Protecting Public Services and Boosting Scotland’s Economy

As an amendment to motion S4M-12521 in the name of John Swinney (Protecting Public Services and Boosting Scotland’s Economy), leave out from “condemns” to end and insert “ rejects the UK Government’s failing austerity plan as set out in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement; understands that the Office for Budget Responsibility has warned that this would take public spending back to a share of national income not seen since the late 1930s, before the NHS came into existence; notes that the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that this would entail cuts on a colossal scale and has raised concerns that this could involve a fundamental reimagining of the role of the state; calls on the UK Government to instead adopt a different, fairer and more balanced approach, which involves a reversal of its £3 billion-a-year income tax cut for people earning over £150,000; recognises that a UK Labour government will ban exploitative zero-hours contracts, with rules introduced to give new rights to employees on these contracts; recognises the crucial role of the oil and gas industry to the success of the Scottish economy; notes that full fiscal autonomy, Scottish-only taxes for Scottish-only spending, would mean billions of pounds of cuts, and therefore rejects full fiscal autonomy in favour of the continuation of the Barnett formula to protect Scottish public services."