Spending Review and Autumn Statement — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
George Gideon Oliver Osborne (Conservative, Centre-right): This spending review delivers economic and national security for the people of Scotland. It funds a £1.9 billion increase to their capital budget and the block grant goes up by £1 billion. There is a 14% capital boost from the United Kingdom Government. Instead of complaining, the hon. Gentleman might, on behalf of the Scottish Government, have welcomed that and set out any plans he might have for how to spend it. I suspect we will hear a lot from the Scottish nationalists in this Parliament about process, constitutional issues and all that, but they will not tell us what they are actually going to do to improve the lives of people in Scotland. He talks about productivity. If we look at the Scottish Government’s record, we see that they have cut 140,000 further education college places in Scotland. They have used the money they have taken from the university sector for free prescriptions for millionaires, as if that is a good use of Scottish taxpayers’ money. Health spending in Scotland is rising more slowly than it is in England, where the Conservative Government are in charge of the English national health service In the spending review, there is extra capital for Scotland so it can invest in its long-term future. There is a huge commitment to the defence estate in Scotland, with new planes based at RAF Lossiemouth and a massive investment in shipbuilding on the Clyde for many years to come. By the way, I know that the SNP is keen to court the unions in Scotland. The GMB said that the news about the frigates "should be welcomed and not used for political mischief" That is another sensible thing the GMB has said. And there is the huge investment at the base at Faslane, where 8,000 people work. The Scottish National party pretends it would get rid of the nuclear deterrent and somehow give all those 8,000 people jobs in our defence establishment—the SNP is not being straight with the people who work on the Clyde or in Scotland’s defence industries We are also working on implementing the Glasgow city deal, and on a city deal for Inverness and for Aberdeen, and we are ready to sit down with John Swinney to negotiate a fiscal framework. We have now the Scotland Bill, which Lord Smith says "delivers the legislation required" to deliver the agreement. For months, SNP Members have been telling us that we were not doing what the Smith commission said, but now Lord Smith says that we are. To make these powers work, we need agreement on a fiscal framework. Let us sit down—we can sit down tomorrow, next week or whenever—to agree a fair fiscal funding framework The truth is that SNP Members complain about decisions on public expenditure, but if Scotland had voted to be independent, its public finances would be in complete tatters. The OBR forecast today is that oil revenues are down 94% in the North sea because of the fall in the world oil price. That is a £20 billion hole in the financial programme that the SNP Government tried to foist on the people of Scotland. The whole thing can be summed up by the words of Mr Alex Bell, who was the former First Minister’s head of policy. He said this week: "The SNP’s model of independence is broken beyond repair…the campaign towards the 2014 vote, and the economic information since, has kicked the old model to death. The idea that you could have a Scotland with high public spending, low taxes, a stable economy and reasonable government debt was wishful a year ago—now it is deluded." That is the SNP verdict on the SNP plans.