect on the people of Scotland—particularly the poorest—can be eradicated in a decade, he is more naive than I thought. He likes rhetoric, but he is not so keen on facts. My colleagues in the Scottish Government are sighted on the challenges of closing the attainment gap and are doing the right thing by our young people, but real life is much harder than that.
What Governments can do—particularly constrained Governments such as that of my colleagues, who exist under the profoundly suboptimal circumstances of devolution—is pull on the levers of investment in education. The hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) might like to know that the Scottish Government invests £1,758 per child in Scotland, compared with England’s £1,439. In Scotland, his constituents in Moray will enjoy a far higher teacher-pupil ratio than elsewhere in the United Kingdom. In Scotland, there are 7,573 teachers per 100,000, versus England’s 5,734 per 100,000. That is a substantial difference. He might be keen to know that, when a teacher qualifies in Scotland, they will attract a remuneration of £33,729, whereas their colleagues in England will be on £28,000.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
My hon. Friend is telling the House about the Scottish Government’s positive work on Scottish education. Does he agree that the Scottish Government are doing all that good work with one hand tied behind their back, because the attainment gap is fed most by poverty, and the levers to deal with it lie in Westminster?
Dave Doogan
I know better than to disagree with my hon. Friend. She is absolutely right. We heard from the Minister when he spoke to his amendment—and perhaps the hon. Member for Moray, I am not sure—about how the Scottish Government have tax-raising powers and do not use them. Having some tax-raising powers is like having a set of spoons and being told to set the table. It is not going to work. They need the whole suite of fiscal levers to make a difference to the economy. My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) is right. We have one hand tied behind our back. We have domestic policy but we do not have the full suite of fiscal policy, and we will never dig into the root causes of the crises faced by communities and businesses in Scotland until we get independence.
The UK is a poor country. The Unionists in the House like to talk up GDP, which is an increasingly meaningless measure of wealth. It has its role, but GDP is largely irrelevant to the ordinary men and women in my constituency. The United Kingdom is so unequal that ordinary people working hard every day of every week of every year still cannot afford to feed their kids or pay their rent at the end of the month. That is not a meaningful economy working in the interests of ordinary people up and down these islands. It would be very different with a Scottish Government and an independent Scotland.
We have heard all about how this is entirely down to the illegal war in Ukraine and the covid pandemic. Interestingly, neither Labour nor the Tories want to lay any blame at the feet of the world’s worst unforced error and self-injury—Brexit. “Brexit has not done anything; it has been nothing but positive for the economy” according to those two delusional movements. In reality, compared with the pre-pandemic level, UK GDP in Q1 of 2023 was 0.5% lower. That contrasts with GDP in the eurozone being 2.5% higher than its pre-pandemic level. In the United States it is 5.3% higher and in Canada 3.5% higher. Among their chums in the G7, the United Kingdom is something of an outlier. I wonder what distinguishes the United Kingdom from those other countries: they did not take the most profoundly daft manoeuvre ever and exit the biggest trading bloc in the world.
Hywel Williams
Does the hon. Gentleman share my surprise that the only Brexit benefit that the Government can identify in their amendment is the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023? Where is the abundance that we were promised?
Dave Doogan
The hon. Gentleman is right, and I will get to that in my conclusion. It did not escape my notice that in talking up Brexit the Government came up with the most abstract and niche policy affecting almost nobody.
On future growth, the IMF forecasts that UK GDP will fall 0.3% in 2023—the lowest figure in the G7 and it is the only member expected not to see growth in 2023. Total real-terms pay fell 3% between December 2022 and February 2023 alone, largely due to inflation and low public sector pay increases. On trade, UK goods exports to the EU remain below 2019 levels, but imports of goods from the EU, despite Brexit, were 1.4% higher in 2022 than in 2019. If it is taking back control to end up with a £92 billion trade deficit with the trading bloc that those people were trying to extract themselves from, I am not certain Brexit is going as well as they would have us believe. I smell a rat.
If the macro numbers do not add up—which they do not—I only have to look to my constituency to see the real cost of the Tory Brexit, which Labour will not oppose, on my fishermen and farmers. Fishermen now have to jump through umpteen bureaucratic hoops to get the same fish, caught in the same grounds, exported to the same market in France as before, when they just had to put it on a lorry. The system is in a state of stability and is working but, as Government Members will know, increased bureaucracy is a drag on trade.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
In my constituency, the fleet catches nephrops—lobster and langoustine. Some 85% of the catch used to be in a Paris market the next day. In January 2021, fishermen got nothing out, and they are still getting less for what they catch because they cannot get it there quickly enough. In our small fleet, we are seeing boats sold and two have already been scrapped. There will be fleets that disappear because of these arrangements—so much for “a sea of opportunity”.
Dave Doogan
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Her fishers, on Scotland’s west coast, are encumbered by the access of all four nations to each other’s waters which the United Kingdom has come up. That is fine if fishermen are in Cornwall, and it is not too troublesome if they are in Peterhead, Arbroath or Montrose. If they are on the west coast of Scotland, they have to go through all the bureaucratic hoops to get their catch into the EU, but if they are in Northern Ireland, they can fish the very same grounds and get the catch directly into the market. A genius bit of organising, that was.
Douglas Ross
The hon. Gentleman is speaking about access. What do his Angus fishermen think about the SNP-Green plans for highly protected marine areas taking 10% of Scottish waters away? Does he support them or does he agree with his Government’s policy?
Dave Doogan
The nub of the hon. Gentleman’s question was whether I support the fishermen of Angus; I would have thought it was patently obviously that I do. In direct answer to his question about highly protected marine areas, the Scottish Government have been very clear—maybe he was down here, juggling jobs, when he should have been up in Scotland listening in his other job—that any community that does not wish to have a highly protected marine area will not have to be subject to it.
David Linden
I do not want to put too much on my hon. Friend, but after the debate will he be so kind as to dig out—indeed, fish out—a copy of the Scottish Tory manifesto that commits exactly to that and place it in writing to the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross)?
Dave Doogan
I think that would be quite interesting. I am not suggesting for one minute that the hon. Member for Moray was saying one thing in 2019 and another thing now, but it would be interesting to see any clash of rhetoric.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
On that point, would the hon. Gentleman give way?
Dave Doogan
In a minute.
It is not just the fishers, because Angus is the garden of Scotland and its farmers are subject to the real constraints of Brexit. People talk about farmers as though they are just a guy with a tractor, but modern agricultural enterprise is a vast undertaking involving plant and seed suppliers, as well as any amount of different subcontractors and small businesses, so when I talk about agriculture I am talking about hundreds of small businesses across Scotland, and thousands across the United Kingdom.
My farmers in Scotland are subject to the UK Internal Market Act 2020, for which my colleagues in the Scottish Government would not give legislative consent, because it is so damaging to Scottish agriculture, even before the introduction of the Australia trade deal on top of it, which undercuts with lower standards. That has created a market in which we cannot possibly compete, where they do volume and we do quality. Scottish agriculture is different to English agriculture, which is much bigger. We do not do bulk in Scotland, which gets to the heart of how broken the Union is. Did the UK Government try to construct that system to promote enterprise, jobs and prosperity in agriculture in Scotland? No, they did not. They did it on the basis of their ideology.
Turning back to business investment, where there is a thriving business community, there are jobs and upward pressure on wages. That is what we need to get people out of poverty—
Alan Brown
Will my hon. Friend give way to the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine)?
Christine Jardine
I was intrigued to hear the hon. Member talking about fishing policy. What is his view on the fact that his own party of government in Scotland has not seemed able to agree since the former Minister criticised the Government’s policy? I am fascinated that he is talking about supporting businesses when every business in my community tells me that they have nothing but complaints about the business rates imposed by the Scottish Government.
Dave Doogan
I thank the hon. Member for her intervention, but I would love to see the evidence that every single business in Edinburgh West is critical of the Scottish Government, but that is not what she said, is it? Let us not forget that the business environment of Scotland is far preferable, particularly for small, independent traders, to the rest of the United Kingdom, because we have the small business bonus and rates do not kick in for small businesses until they have a rateable value of £15,000, unlike a rateable value of £12,000 in England. So I will not be taking any lectures from any Unionist about the business environment that we have created in Scotland.
Business investment grew in real terms steadily between 2009 and the Brexit vote. It then failed to grow at all between the Brexit vote and the pandemic, and has not returned to pre-Brexit levels. It fell off a cliff after the pandemic and has increased barely to where it was 10 years ago. As I said earlier on, when it comes to the nature of the United Kingdom, this is now a poor country. I do not know if that comes as news to anybody on the Government or Opposition Benches: this is now a poor country, irrespective of the GDP that gives a false prospectus of what it is to live in this country. Comparisons for 2021, in pounds rather than dollars, show that the UK is 14th, behind Ireland, Australia, Iceland, Denmark, and Norway. In terms of OECD countries, the United Kingdom finds itself in a very poor position, with an average salary of £37,500. I appreciate that many people listening to the debate will think, “Well, I wish I was on £37,500,” but that is an average salary, which is pushed up by a few colossal salaries. What is far more interesting and compelling is the median salary, which is down in the low £30,000s.
It is helpful in demonstrating how poor the United Kingdom is to compare like-for-like occupations. Nurses are paid more in Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, the United States, Belgium, Iceland and Luxembourg. The average salary of a nurse in the United States from 2016 to 2019 was £54,900; in Belgium it was £55,000; and in the Netherlands it was £46,000. However, in the UK it was £33,000. That is a directly comparable job and gives an interesting perspective on where we are.
When adjusted by purchasing power, salaries are even worse. Not only are the salaries lower, but the cost of living, thanks to the Tory party, is even higher. The purchasing power of a nurse’s salary is lower in the UK than the OECD average and lower than in Slovenia, Ireland, Spain, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.
Current estimates of an average nurse’s salary in the UK are that they will go up to £35,600, but the salary pay scale for new nurses in band 5 in Scotland tops out at £37,664, which is probably why the health spend per person is £3,490 in Scotland as opposed to £3,192 in England. The number of staff in the NHS in Scotland per 100,000 people is 2,845, compared with 2,224 in England. We value our nurses even when they are training, by making sure they get a £10,000 bursary in Scotland, rather than a £5,000 bursary. These are the best jobs in many of our communities. Teachers are very much in the same position.
The hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) mentioned the Government’s amendment to the motion, but what I have said and what some of my colleagues are about to say lays bare the myth within it. The amendment reads that this House
“welcomes the Government’s action to halve inflation, grow the economy and reduce debt”.
Well, inflation has not halved, and the Government are not acting but hoping. The economy is shrinking, but even it is was not—sorry, the economy is not shrinking; it is growing. The Government are saying that we have the highest growth in the G7, but we are starting from the lowest base. Growth is relative to where it starts from, and the Government are not too keen to talk about that. They are saying that they are taking action to reduce debt. When they took over, there was £0.8 trillion of debt in this country, but that is now getting on for £2.5 trillion of debt. They have completely lost control of debt, and they have obviously lost control of reality as well if they are suggesting that this is a measure of their doing really well. We have already mentioned the obscurity of the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023 as a measure of how good Brexit has been. If that is what we have to show for Brexit, a lot of people up and down these islands will be scratching their heads and wondering whether it was all worth it.
The Government go on to note in their amendment that
“the SNP and Labour would fail to grip inflation or boost economic growth with their plans for the economy”.
Well, they are half right, because Labour would wreck the economy. It would certainly fail to get a grip on inflation or improve growth, for when has it ever done anything else? Show me a time when Labour was put out of office without leaving the economy in tatters—and it will be the same every time for the UK population. Scotland is subject to the electoral will of the UK—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) challenging me to be a Tory? That is a good one.
We need to educate our people well, and ensure that they can use that education in their employment environment so that they can have well-paid jobs enabling them to pay their way and do better than their parents. Even with the limited powers that we have in Scotland, we have a higher level of foreign direct investment than any other part of the United Kingdom; we have the best small business environment in the UK, with the most attractive small business bonus; our level of research and development is enviable according to UK standards; we have the most universities per head, with incredible research and innovation taking place in them; and our median wage income tax rate is lower.
The hon. Member for Moray, who said a lot earlier, talked of the scandal of paying for services, which he calls tax. It is tax, obviously, but he looks at only one side of the equation. People under a social contract in Scotland have elected a Government who support funded interventions in, for instance, eye tests, better-paid nurses, tuition fees, pupil equity funding, and all manner of other social contract interventions. The hon. Gentleman is supposed to be a Tory, and the Tories are supposed to be the party of business. They are supposed to be, at the very least, fiscally and economically literate; although I would respectfully suggest that the evidence implies otherwise. The hon. Gentleman must know that there is nothing for nothing. Although we rhetorically describe these things as free, they are not free; they need to be paid for, and I suggest to him that the people of Scotland know that very well.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
Lower bills, lower energy costs, tariff-free trade with the EU—would that not make life a bit easier as we contend with this Tory-led cost of living crisis? But those were also the bullish forecasts of Brexiteer MPs and the “leave” campaign back in 2016. Of course, industry groups knew far better than to take their claims at face value. The Food & Drink Federation warned that prices for shoppers were likely to go up as the pound fell. Rising food bills were also predicted by the Resolution Foundation—a finding, we should remember, that was branded “ridiculous” by leading Brexiteers who insisted to us that the opposite would happen. We were all dismissed as “remoaners”. In fact, frustratingly, we have been shown to be Cassandras, which I am sure will be appreciated by Conservative Members who are versed in the classics, although the Minister’s inability even to utter the “B” word in his opening speech suggests that they have learnt absolutely nothing.
Early in 2017, I spoke in this place of the warning from NFU Scotland that Brexit was the biggest challenge to Scottish food producers in generations. Farmers, food processing companies and hauliers needed workers from the EU, access to European markets, and guarantees on future financial support. Many of Scotland’s farmers depended on that financial support to remain viable businesses, as did fishers and so many in our food manufacturing and processing industries. How often did my colleagues and I come to this place to repeat the warnings from industry groups, the Scottish Government and other devolved Administrations? But all that we heard back was ridicule, slander and dismissal.
Fast-forward seven years—and more than three years since we left the EU— and food prices are reportedly at their highest level for 45 years. Research published in April by Which? found that the price of staples such as cheddar cheese and white bread had shot up by as much as 80%, while the cost of porridge oats and semi-skimmed milk had risen by more than a third; and, of course, this is disproportionately impacting the least well-off among us. A recent study by the Co-op and Barnardo’s found that one in three young people aged between 10 and 25 has reported that their family has had to rely on food support.
Yes, the causes of inflation and the cost of living crisis are multifaceted. Yes, covid and the effects of Russia’s war in Ukraine have exacerbated price rises. Those have had an impact the world over, but, nevertheless, cost rises are cutting deeper here. The UK is the worst-performing economy in the G7. As a result of Brexit, GDP has fallen by 4% and exports are down 15%, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility. The European Central Bank’s new report says that Brexit has caused
“a significant decline in trade with the United Kingdom in almost all cases”
of anywhere between 10% and 25%. Goods exports are lagging behind those of all other major economies, which in Scotland amounts to a loss of £2.2 billion since we left the EU.
As we read in The Irish Times yesterday, in its recent update on financial projections for the year and the performances of its principal export economies, Ireland’s Department of Finance noted that
“at the end of last year the level of activity in the UK is not only 7 to 8 per cent below the level implied by the hypothetical no pandemic/no war scenario, it was also below its pre-pandemic level. This is in sharp contrast to other regions such as the euro area and US, where activity has surpassed pre-pandemic levels and…almost back at levels implied by the pre-pandemic trend growth rate.”
Horrifyingly, it is expected that things may well get worse before they get better, partly owing to the new customs checks for EU imports that will be phased in from October. While those prophetic Conservative Members insisted that there would be minimal costs, their Micawberish optimism was not reflected in the UK Government’s own internal estimates, which put the cost to importers of these checks at up to £400 million a year. The British Chambers of Commerce, the British Retail Consortium and the British Meat Processors Association warn of higher inflation and suppliers passing on some of the extra costs, which will mean higher prices in shops.
The Scottish National party welcomes the upcoming investigation by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee of the cost of producing food and the price burden on consumers. There are growing concerns across Europe, and notably in the European Central Bank, that soaring food prices are also a result of “greedflation”,a trend with which the UK Government unfortunately seem quite comfortable. If they are not, why are they not taking real action to solve the problem? Will they call another food summit at No. 10, where the Prime Minister will pretend once again to listen to the voices of farmers, fishers and food producers of all sorts before, no doubt, trotting off to do exactly as his neo-liberal thinking directs? He did not listen to those voices before his Government negotiated trade deals so bad that the former Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs finally even felt compelled to come clean with the criticisms that he had unfortunately kept to himself before then.
Dave Doogan
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Home Secretary’s remark that there is no reason why ordinary British people cannot pick fruit demonstrates that this Government—regardless of who is in office in which Department—have zero understanding of modern agricultural methods, and are not to be trusted with rural environments?
Deidre Brock
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I was shocked to read the Home Secretary’s comments, which I thought were patronising and did not reflect the reality of modern agriculture, or, indeed, the real skills that are needed by, for example, berry-pickers—which is certainly something that the Scottish Affairs Committee learnt when some of its members took part in that activity a few years ago.
When will the UK Government follow the lead of other European countries, and intervene to bring down the price of food and other necessities? France, for example, introduced a “price block” on staple products. What pressure will be put on major retailers to pass on falling wholesale prices to shoppers? It is vital for the Competition and Markets Authority to utilise its full powers and impose maximum fines where evidence of price-gouging is found.
Although Brexit offers nothing to Scotland except economic hardship, the SNP is now the only major party that opposes it. Labour is not only pro-Brexit, but seems to be set on preserving some of the Tory Government’s most damaging policies. Even the DWP has at last admitted that benefit sanctions do not work, but I was shocked to learn that Labour’s shadow Work and Pensions Secretary has U-turned on the promise to scrap them, instead characterising people who are out of work due to health problems as a “growing burden” on the economy and individuals.
In the last couple of years, food security has become an issue of huge significance, and yet agricultural production in Scotland and the rest of the UK is set to slide. Immigration policy still falls short by some way of the numbers needed by our once thriving berry, brassica and other foods, fishing, food processing and manufacturing sectors, already hit by skyrocketing inflation, fuel and fertiliser costs.
Judging by their amendment, the UK Government seem to think that their failings in other areas can be compensated for by silver bullets such as gene editing. In January, the Scottish Parliament declined to give legislative consent for the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill, which along with the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, is yet another attack on the integrity of the Scottish Parliament in specifically devolved areas such as agriculture, aquaculture and animal welfare. The impact assessment for the Bill recognised that
“products entering the market in England would also be marketable in both Scotland and Wales.”
Yet, wholly predictably, the Tory Government made no attempt to work closely with the Scottish Parliament. We now face the prospect of gene-edited products being sold in Scotland, unlabelled, unauthorised by Scottish Ministers and without consumers in Scotland having been properly informed or consulted on how they feel about that. It also means undermining once more the Scottish Government’s aim of staying aligned with EU regulation as far as possible and practicable. We do not want to erect further barriers to our largest market, so sensibly we are waiting to see the outcomes of the EU review of gene-edited products before acting—unlike the UK Government.
Amid this mess, we are stuck between the Conservative party, many of whose deluded members appear to think Brexit would work if only us miserable remoaners wished hard enough, and the Labour party, which seems to think that offering better administration of Brexit will do the trick rather than being brave enough to admit to the electorate what a disaster it has been. Ultimately, until Scotland becomes an independent nation and full member of the EU, we will be constrained by Westminster’s two-party consensus, unable to harness all the powers needed to tackle the cost of living crisis, fund our objectives in food production, set our own immigration policies or fully realise the potential of our food and drink export industries.
Nevertheless, Scotland is thankfully taking a very different approach to social security. The IFS found that the lowest income families in Scotland are significantly better off thanks to the Scottish Government’s progressive tax and benefit policies. The Scottish child payment, for instance, has been further expanded to eligible six to 15-year-olds and increased in value to £25 per child per week—a real game changer. But our hands will always remain tied while 85% of welfare expenditure and income-replacement benefits remain reserved to Westminster.
Christine Jardine
Yes, the hon. Lady has made me quite angry, because this is far more important than that.
Surely the cost of living for so many people in Scotland, our constituents, could be alleviated if we did not now pay more tax than anywhere else in the UK. The situation is so bad that the Scottish newspapers today are reporting that the SNP-Green Government are concerned that the ever-increasing taxation burden may now encourage people to move elsewhere. Is that not dreadful?
Dave Doogan
When the hon. Lady speaks about the financial pressures and burdens on families and communities, she hits the nail on the head. How important for her constituents is not having to worry about the cost of a prescription, rather than finding £9.65; being certain that their children will get to university if they make their grades, without having fears about funding; or having any other benefit that they enjoy in Scotland but not in England? How grateful are her constituents?
Christine Jardine
When my constituents come to me, what they complain about is not that they might have to pay that amount for prescriptions were it not for the Scottish Government; they complain about the burden they face every day at the moment. Businesses complain to me about the Scottish Government. Constituents regularly complain to me that they do not understand why the Scottish Government are not doing something about the state of our NHS and not doing something to provide a better education for their children to give them a better chance in life. That is what my constituents complain about.
As for Brexit, I agree with the SNP that it is doing immense damage to our economy, making life incredibly difficult for business and increasing the burden on families. What surprises me is that the SNP fails to recognise that to take Scotland out of the UK would be to repeat and amplify that damage to Scotland’s economy, income and households. Why does the SNP want to inflict the same damage again? Of course independence is its solution to everything—
Gavin Newlands
Who said it was a strategy? It is a fact. All I am doing is pointing out facts. If the hon. Gentleman wants me to read out all the examples of his leader going back on his word in terms of nationalising various industries, I am more than happy to do that, but I am not sure we have time for it. Everyone here and everyone in Scotland knows that his manifesto will be Tory lite at the next election. It might work in Edinburgh South, but it is not going to work in many places across the central belt of Scotland.
Dave Doogan
Does my hon. Friend see the delicious irony that the electoral fortunes of Scottish Labour are hinged entirely on the electoral ambitions of middle England?
Gavin Newlands
It is as if my hon. Friend has read my speech—I was sitting beside him, so maybe he did—because I am making the very same point; indeed, I just made the same point about the midlands marginal. The Labour leader is betting the entire future of the UK on winning a few votes in English marginals, and Scottish Labour had better wake up to the reality that that is not going to cut it when they are out campaigning at the doors in the next election.
At the same time, the Labour candidate in Paisley and Renfrewshire North will be campaigning against a Scottish Government who have rolled out 1,140 hours a year of free, high-quality childcare, delivered over a quarter of a million baby boxes to new parents, scrapped prescription charges, extended free bus travel to under-22s, maintained free eye tests and provided free school meals for pupils in primary 1 to 5—all measures that are putting money back in the pockets of people where it is needed most—and against an utter rejection of the fallacy that the state should be rolled back, a fantasy that has afflicted the UK for the past 13 years. For the Labour party to turn its back on reversing the lunacy of the previous 13 years is a complete abdication of responsibility—responsibility that should be focused on those who need the state’s help the most.
To give just one example, the First Steps Nutrition Trust’s report this month on the impact of the cost of living crisis on child diets found that the cost of infant formulas had increased by an average of 24%, while the cheapest formula went up by 45%. The average tin of formula now costs just over £14, while the Healthy Start grant in England, Wales and Northern Ireland was frozen this year, and less than two thirds of eligible families are successful in applying for a grant. At the same time, the Scottish Government have uprated our Best Start package by over 10% this year—that package has an 88% uptake rate—as well as rolled out and expanded the Scottish child payment, getting support to households who desperately need it. It is utterly shameful that we have babies in this country with parents who cannot afford to feed them even the basics. Infants are crying with hunger because the pittance that the UK Government have decided is enough to feed them does not cut it in the real world. The chances of those infants getting a healthy diet once they get older have also decreased, with fresh food inflation sitting at 17%—that is where shops have fruit and veg at all.
There will be Members on the Government Benches who have the gall to tell us that empty fridge shelves and rocketing prices of imported produce are nothing to do with Brexit. They are all someone else’s fault—the hauliers, the farmers, the shops, the workers, the parents, the children—anything to avoid responsibility for the catastrophic mess they have created. They wanted to take back control; instead, they have taken us back to the 1970s, with inflation through the roof, industrial action across the economy, living standards falling continually and food shortages in our shops.
Just this week, the zoomers and zealots who pushed the Brexit campaign in the first place are gathered for a festival of delusion up the road from this place. The influence that these cranks and charlatans have had on the body politic and the direction of these isles is surely the most revealing piece of evidence that the UK is a busted flush. They have succeeded in isolating us from our allies and continuing the harmful economic policies that their great leader Thatcher imposed in the past.
Those who promised that Brexit would mean taking back control should explain exactly what control they think they have taken back. Is it control over an energy market that is rigged against consumers and profits the middleman? Is it control over the tens of thousands of skilled workers who have fled this country in recent years to their former homes in EU countries, so disturbed and dispirited were they by the hostile environment and bureaucratic nonsense cooked up by Members on the Government Benches—now with the connivance of Labour Members, too—leaving our health service without skilled and dedicated staff when we need them most, and virtually every bus company in the country cancelling services because so many drivers have moved to Poland?
Is it control over an economy that even the Government’s own Office for Budget Responsibility says will end up 4% smaller than it would have been without Brexit—wealth and productivity that will never come back while the UK sits in unsplendid isolation? This is an economic crisis that is not going to go away. It is permanently embedded in the fundamental structure of how the UK operates and the way in which the UK governing class and both parties have turned their backs on the rest of Europe. What is equally shameful is that we have a Labour party that is fully signed up to that Brexit agenda—signed up to policies that will continue to take us down that failed road.
At least Scotland has a way out. At least Scotland has a Government who are taking action, despite the fiscal restrictions imposed by the UK, to tackle child poverty through the Scottish child payment and Best Start; to create a social security system that puts dignity and respect at its heart; and to invest in decarbonisation and a just transition to net zero. At least Scotland has a party that takes seriously its responsibility to its citizens to do better, and at least Scotland has a Government who want to rejoin the world and be part of the mainstream of Europe, rather than sit in self-imposed exile. At least Scotland has a Government who want us to fully harness the wealth and resources of our country, natural and human, as an independent sovereign nation. It is time that Members on both Front Benches got out of the way of that democratic mandate and allowed the people of Scotland the chance to escape a Union that is costing them more than ever.