Scottish Economy
Debate between Drew Hendry and Christine Jardine(6 years, 4 months ago)
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Drew Hendry
It is such a shame: I was going to offer some unusual, uncommon praise for the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr), with whom I commonly duel across the Chamber, where we fervently disagree. However, his speech today was unusually positive. It may have been slightly off track, as he admitted, but judging by its tone he was at least looking for some opportunity.
I would also almost make an honourable exception of the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone). Until he took an intervention, which unfortunately did not point out that Highlands and Islands Enterprise still operates exactly as it did in the past, or mention the new south of Scotland enterprise agency to go with it, he was talking about Scotland’s strengths. Otherwise, what a desperate collection of speeches talking Scotland down—
Drew Hendry
I am going to make some progress.
That inward investment is happening in the face of Tory austerity, during which time the Scottish Government have focused on building an economy of the future—taking measures to unlock innovation and drive productivity. As we have heard today, productivity is the key, but what we have not heard today is how UK productivity has flatlined for the past decade. As economists will agree, productivity is not everything, but it is almost everything, to an economy.
The hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham) talked about the city deals, but not about how, for example, when one of those deals was put together in Inverness, the Scottish Government put in £135 million and the UK Government—in a so-called partnership—put in only £52 million.
Drew Hendry
No, I am not going to give way. I am going to make some progress; there is limited time in the debate.
The hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire also talked about the Scottish Government having a surplus this year. The Scottish Government work with a fixed budget; they cannot overrun on that. Other Members have mentioned Governments working together, but the present Tory Government cannot even work with the other parties in the Scottish Parliament on Brexit, so how can they be trusted to work with the Scottish Government? The other falsehood—I am sorry, I will take back that word. The other erroneous suggestion made was that Scotland is under a high-tax agenda. That was to forget conveniently that 70% of people in Scotland now pay less tax than they did last year.
The biggest threat to Scotland’s economy comes from the Tory Government’s reckless—[Interruption.]
Drew Hendry
Thank you, Mrs Main.
The biggest threat to Scotland’s economy comes from the Tory Government’s reckless obsession with a hard Brexit. That is not being challenged by the Labour Front Benchers. We have no protection from it. The Scottish Government have put forward, in “Scotland’s Place in Europe”, an option to enable Scotland to avoid the worst effects and stay in the single market and customs union. Incidentally, this week the EU chief negotiator Guy Verhofstadt said that that would be entirely acceptable. Scotland is likely to be hammered by a hard Brexit.
Drew Hendry
No, I am going to make progress. The Fraser of Allander Institute estimates that 80,000 jobs are at risk.