 Felly, yn y ffäris fel y norfen islu, ein minister hyn yn ystod y lleidgofio ar y SNF, sy'n aelod y ddechrau, yn cael ei ddoch wedi ei dda, sy'n ei ddynnu. Felly, yn ei ddod y ddynnu, mae'n ysgol, naddw i ddibwyaith y cyfnod. Felly, mae'n ddidw i ei ddibwyaith. Felly, mae'n ddibwyaith, gan hynny, yn ôl yn y llywodraeth said this of the SNP Government. We intend to honour the commitments and promises in our manifesto. I welcome that very clear commitment from such a leading light in the SNP, and sitting right beside Mr Yousaf throughout that debate was the finance secretary, Derek Mackay, enthusiastically nodding along with everything that he had to say. I am sure that all SNP members in the chamber, from Mr Mackay downwards, will welcome the opportunity that the Conservatives are giving them this afternoon to affirm that very clear commitment in their manifesto on income tax. The wording in the SNP manifesto could not have been clearer. It states, and I quote directly, that we will freeze the basic rate of income tax throughout the next Parliament to protect those on low and middle incomes. That is the exact wording of our motion today, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I trust therefore that every single SNP member in this chamber will vote today to fulfil their manifesto commitment. Of course, it was not just in the manifesto that this commitment was made. Just before the election in 2016, the First Minister said this. No taxpayer will see their bills increase as a result of these Scottish Government proposals. On 30 April last year, she said this, that we are not going to increase tax for low and middle income earners because transferring the burden of austerity on to their shoulders is not the right thing to do. It was not just the First Minister. The Deputy First Minister told this Parliament on 3 February last year, that I want to say to teachers and public service workers the length and breadth of the country that I value the sacrifices that they have made and that the last thing I am going to do is to put up their taxes. In fact, she said this 53 times that she said that the basic rate should not go up. It could not have been clearer. The last thing that the SNP members are going to do was to put up taxes for those on the basic rate. If all the press speculation is to be believed, that is exactly what they are considering for tomorrow's budget. In the Scottish Parliament election last year, the whole question of tax was right at the centre of the debate. Of the parties who stood for election, there were two, ourselves and the SNP, who pledged no increase in the basic rate of tax. Between us, our two parties, the taxpayers' alliance of the Scottish Parliament, we achieved some 65 per cent of the regional list vote, so 65 per cent of Scots, nearly two thirds, voted for parties opposing any increase in the basic rate of income tax. The First Minister is very fond of describing the 62 per cent of Scots who voted to remain in the EU referendum last year as an overwhelming majority. On that basis, 65 per cent voted against basic rate income tax right. It must be an even more overwhelming majority. Let us be quite clear. There is absolutely no mandate from the Scottish people for any increase in the basic rate of income tax, however that is brought about. Nearly two thirds of Scots opposed that just 20 months ago. I will give way to Mr Kelly. I thank Murdo Fraser for taking the intervention. He talks about mandates. Does he believe that there was a mandate for swinging public service cuts? Murdo Fraser? No, because the Scottish Government's budget is going up, Mr Kelly, as we will come to in due course. It is all very well for Labour MSPs to make points about budgets and spending and taxes. It is all right for them with their second jobs earning six-figure salaries for three weeks' work at the other side of the world. They cannot teach the rest of us what it is like to struggle on low incomes. It is only the Conservatives to understand what it is like for the workers who do not have the benefit of those second jobs and those telephone directory salaries, Presiding Officer. The finance secretary himself gave some reassurance earlier this year. Back in February, he said that, I am determined to stay true to our income tax proposals, not only because I believe that a vast number of the Scottish electorates support them, but because I believe that they will deliver the best outcome for the Scottish people at this time. The clear vision that we set out for income tax last year remains, as stated, it is to protect low and middle income taxpayers. Deputy Presiding Officer, all the messages from the SNP for the past two years on this issue have been crystal clear. It was clear in their manifesto. It was clearly stated by the First Minister. It was clearly stated by the Deputy First Minister and it was clearly stated by the finance secretary. Those paying the basic rate of tax, low and middle income earners, should see no increase in the tax that they are being asked to pay. Because I am at heart a generous soul and I always like to see the best in people, I can only assume that the finance secretary—not at the moment—I can only assume that the finance secretary and his colleagues are not about to tear up their manifesto, that they are not about to renege at all the promises that they have made and that they do want to protect low and middle income earners as they have promised to do. Therefore, they will have no hesitation in supporting our motion at decision time tonight that quotes directly from their own manifesto. I absolutely agree with the principle that we should help the lowest paid. That is precisely why a Conservative Government at Westminster, in a second, is aiming to double the personal allowance, which has already increased from £6,475 in 2010-11 to £11,500 in 2017-18. That is cut income tax for basic rate taxpayers for the lowest paid by more than £1,000. It has lifted hundreds of thousands of the lowest paid out of tax altogether, and we reject the notion that those who have been helped in this way should be hit with higher tax rises. I will give way to Mr Finlay. Neil Findlay. Mr Fraser, how does it protect the low paid when you are asking women who have been raped to have to declare that in order to get tax credits? I am not sure what tax credit has got to do with this debate, Mr Finlay. I know that he is feeling a bit bashed after my comments earlier on this colleague. Perhaps if he is concerned about people paying taxes, he should start a bit closer to home. There is no necessity for tax increases despite all the rhetoric that we have heard from the SNP. For the analysis that has been done by Spice of the Scottish Government's budget, it shows that it is far from being cut. It is going up in real terms from this year to the next. I am surprised that the Government amendment this afternoon quotes from the Fraser of Allander institute. The analysis that it published just on Tuesday makes it clear, and I quote directly, that the Scottish Government's total block grant, resource and capital, but excluding financial transactions, is on track to increase by around 1 per cent between 2016-17 and 2019-20. We know that the finance secretary does not like this. He is the wrong sort of money. He does not like talking about capital—he does not like talking about the total budget—but capital finance secretary can be spent in case he did not know on infrastructure, on school buildings, on hospitals, on broadband projects, all helping to grow the economy. He would think that he would welcome that, Deputy Presiding Officer, all that extra money. I think that the finance secretary rather fell over himself earlier at finance questions. He said that his discretionary spend had been cut, but capital does form part of his discretionary spend. It is not his discretionary spend that has been cut. His discretionary spend is going up according to both Spice and Fraser of Allander. This is a Government that has more money to spend, but it is threatening to raid the pockets of hard-working families across the country. Oh, well, here we go. We will find out from Mr Arthur if he is standing by his manifesto or not. Just a minute, Mr Arthur. Let me call you Tom Arthur. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Does Murdo Fraser accept the analysis of the independent, highly respected Fraser of Allander Institute that Scottish Government's resource budget, the budget that pays public sector wages, has been cut by half a billion in real terms over the next two years? Who is correct, Mr Fraser of the Fraser of Allander? Murdo Fraser. I do wonder if Mr Arthur was paying attention a few minutes ago to what I had to say. I have just quoted from Fraser of Allander. Fraser of Allander is saying that budget is going up over the next three years. He is taking a line from the finance secretary. Is the wrong sort of money—is the wrong sort of money—that he thinks to be grateful for the money that he is getting. Just last month, the Scottish National Party published this document, The Role of Income Tax, in Scotland's budget. I commend the finance secretary for it. I commend the finance secretary for it, for it is a thoughtful and inconsidered piece of work, which sets out a number of options to increase the tax burden. It comes down to four positions, but three out of those four positions would see basic rate payers hit with higher taxes. There is a despiteless paper admitting that increases in the basic rate would cut consumer spending and damage the economy. There is no wonder that every business organisation in Scotland has lined up to oppose further income tax rises. The Scottish Chambers of Commerce said that a high-tax Scotland would be easy to achieve, but the damage could take years to repair. CBI Scotland said that moves that would make Scotland less competitive or less attractive must be avoided at all costs. The Federation of Small Business Survey found that 79 per cent of business owners do not want higher income tax in Scotland. The Scottish Retail Consortium and Scottish Engineering have warned about a negative economic impact from higher tax rises, and even business for Scotland, the pro-independence SNP-supporting front organisation, have condemned this move if they will not listen to us. Perhaps they need to listen to business for Scotland. I will not listen to them and anything else, but listen to them on the issue of our income tax. I cannot help noticing that we have seen a bit of a change in direction from the SNP, because when Alex Salmond was First Minister, there were many businesses in Scotland supporting the SNP. Under Nicola Sturgeon, they are losing the trust of the business community. This week, both Jim McCall and Sir George Matheson, two respected business leaders who previously advised the Scottish Government, both enthusiastic SNP supporters, have warned against more tax rises. There is an alternative approach, which is exactly what we are proposing. First, we need to start eliminating waste. We have seen that the Scottish Government spent £190 million on a computer system for farm payments that it is simply not delivering. We have seen £170 million annually spent on agency staff in the NHS, a bill that could be substantially reduced with better workforce planning. We have seen the cost of bed blocking in the NHS now at £132 million a year. The second thing that they need to do is cut out the vanity projects and the unnecessary programmes. We do not need to throw public money at a citizen's income pilot scheme when everybody knows that that is a policy that will never be implemented. We need to scrap the toxic and discredited named person policy that is soaking up millions in training and legal fees. We need to get rid of the vanity project that is baby boxes, something that is all about providing photo opportunities for SNP ministers. There is no proven health benefits and was denounced by the SNP's own poverty advisor as no more than a gimmick and is costing £35 million over the next four years. Above all, we need to grow our economy. We are currently growing at one-third of the UK rate and we have more tax revenue to spend if we could at least match UK rates of growth or even exceed them. The Fraser Valander Institute has said that if we could grow the Scottish economy by just half a percent more than the UK average over a decade, we have an extra billion pounds in tax revenue to spend. That is where the Scottish Government should be concentrating its efforts, not increasing the tax burden on hard-working families. This debate really is about something very simple. It is about whether politicians can be trusted to keep their promises. The SNP manifesto was clear that the basic rate of income tax will be frozen throughout the Parliament to protect those on low and middle incomes. That is exactly the wording of our motion this afternoon, and I trust that there will not be a single SNP member in this chamber who will have the gall to vote against their own manifesto commitment. I am pleased to move the motion in my name. I couldn't hear whether you moved the motion. Did you, Mr Fraser? I did, I'm sorry, I got lots of noise by this. Thank you very much. I now call on Derek Mackay, cabinet secretary, to speak and move amendment 6513.4, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I move the amendment in my name. I'm also very mindful about what you've said about props, but just like Murdo Fraser I've brought my own, which is a discussion paper that, in fairness, has been very well received by economists and commentators in terms of the methodology and the principles within it. People may take a different view as to the illustrative approaches in the document, but it is reassuring that, as the Parliament's powers mature that people engage in it in a constructive fashion in a way that is well informed, there is also something to be said about Parliament engaging in how it uses its powers before it takes those decisions as well. I agree with Murdo Fraser that we need to grow our economy. That must be absolutely central to what we do in a sustainable way, but I would also say to Murdo Fraser that, as we use our new powers and discharge our responsibilities, Murdo Fraser is right that we should grow the economy, but Murdo Fraser should also grow up a wee bit in terms of the engagement in this particular exercise. Murdo Fraser knows only too well that the resources that we have to spend on day-to-day front-line services have gone down, will go down as a consequence of the UK budget, of £200 million next year and £500 million over the two-year period. That is the resource figure, the resources to be spent on front-line day-to-day services. Murdo Fraser also knows that, when talking about the capital figure as well, a large chunk of that is financial transactions, which are loans that have to be paid back to Treasury. £1.1 billion worth of the figure that you cite is financial transactions. I do not know why you are shaking your head, because that is a true figure. Let me make some progress and then we can engage. We are two minutes in, but I thought that it was very interesting from the proposition from the Tories talking about trust. I have to say that trust in Tories does not normally go hand in hand in terms of what they say and what they do in the UK Government. We also have a taster, a taster of an alternative budget from Murdo Fraser that abandons the baby box. What do they have against giving children the best possible start in life? When they talk about vanity projects, I remember when they said that about the Queensferry crossing, which was delivered by the Government. He suggests that we do not pay out the farm payments. I am sure that I heard the Conservatives say that that was a point of criticism as well in ensuring that that has been. That was just a taster of some of the priorities and the minds of the Conservatives. What they have actually delivered is austerity. A austerity incidentally that was not supported by a majority of people in Scotland. If you want to talk about reflecting the choices of the people in Scotland, they have not supported your in-principle austerity over a number of years since you came to office. It has amounted to £2.6 billion reduction in real terms to our resource spending. That is equivalent to the entire amount of non-domestic rates income that Scotland achieves every year. I will take no lectures, of course. Is the cabinet secretary still committed to his manifesto pledge on tax? Yes or no? I know that a muddle phraser like an impatient child is eager to know what my budget says and in accordance with parliamentary procedure and what the chamber would expect. I will outline our tax proposition tomorrow when I present the draft budget, but it will be set within that challenging context of a reduction of £0.5 billion over two years. A figure verified by the Fraser of Allander Institute. The front bench knows only too well that you cannot spend those resources that you have referred to on the front-line resource demands around teachers' pay or a range of other front-line services. You know that only too well, but it is not just that reduction to Scotland's budget. It is the stealth reductions and the stealth austerity as well, whether it is welfare or a range of other areas such as the unfair treatment to Scotland on police and fire VAT. I will welcome the fact that the new Government has changed its mind. Remember that we were told that it was the strength of the Tory MPs? It turns out that it suits a number of English authorities who are converging as well, something that is increasingly coming to light, but the Tories are so strong. Are you lobbying for us to get the £140 million back that has been taken from Scotland's emergency services? We want that money backdated to support our public services. Of course, we still hear about the control that the DUP has over the UK Government. Where is our share of the DUP bung that was given to them by the UK Government over a billion pounds? With the UK Government, we have continued austerity, we have sluggish UK-wide economic growth, we have the unpredictability of Brexit and the impact that will have on the UK and the Scottish economy and issues around productivity as well. It is clear from all that the priority of the Conservatives is not to grow our economy. The Tories are the biggest threat to the economy in Scotland, but, at the same time, when the Tories talk about taxes, the only tax cuts that they want are for the richest in society—those who own the higher value properties, those who have the bigger businesses and those who pay the most tax cuts. That is who they want tax cuts for, not low- and middle-income taxpayers, but who the Tories really have in mind with their proposition. The Scottish Government has no desire to take our advice. Why, therefore, does it not take the advice of the Scottish chambers of commerce, or the CBI Scotland, the FSB or the Scottish Retail Consortium and real businesses out there employing real people who do not want tax cuts to go up in Scotland? What does it have to say to them, not to us? Derek Mackay I have a great many things to say tomorrow in terms of the draft budget. The principles that we outlined in our consultation paper, which was welcomed by those organisations and many others for that matter, set out four tests that we would aim to meet in delivering a tax proposition. Yes, that was about protecting and promoting our public services, something that we talk about and we absolutely deliver. We also want to protect lower-income earners. We want to use the tax system in a progressive fashion. We also want to protect and promote the economy, and it is about how we spend resources as well. I will engage, of course, with the business community and put forward a proposition that absolutely supports our economy, so that we have a vibrant, dynamic and thriving country and one that people want to live, invest and work in. We are doing that in the face of austerity coming from the UK Government, investing more in our public services, protecting our NHS and ensuring that we maintain the social contract, which is about free education, no prescriptions, expanding childcare, supporting free personal care as well, the kind of country that we want to build. We have the wellbeing of our people foremost in our mind when we make those decisions. However, let me make some more progress. On economic development, something that we have touched upon in this debate, is the fact that economic development spending in Scotland is higher per head of population in Scotland than it is in the rest of the United Kingdom. The cabinet secretary is closing very shortly. I simply say this in terms of the Conservatives. We will put forward a proposition that delivers fairness and progressivity in our tax system. I have engaged constructively, and this is an important time for the Parliament to act maturely and constructively. All I hear from the Conservatives is that they want to raise less and spend more. It just does not add up, whereas we will put forward a credible proposition that inspires the people of Scotland. I now call Richard Leonard to speak to and move amendment 9513.2. Seven minutes, please, Mr Leonard. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. It is a bit rich for the Tories to come here this afternoon. Claiming to be the guardians of working people on low and middle incomes, it is one of the great illusions of conservatism down the ages, that when they shift the burden of taxation from the rich to the poor, they present it as cutting taxes for all. They parade it as being a measure for the common good when it is really to benefit the richest people in society. They claim to be the party of low tax for all when, in practice, they connive to redistribute income and wealth from the already worse off to the already better off. Why was the Tory party not thinking about low and middle income earners when it increased value added tax to 20 per cent? A regressive tax that disproportionately hits those on low earnings. Why was it not thinking about low and middle income earners when it cut the top rate of income tax to high earners from 50 per cent to 45 per cent? Why was it not thinking about low and middle income earners when it cut capital gains tax, stamped duty paid on shareholder dividends and bond yields? Where are the guardians of working people when the first Panama papers and now the Paradise papers reveal tax avoidance and tax evasion on an industrial scale? So to the Tories moving this motion I ask no I demand what is your government doing about the tax evasion and tax avoidance scandal? Are you increasing the resources applied to tackling tax evasion and tax avoidance or are you instead axing the jobs of those tax recovery staff at her Majesty's revenue and customs and closing their offices across the country? I'm very grateful to Mr Leonard for giving way. I don't know if he's aware, but the tax gap in the UK is lower today than it was when his party was in government. Will he apologise for his government's record in dealing with tax avoidance? Richard Leonard. I think that under the last Labour Government there were a great deal of international attempts to close tax gaps and it's just a pity. It's just a pity since his party came to power all of that effort has been resiled and the Panama papers and the Paradise papers speak for themselves, Mr Fraser. So why on the question of tax evasion and tax avoidance do you appear to be on the side of the rich, high-wealth individuals and corporations who do not pay their fair share? I simply say to the SNP Government here as well what representations have you made to the UK Government about clamping down on tax evasion and tax avoidance? Absolutely. Derek Mackay. I certainly have engaged with the Chancellor in that very matter, but can I ask Richard Leonard a question? Who's the finance spokesperson of the Labour Party? Richard Leonard. Can we have a wee bit of peace, please? The finance spokesperson of the Labour Party is sitting to my left. I think that we've had enough hilarity, can we? Calm down a wee bit, please, and let Mr Leonard finish his contribution. That applies to this side as well. Thank you. Mr Leonard, please continue. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. In the Tory party press release in advance of today's debate, Murdo Fraser is quoted as saying, and I must get this right, that punishing and counterproductive taxes should not be raised in tomorrow's budget. Is Murdo Fraser seriously suggesting that income tax is a counterproductive tax? It's a fair tax in principle, which needs to be more progressively applied in practice, or maybe it's the position of Murdo Fraser and his party that all tax is counterproductive. Perhaps he should tell us which forms of taxation the Tories consider to be productive, the pole tax, the bedroom tax and direct taxes such as value-added tax. The current Tory chancellor in his budget last month showed that he is still continuing with the failed austerity agenda, and he now has his sights on the Royal Bank of Scotland. Because of the downgrading of the economic growth forecasts in the red book, Philip Hammond is keen to improve the public sector net borrowing by selling off RBS at a bargain basement price. Why I ask the Conservative members here, aren't you on the side of the 321 low and middle earners working at the 62 RBS branches that are facing closure across Scotland because of the chancellor's action and inaction? Of course, tomorrow the Scottish Government will unveil its draft budget, and tomorrow afternoon the people of Scotland will be entitled to ask what the difference is between Philip Hammond's fiscal plans and Derek Mackay's fiscal plans. I have to remind people that last year there was very little difference between the two, and that is why I say simply to the SNP this afternoon that you cannot denounce austerity today and then do nothing about it tomorrow. We all know that it is nothing short of a crime that the Tory Government can take money out of public services when they are already criminally under-resourced public services. When the reality is in Tory Britain, there are more children living in poverty, more working people on zero-out contracts, more people working harder for less, more people sleeping rough on our streets and the people with the least having even less, and that is why the people who we represent know that we need real change and they are looking for this Parliament to lead that real change. That should mean that when the Tories force through austerity across the United Kingdom, this Parliament can do things differently in Scotland. This Scottish Parliament can take a different path and that is what tomorrow we need to do. Now is the time for radical change from this Parliament. Now is the time to make the right choices for the people of Scotland, to stand up for the people of Scotland, to stand up for those communities who centres here, to stand up against widening inequality and rising poverty, and to stand up against the trickery of the Conservative Party laid bare in their motion this afternoon. I move the Labour amendment in my name. I now call on Patrick Harvie to speak to and move amendment 9513.1. Seven minutes please, Mr Harvie. I am very happy to have the opportunity to take part in this debate, and it is not the first time that we have been offered the chance to conduct something of a preview debate just the day before a Scottish budget is published. Is it a preview debate of the budget though or is it a rerun of the 2016 election and all of those debates on taxation that took place during that? Murdo Fraser referred to some of those debates, but the key point, surely, about the 2016 election is that it resulted in no majority for a single political party. If the five political parties elected here would have spent our time simply digging in our heels and refusing to budge from manifesto proposals, we would achieve nothing. Very little legislation would pass, tax rates would not be set, budgets would not be possible and our public services would grind to a standstill. I gently suggest to Murdo Fraser that, if he wanted his voters to understand that he would be adding their support to that of the SNP to make this two thirds majority, he claims, perhaps the key messages that his party was putting out in the 2016 election might have been a little different. We all know what the Conservatives would like. They would like to see tax cuts for high earners. They would like to keep repeating debunked claims about Scotland being the highest tax part of the UK, almost as though their criticism of grievance politics is little more than self-parody. They would like us to ignore the divisive and destructive austerity agenda that their colleagues are inflicting on the country and the wreckage that Brexit threatens. They would like for themselves to keep demanding tax cuts and increase spending at the same time and pretending that that is in some way credible or indeed that, by saying humbug to the baby boxes, we would transform the Scottish budget. They would like to find a way to convince people that strong opposition means decrying everything and achieving nothing. More than anything, the Conservatives would like everyone to forget that, in the first period of minority government, the Conservative MSPs were the SNP's most dependable allies, happily voting in favour of every single SNP budget throughout that entire session. That is not an honest approach to budget scrutiny or to politics. Presiding Officer, the Green approach has always been whether, under the Labour-Lib Dem majority or a minority or majority SNP administration, the Green approach has been to put forward positive agenda, positive ideas, seeking meaningful change in line with our manifesto commitments and judging the Government on its actions. That approach, constructive and challenging, has not changed and will stick to it because it has got results. From the climate challenge fund, which has supported scores of local communities across the country to put low-carbon ideas into practice to new energy efficiency schemes, from support for greener transport to last year's historic budget amendment cancelling £160 million of cuts to local services, those achievements have made a real difference. The debate on tax has seen far less progress than on the positive spending ideas that we have put forward. That is until now. In that 2016 election, the Greens were the only political party to put forward a radical package of tax reforms nationally and locally to fund our public services while cutting inequality. While others argued, for a penny more or less on the basic rate, which would affect low-income people, we showed that a better way was possible by adding more rates and bands to the income tax structure. Last year, the SNP was not persuaded. The only change that they made from their manifesto proposal was to cancel a modest tax cut that they had planned for high earners, not as unfair as a proposal as the handout given by the UK Government to the wealthy, but unjustified nonetheless. This year, it is clear that the basic green proposition of a wider range of rates and bands can allow revenue to be raised while low earners are protected, and that argument is winning the day. Green policy is leading the change that Scotland needs. The Government's recent paper set out a range of such options, and on the Labour benches, too, we have heard more people moving away from the narrow debate about changing the basic rate and joining the case for a more constructive change. Some have gone further, for example by proposing a significant reduction in the additional rate threshold, and I welcome those positive ideas coming forward. It is clear that this debate will go nowhere, and a rate resolution will not pass if political parties dig in their heels to manifesto positions and are unable to work together. From our perspective—from the green perspective—yes, I will give way. Patrick Harvie pays much of his service to democracy, but does he believe that it is right for the Green Party to press the Scottish Government for tax rises when 65 per cent of the people of Scotland voted not to increase taxes? Patrick Harvie? I have already made clear that political parties need to be willing, in a period of minority government, to seek consensus rather than to dig their heels in to manifesto positions. If Mr Scott is aware of opinion polling that has taken place since the UK Government budget was published, we see us two thirds majority in favour of the basic proposition that we should be raising revenue from those who can afford to pay to protect our public services. From a green perspective, we are very aware that our manifesto proposals were designed to raise significant revenue from local tax reforms, and the deeply regrettable lack of progress on that means that the Scottish Government is choosing to rely on income tax rather than on that broader tax base. If that is their choice and they agree not only with us but with the finance secretary's own aid, the public sector pay increase must be at least inflation-based, then they will need to go further on income tax than they otherwise would. We will all see tomorrow what the Scottish Government has in mind. In rejecting the Conservative motion, I urge the Government to be bold, to raise the revenue that we need for our local services, for public pay and for low-carbon investment, and to do so in a fair way so that people like us, here in this chamber, high earners, make a fair contribution to the services that everyone in Scotland depends on. I move the amendment in my name. I now call Willie Rennie to speak to and move amendment 9513.37 minutes, please, Mr Rennie. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I am at a disadvantage today. I am not in receipt of a copy of Derek Mackay's tax paper, I feel bereft for not having one in my hands here, but I welcome the opportunity to have the proper—I am getting ample copies of it handed to me—but I welcome the opening up of the debate that Derek Mackay has managed to secure with this document here. I am not sure, however, that the voters will appreciate it to the same degree, because they were, and this is where Murdo Fraser is absolutely right, they were promised no increase in the basic rate of income tax. I stood on numerous platforms with Nicola Sturgeon during that election campaign and she promised endlessly that she would not increase the basic rate of income tax for basic rate payers. No matter what Derek Mackay does now, it is quite interesting that even if he does not increase it tomorrow, he was contemplating increasing it tomorrow as part of the document here. Basic rate income tax payers would pay more as a result of the options set out by Derek Mackay. John Mason? I wonder if the Liberal Democrats, as a supporter of democracy, would agree that if there is not a majority government, then all parties should be negotiating and seeing what the best deal is overall. Willie Rennie? I seem to recall that as an argument that we used to deploy when we were in the coalition government at Westminster and were derided by those on those benches for Derek to contemplate any kind of compromise. However, as I say, I do welcome the opening up of the debate because it allows us to have a mature debate about the future of the country. We no longer just have to consider what the spending is for public services, but we have to consider the money in people's pockets as well. That is a mature debate and it is something that we were denied in this Parliament for a number of years, and I think that it is a maturing of the debate that most people will welcome. I could not believe during the 2016 election that a so-called left-wing party like the SNP, who were seeing a squeeze on public finances right before them, could sit there idle doing absolutely nothing with the new powers that had been gifted to this Parliament, like a Christmas pudding not prepared to do a single thing to lift a finger to use those levers for the public good. I think that that was regrettable at that time, but I welcome now the maturing of the debate. In contrast to that lack of frankness at the last election, if I were to put it kindly, the Liberal Democrat position was to have a hypothecated tax for a specific purpose to invest in education because we recognised that educational performance compared with international measures was slipping. It had gone from the best to just average, and it required an urgent investment in education to deal with that specific problem. I think that voters are more likely to pay for a tax increase if they know what it is going to be spent on. If they can be guaranteed, they will get a return from it. I think that, in those circumstances, people will know and will back it. There is also the benefit of investing in education to boost skills and education for people to have that virtuous circle to benefit the economy. The tax increase would be to benefit the economy, not to deny the economy growth but to give it a boost that it desperately needs. I thought that the Conservatives would come forward with a different motion today. I thought that they would come forward with a motion that would apologise for their economic performance at a UK level. If you look at the recent indicators, I am not surprised that they did not mention them today, but we have had inflation up, growth is down, productivity is down, we are about to go off a Brexit cliff edge. They have been failing to balance the books as they promised in their manifesto. They have now admitted that. We have got what the resolution foundation called the mother of all downgrades as part of the last budget process. The OBR figures have been confirmed and condemned by everybody because what it now means to this country, the economic performance, is not as the Conservatives would wish. The Conservatives come here today pretending to be a party of the economy, but the reality is that it is their policies that are driving us to this position where we are needing to have that modest increase in taxation in order to invest in public services to boost the economy to make sure that we have an education system that is the best in the world again. Yes, certainly. Dean Lockhart Does he recognise, despite the downgrades, that the UK economy is growing at 1.5 per cent, which is still three times faster than the Scottish economy under the SNP? Willie Rennie Well, let's just ignore all the facts that are bad. Let's just ignore all of those things. Despite all the downgrades, the mother of all downgrades, according to the resolution foundation, to pick out a scintilla of benefit for the UK economy. That is astonishing, and that is why the Conservatives should come here today to apologise for their performance. They shouldn't just be stating. If they are relying on the words from the SNP manifesto to have their motion today, they are not asking the right question. What they need to be doing is to look at what the wider benefit of a modest tax increase would be, because I have heard speeches from the Conservative benches before, which equates tax with somehow pickpocketing, theft. I was off a political vintage, which endured the John Major years, which Ruth Davidson is a great fan of. I remember those years, the recession, the real financial difficulties that we went through. John Major was known for 22 Tory tax rises. 22 of them, not just one, 22 Tory tax rises. I have not heard Ruth Davidson calling John Major a pickpocket, or George Osborne when he proposed a tax on caravans or pasties. He wasn't called a pickpocket or a thief at that point. When Phil Hammond came forward with his tax on the white van man, was he derided for stealing money from people? No, he wasn't by the Conservatives, and that's how they're bereft. They don't have an ideological belief in this position here. What they have is an opportunity to try and bash the possibility of this Parliament making a real change for the benefit of this country. What we need is an honest, frank debate about taxation. We've not got that from the Conservatives who deny their economic record at UK level. We don't have that from the SNP who stood on the last election platform saying that they wouldn't increase tax for basic rate payers. That's why we're needing a more mature debate for the future of this country, to make sure that we can seize the opportunities ahead of us. I move the motion amendment in my name. We now move to the open debate, and can I take this opportunity to remind members that they should always speak through the chair and not directly to each other across the chamber. Five-minute speeches, please, and I call Adam Tomkins to be followed by Kate Forbes. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. There is no need for tax rises in Scotland, but there is an urgent need for a budget tomorrow that does everything it can to grow the Scottish economy, and in particular to grow the Scottish tax base. Growth is persistently slower in Scotland than it is in the UK as a whole. In 2016, the Scottish economy grew at a measly one-quarter of the rate of the UK as a whole, and over the last decade, the Scottish economy has grown at less than half the rate of the UK. Derek Mackay's number one priority in his budget tomorrow, apart from apologising for the abject record of SNP failure, must be to do everything in his power to turn this around. No. The very last thing on his mind should be higher taxes. Just last week, the Scottish Chambers of Commerce said that at a time of poor growth and faltering business investment, a competitive Scotland cannot afford to be associated with higher taxes and that the economic vandalism and damage of higher taxes could take years to repair. I want to focus, Presiding Officer, this afternoon on ideas for growth, and in particular ideas to grow Glasgow's economy, not just because it is the city that I represent but because Glasgow is Scotland's economic powerhouse. It is cities in their regions that power economic growth. Let Glasgow flourish, we say, when Glasgow flourishes, Scotland flourishes. South of the border, that has been recognised not merely as a slogan but as a key driver of policy since 2010, but Scotland was late to the UK Government's programme of city deals, and even now we are playing catch up at risk of falling further behind. Glasgow's city deal is worth more than £1 billion of investment for infrastructure, half from the UK Treasury and half from the Scottish Government, yet it is at grave risk, Presiding Officer, of being fritted away. The last Labour Administration in Glasgow had little idea what to do with it, so just dusted off various roads and house building projects that have been gathering dust in the city chambers' archives for years. The newly arrived SNP Administration is faring no better. Susan Aitken, the council leader, is caught in the headlights, unsure which way to turn or what to prioritise, but the answer is simple. Prioritise that which would grow the Glasgow economy. Let me give you an example. The Scottish event campus comprises the Hydro, the Armadillo and the SEC centre, and it is Scotland's principal event campus, hosting concerts, exhibitions and international conferences. Established in the mid-1980s, it has become a great Glasgow success story. Its business is a key economic driver for the greater Glasgow region, with 2 million visitors annually producing an economic benefit to Glasgow of more than £400 million every year. Thanks to the SEC, Glasgow is now the UK's number one choice outside London for conferences of a thousand delegates or more. The SEC now proposes an additional £150 million of investment in its campus, focused on the exhibition and conference elements of its business, matching the £120 million investment that built the Hydro a few years ago. The new expansion would generate an additional 36 events annually, attracting a further 240,000 visitors to Glasgow every year. The expanded business would result in an additional net spend in Glasgow of £86 million every year, generating an additional GVA growth for the Glasgow economy of £64 million annually. On top of all that, the expansion plan would create 1,700 new jobs. At a Conservative estimate, the increased GVA would yield £20 million annually in additional tax revenues, half for the Scottish Government and half for the UK Government. Within five years, the £150 million investment will have paid for itself. If city deal money cannot be used for this for some reason, what about the £1 billion that the Scottish Government now has at its disposal via financial transactions? As the Fraser of Allander Institute said just yesterday, this money could be used to lend to businesses on generous terms to support investment in anything from commercial property to R&D. What better prospectus is out there right now than the SCC's plans that I have just outlined? In its manifesto for last year's election, in its manifesto for last year's election, the SNP promised to freeze the basic rate of income tax throughout the lifetime of this Parliament. The SNP officer was there electoral vow, their solemn oath on undertaking, their covenant with the Scottish people. SNP ministers should think long and hard before betraying their promise. Tomorrow, Presiding Officer, we need a budget for growth and not a breach of trust. Support the motion to murder Fraser's name. Before I call Kate Forbes, I had to think long and hard there about whether that contribution actually addressed the motion that had been put forward. I decided to let that go, but I would ask others to bear in mind that they are speaking to a motion and amendments. I call Kate Forbes to be followed by Jackie Baillie. I remind the chamber that I am the PLO to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance. When it comes to Conservative debates, they generally fall into one of two categories arguably utterly incompatible. Either please spend more or please cut taxes for the rich. Murdo Fraser spent all of his debating time on the SNP, so I thought that I would repay the favour and try to make sense of the Tory's economic policies, which in Scotland at least appears to be increased spending exponentially, cut taxes drastically and waste billions of pounds most recently to settle our European bill to the tune of billions for which we will get nothing in return by isolation and slower economic growth. They are either magicians or just politicians who forgot to read Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli's article at the weekend when he wrote, and to give us all a brief reprieve from quoting the Fraser of Allander Institute, which probably gets more airtime than anybody else at this time, I quote. The simple truth is that if we want a country and society to be proud of, we need to be willing to pay for it and our politicians, and I don't think he was excluding the Tories, and our politicians have a duty to be honest in conducting a debate and constructing an argument that is in the long-term national interest rather than for short-term partisan gain. The Tories have come to this chamber time and again to ask for more spending, more spending on healthcare, more spending on justice, more spending on local government, more spending on the environment, more spending on agriculture, more spending on transport, more spending on infrastructure and more spending on local government. All in all, they have made at least 70 calls for additional Scottish Government spending since the election, and I will take an amendment. An intervention, even Rachel Hamilton. I thank Kate Forbes for taking the intervention. Does the member believe that using Anton Muscatelli as an example of someone who earns vast sums of money is reflective of Scottish society? Kate Forbes? I believe that, as politicians—we have just demonstrated that by quoting the Fraser Allenstone Institute—we should listen to experts on those matters, because none of us in here know everything about everything, and it is important that we listen to experts. Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli is one such expert, so I recommend that the member perhaps read that article over the course of the day. Those spending asks are laudable, but they are also laughable. They are laughable that the party that has, in the past, prided itself on economic competence, believes that it can spend more by raising less. Of course, then we get to the claim that the Tories have given us more money, but that brings hollow for a party that has campaigned on election platforms of austerity and fiscal consolidation for years and yet now claims for reasons of political expediency that have increased Scotland's budget. It can't be both. Logically, it can't be both. Of course it isn't, because the stark evidence of austerity walks into my office every single day, and the Scottish Government has rightly forked out £350 million to mitigate the worst aspects of the UK Government's welfare reform since 2013. All of that when, by 2019-20, our resource block grant will be around £500 million lower than in 2017-18, according to every independent source that you might like to quote. Perhaps that sorry story of how the Tories' reputation as economically competent has been shot to pieces explains what Willie Rennie outlined, which is the distinct lack of growth under the Conservative Government as it has missed every economic target that it has ever set. It might also explain why the official UK economic growth forecast for this year was dramatically slashed by the Office for Budget Responsibility on the very day that Mr Hammond announced his budget. Does Kate Forbes recognise that, had the Scottish economy grown at the same rate as the UK economy under 10 years of SNP Government, Scotland's GDP would be £3 billion higher? Does the member accept that, on the day that his Tory colleague announced their budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility didn't just cut the economic growth forecast for this year, but for the next five years, as well as that, the resolution foundation predicted that there would be incredible decline in households' disposable income over the course of the next five years. I don't think that it's quite right for Tories to come here and talk about economic growth when every target has been missed and the predictions for the next five years under his colleague's Government is dire. On that note, I will stop. I have Jackie Baillie followed by Ivan McKee. Here's the thing, Presiding Officer. The hand-delt to Scotland by the UK budget is not as good as the Tories would have you believe, because the Scottish budget faces a real-terms cut of almost £200 million. Capital will increase by £195 million, but it is fair to say that financial transaction money, most of the used-as-loan financing, makes up the overwhelming rest at £355 million. In essence, every day spending money is tighter, and ultimately that's what matters the most because it is revenue that pays for the majority of our public services. Let's face it, things are tough out there. Wages have fallen in real terms. People, including public sector workers, haven't had a proper wage rise for years. The value of their pay has fallen whilst the cost of living has gone up. There is a clear impact on individual households. The level of personal indebtedness that we know is rising, and in extreme cases low-paid working households are no longer just about managing. They are having to go to food banks to make ends meet, so the Tories should hang their heads in shame for the mismanagement of our economy. However, it is not just individual indebtedness that is increasing. The extent of national borrowing has increased despite the Tories' promises, targets and fiscal rules. It is with the Tories. It is always the poorest that end up paying the most. However, I am not content to simply throw my hands up in the air and say that nothing can be done and just blame the Tories. Tempting, though that is, Presiding Officer, there is a responsibility on us in this Parliament to rise to the challenge. We were elected so that we could do things differently. I therefore want to focus on three areas that I hope will be reflected tomorrow. Public sector pay, local government funding and finally stimulating the economy is right to remove the public sector pay cap. Originally, the SNP rejected Labour's demands to do so, but I am happy that they have changed their minds. I look forward to seeing the percentage rise that the cabinet secretary budgeted for tomorrow and whether it meets the ambitions of the workforce. However, whatever that figure is, it must be properly funded. If the burden of finding the extra money falls exclusively on public services, then there will be more cuts. If the Government is here, I really do not have sufficient time, but I hope that you will pick up on some of those points in your summation. If the Government is serious about improving the loss of public sector workers, and I believe that they are, then I hope that they will make sure that additional money is provided to do so. Turning to local government, its share of the budget has gone down, cuts totaling £850 million in real terms. I well remember last year's budget, when the cabinet secretary, like a magician, pulled a rabbit out of her hat, provided an additional £170 million for local government. Of course, what he did not tell you, Presiding Officer, is that it was a one-off payment. He needs to start this year finding that money simply to stand still. The Tories have cut our budget—oh, yes, they have—by 1.5 per cent in the past three years, but the SNP has cut the local government budget by 4.6 per cent over the same period. They have taken Tory austerity, passed it on, but they have trebled it in doing so, and that simply cannot go on. Let me share with the chamber the real consequences of underfunding in western Barcha. The SNP council is consulting on £13 million of cuts, the removal of 200 jobs, cuts to the school clothing grant, cuts to educational maintenance allowance, cuts to libraries, scrapping the lollipop men and women and getting volunteers to do it instead, making the children clean their own classrooms. The list gets worse and goes on. The SNP needs to provide fair funding to local government. Finally, growth in the economy is of central importance, particularly now. The fiscal framework ties us explicitly to growth. If we do not have a tax take commensurate with the rest of the UK, our funding drops. Our economy has in recent years underperformed the rest of the UK. The consequences of us continuing to do so into the future are enormous and means less money for our public services. Unlike the Tories who want to slash and burn, I believe that we need to invest in order to grow. The cut to the economy budget last year, seen in that context, was a reckless action for government to take. It shows a lack of understanding of the fiscal framework that it signed up to. Now we are told that this budget will be about the economy. I welcome that, but I suspect that the financial transaction money will be used to fund the new Scottish investment bank. I look forward to seeing if I am right tomorrow. Bear in mind, £500 million of financial transaction money was allocated last year for the business growth scheme. How much of that has been spent? Not a great deal. Not good enough to announce money, but none of it actually makes it out of the door. Presiding Officer, in closing, our ambition should be to stop the cuts and end austerity. None of the SNP tax proposals will do that. They have raised a maximum of £290 million. That is not enough to do it. We should seize the opportunity that is presented to us, use the new powers in the Parliament, invest in our economy, in our services and in our people. Ivan McKee to be followed by Bill Bowman. Presiding Officer, we stand here today to talk about tax, but this debate also exposes the lack of credibility of the Tory party, its economic literacy and its inability to add up the numbers. It is a Tory party that does not just want to have its cake and to eat its cake. It does not even want to have to pay for its cake. It is not just one cake either. We have a list here—I am sorry for the prop—it is not a wheel list. It is a big list—all eight pages of it. Spending demands made by Tory members in this Parliament will, in 70 different demands, be millions upon millions of pounds all the way from air quality monitors, Alexander Burnett on 10 May, blood donation funding, Miles Briggs on 9 June through to winter sports in Zebra Crossings and A to Z, Tory wish list. They are very own, letter to Santa about nowhere are there any plans on how to raise the cash. Because, Presiding Officer, as everyone can see, when it comes down to Tory tax and spend, it just does not add up. Let us take a few minutes to go through some basic lessons for the party opposite. The Tory's Presiding Officer is fond of telling us that we do not need to raise more cash because of the money coming from their friends at Westminster. I know that adding up is not the Tory specialist subject, but let us have a look at a bit more detail precisely that. In 2017-18, Scotland's revenue del block grant from Westminster in real terms was £26.2 billion. For 2018-19, as a round-up in the recent UK budget, the equivalent real-terms block grant number was £26 billion. Even the Tories can see that $26 billion is less than $26.2 billion. In fact, it is some £200 million less, a £200 million reduction in real-term spending available to this Scottish Government to spend on services in Scotland, the price of Tory austerity. In fact, over the whole period from 2010-11, when the Tories came to power at Westminster through to 2019-20, Scotland's real-term block grant from Westminster will have been reduced by some 8 per cent. The myth of increased funding from Westminster is exactly that, a myth. Everybody knows it, and it does the Tories credibility no good to pretend otherwise. The Tories talk about an extra. Marto Fraser I am very grateful to Mr McKee for giving way. I wonder if he thinks that the Fraser Valander Institute is peddling with when it said in the report that it came out yesterday. Taken altogether, the Scottish Government's total block grant is on track to increase by around 1 per cent between 2016-17 and 2019-20. Is that a myth? Ivan McKee I am very glad that Mr Fraser asked that question, because that is exactly what I am going on to address now. The Tories talk about an extra £2 billion, and I still cannot decide where they are spinning for all their worth if they really do not understand the difference between financial transactions and the revenue-deal block grant. Let's go through it. Here, I quote from the Fraser of Valander Institute, of the capital uplift, the vast majority of this is so-called financial transactions. Financial transactions can be used to support day-to-day spending on public services, and Scottish ministers are constrained in how they can be used. In fact, they are in the form of government loans and equity. I do not know what will turn to planet the Tories in habit, but I do not think that they would get very far paying nurses not with cash but with government loans and equity. No, I need to make some progress, thank you very much. The Tories are fond of talking about tax in Scotland compared with the rest of the UK. Let's talk about it, because the truth is that Scotland is a low-tax part of the UK. Due to the actions of the Scottish Government, the Average Council tax bill in Scotland is some £400 law than the rest of the UK. It is a tax benefit that is seen across the income spectrum and not just for the top 10 per cent of earners where the Tories focus their attention. I have left the best to last, Presiding Officer, because whenever challenge on the glaring inconsistencies in their tax and spend plans, the Tories utter the magic phrase Laffer Curve. Now, whether Laffer Curve does state that not all increases in tax rates result in an increase in tax revenues and not all reductions in tax rates result in a reduction in tax revenues, where it absolutely does not state that all reductions in tax rates automatically result in an increase in tax revenues, whether that is the case, then the tax rate that raised the most revenue would be 0 per cent. I think that even the Tories can see that that is nonsense. That is why it is called the Laffer Curve and not the Laffer Straight Line. It is not a get-of-jail free car for Tory sums that do not add up. It is a tool used to inform serious economic policy making by those who know how to use it. I am afraid that that excludes the current Tory party. Presiding Officer, managing tax and spend, even within the limited economic powers that the Scottish Government has at its disposal, is a serious business. Getting the balance right between protecting public services and raising the revenue to pay for them requires people who understand how to add up and people who understand the implications of their actions and the impact that has on real people, their schools, their hospitals and their take-home pay. Getting that balance right requires a serious piece of work and tomorrow we will see the results of that work and what I am sure will be a budget to take Scotland forward in stark contrast to the display of inconsistency and economic literacy with tea from the Tory Benchants. I call Bill Bowman to be followed by John Mason. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Now to return more to the actual text of the motion. As has been mentioned and as we know, Scotland is the highest tax part of the United Kingdom. My constituency of the Northeast paid over one-fifth of Scotland's total income tax in 2014-15. With that in mind, I warily welcomed the 2016 SNP manifesto pledge to, as I quote, freeze the basic rate of income tax. Now, I must confess, I was a little dubious of this promise but I concluded that the SNP would not want to create a situation where living and investing in the rest of the UK was more attractive to workers and businesses than doing so in Scotland. That, of course, would be reckless. Now, if recent Scottish Government discussion papers are anything to go by, tomorrow my North East constituents could be faced with yet another tax hike. This Government believes that their current tax contribution from the North East are not enough and seems to think that it knows best how to spend their hard-earned money. Well, recently we've seen this is not the case. It was reported last week that the SNP have wasted hundreds of millions of pounds in losses while they have been in government. Instead of reaching deeper into the pockets of my constituents—pick-pocketing, as Willie Rennie calls it—perhaps the Government could rein in their own wasteful tendencies first. In 1906—and it's always good to quote somebody from history—Winston Churchill said in the House of Commons, where there is great power, there is great responsibility, the devolution of further tax powers brings several other responsibilities with it. Firstly, any well-thought-through proposed tax rise would require complex forecasting models, dealing in largely unexplored and unknown variables. I acknowledge that there have been several attempts to put together forecasting models over the past couple of years. It is also worth pointing out that each of those has admitted that their examples were illustrative. One reason for that is that predicting behavioural responses in the UK is largely uncharted territory. It is far easier for a Scottish taxpayer to move to Manchester than, say, Madrid, Milan or Maastricht, for example. If take-home income is less in Scotland than it is for the same job and salary elsewhere in the UK, then those wanting to increase their salaries or income will seriously consider moving. Tax payers, however, will not be the only stakeholders considering moving. Higher taxes on Scottish businesses in recent years have led to the cutting of jobs in the retail sector, for example, where the number of people employed has fallen by 6 per cent between 2008 and 2015. Those have led to the rate of shop closures in Scotland being seven and a half times that of the UK. I cannot understand why the Scottish National Party Government would wish to raise the income tax of hard-pressed retailers' customers. A recent survey of the Federation of Small Businesses stated that 14 per cent of those polled would consider moving their business out of Scotland if that were to happen. I thank Bill Bowman for taking the intervention. Clearly dinner last night has paid off. I think that the points that have been made around an evidence-based approach are valid points to make. We can quote someone else. Does Bill Bowman agree with the IMF, who has said that progressive taxation does not necessarily undermine economic growth? I think that it also depends on what you mean by progressive. I think that the taxation that we have is progressive. Another responsibility is in the implementation annual administration of tax policies. I recently wrote to the finance secretary regarding the cost of his SNP Government's proposals set out in the income tax and discussion paper, which I do not have a copy of, and he answered by saying that he had not bothered to estimate the administration and implementation costs of the proposed changes. In fact, administration costs could increase by more than £5 million per year if our Scottish policy differs from the rest of the UK, with implementation costs of new rates and bans adding even more millions again. Complexity never comes cheap. In short, I advise against income tax rises. The Scottish Conservatives trust people with the responsibility of spending their own money and not having to work one hour for their families and then the next hour to pay for Nicola Sturgeon's tax increases. The SNP, on the other hand, does not appear to put much stock in the people, because here we are debating whether the SNP will break a solemn manifesto pledge that it made to the Scottish people. Raising taxes is supposed to raise revenues, but it can also raise risks. Falling investment is a different path for the SNP, keeping the basic rate where it is, keeping people's money in people's pockets, and, most of all, keeping their manifesto pledge to Scotland. John Mason, followed by Neil Findlay. The Conservative motion focuses on tax and, specifically, on income tax, so I would like to start by thinking a little about tax in principle and, on that ground, Willie Rennie was going in the same direction in part of his speech. Without tax or some equivalent, there would be no schools, no NHS, no social security system, no police, no armed forces, no fornade, no train system, no ferry system and definitely no social workers, no public roads, no bridges, no local or national government. Or, if we did have some of those things, it would only be for the richer who could afford them. My starting point is that tax is inherently a good thing and makes us the kind of civilised nation that we want Scotland to be. Of course, there are various forms of taxation, but a large number of people do see income tax as one of the fairest methods of taxation because it is based on ability to pay. It is not perfect, as it takes no account of wealth, which is one of the big dividing features in our society, nor is it necessarily the easiest to collect, as many people have found ways to avoid it, as Bill Bowman has been encouraging them. It is still more accepted than many other taxes. The next question is probably at what level income tax should be. In this debate, we need to think of national insurance as a form of income tax. If we combine income tax and national insurance, we find that the starting point in the UK, for those on an income of £11,850, is a 32 per cent marginal rate, which is an incredibly high starting point when you take tax and national insurance together. Then we look at the top rate, which is only 47 per cent—45 plus 2, which might seem surprisingly low. Therefore, we are in the situation in the UK today where income tax ranges from 32 per cent to 47 per cent, which is a ridiculously narrow range. My thinking for the long term would that we should have a combined rate starting perhaps at 10 per cent and then rising in bands like 10, 20, 30 or thereabouts. My first key point on income tax would be that the national insurance should also be devolved to Scotland and we should combine income tax and national insurance to give a simpler system with more emphasis on principles and less room for avoidance. However, that is clearly not where Scotland is today. We have been dealt a very second rate hand by Westminster, who seemed to have given us certain powers and withheld others, with the intention of making life as difficult as possible for the Scottish Parliament and for the Scottish people. I find it particularly ironic that the Conservative party—the party that has regularly sought to help the richest and crush the poorest in our society—should pretend to care about those on low incomes, as the motion says. Nevertheless, we are where we are, we have a very flawed income tax system and face cuts to the Scottish budget, as others have said, by Westminster, while demand in many sectors is increasing. So the challenge is whether we can raise more money from income tax in order to protect or improve public services, without causing any undesirable side effects. I am grateful to Mr Mason for giving way. Why did he stand for election on a manifesto, pledging not to increase the basic rate of income tax if he is now saying something else? John Mason. I am today trying to argue from principles and the principles being that tax is a good thing. However, I think that the point has been made well by Patrick Harvie and I think by Willie Rennie as well, that the whole point of this Parliament being elected by a single additional member system—propositional representation—is that one party does not dominate and one party cannot get its manifesto through. That is the aim of why this was set up. Of course it is necessary that we compromise. If the Conservatives were serious about negotiating, I am sure that Derek Mackay would listen to them, but from what I gather, the Conservatives are not serious about a conversation. We hear a lot about the economy and its relationship with taxation, and a lot depends on what we mean by the economy. I fear that the Conservatives, when talking about the economy, often mean a very crude measure, such as GDP or growth at all costs, and ignore how income and wealth are distributed throughout society. However, we can be fairly sure that if income and wealth were more fairly distributed throughout society, with the less well off receiving even a little more, that would be hugely beneficial to the overall economy. Poor or folk are more likely to spend any extra money on goods and services as compared to better off, who may invest in overseas companies or otherwise extract their money from the Scottish and UK economy. While some argue that businesses do not want tax rises, we also know that businesses are looking for a healthy and well-educated workforce, and that will not come about if we cut taxation. Last year, we made a tiny move away from the UK income tax regime, and I think that this year we can afford to be a bit bolder and move a bit further. Presiding Officer, all in all, I consider that the Conservative motion is not logical, it does not make economic sense and it has to be amended today. If Mr Finlay can hear me, I call Neil Finlay to be followed by Stuart McMillan. Mr Finlay, please. I hope that I get that time back, Presiding Officer. The public services— No, no, I want to hear what Mr Finlay has to say. Mr Finlay. I hope that I get that time back, Presiding Officer. The public services— You will indeed, do you not concern yourself? Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. The public services are the glue that hold our society together, that they care for the elderly, educate the young and look after the vulnerable and they keep our streets clean and safe, and they are paid for by our taxes. That collective payment of taxes to support those services is what civilises us as a society. That pot of money can be expanded by increasing tax take via economic growth and by increasing taxes. Today, council services are on their knees with cuts to youth work, libraries education and social work, jobs are being lost in huge numbers and no task force for council staff that I can see. This week, we heard of children being taught in classes of up to 41. In our NHS, we have the worst waiting times on record, vacancies up, morale down, pay frozen, care homes closing and delayed discharging grained in the social care system. On Thursday, we have the budget. We should remember, when looking at that motion, that from 2007 to 2011, it was the Tory party that worked hand in glove with the SNP at budget time, supporting them in cosy deals year in, year out. Not at the moment. The Tory party that today claims to be the champion of people on low incomes. This is the party of the poll tax, the bedroom tax, the party of deindustrialisation that left millions on the scrap heap, the party that opposed the introduction of the national minimum wage, that opposed tax credits that took 2 million children out of poverty, 2 million pensioners out of poverty, that opposed the winter fuel allowance, the party of food banks, the party of homelessness, the Tory party that under Cameron Osborne has had that essential plank of their political philosophy, a deliberate attack on the living standards of the low paid, the poor, the disabled and the vulnerable, which cuts the tax credits, cuts to employment support allowance for disabled people, the withdrawal of mobility cars, the ending of housing benefit for the young, bereavement support and benefit freezes across the board with people on the lowest incomes losing an average £1,400 per year. Yes, the heads are going down when you start mentioning that list and they claim to be the champions of people on low incomes. In their class war and the poor, the wealthiest accumulate more via tax giveaways and corporate welfare. This is the redistribution of wealth on a massive scale from those who have little to those who have plenty, and the Panama and Paradise papers showed that. We have a critical funding crisis in Scotland, and we are not going to get out of it ourselves by following the shambolic path of cuts, cuts, cuts so beloved of the Tories and followed slavishly by Swinney and Mackay. We cannot keep engaging in a race to the bottom with the Tories across the rest of the UK. Scotland could be leading by example. We can save jobs in communities. We can save schools, invest in social care by using the powers of this Parliament because we have a choice, and we should use those choices to end the public sector pickup and invest in the services that we all rely on. What we do not know is that Derek Mackay with us on the progressive side of politics, or does he stand again with his friends across the chamber who want to use this Parliament to cut investment and increase the already yawning gap between the rich and the poor. Finally, let us never forget Ruth Davidson and every one of her Tory colleagues during the debate in this Parliament over the vile rape clause, so confident were they in their position that not one of them would take an intervention during that entire debate. They thought that by just keeping talking, no one would notice their shameful behaviour. I have got news for them. Everyone noticed their shameful behaviour that day. I thought that I had seen everything from a Tory party that hates the poor, hates the low-paid and hates the vulnerable, but that was a new low point even for them, where they voted to support a policy with such dreadful implications for women victims of rape. They put their ideological commitment to punishing the poor above human decency. We should never let them airbrush that out of history. I thank you, Mr Findlayer, because Stuart McMillan, to be called by Maurice Golden, Mr McMillan. Today, once again, highlights why the Tories have peaked and why they cannot be taken seriously on the economy or the finances of Scotland. At the weekend, the SNP published a list of 70 extra spending demands that the Tories have made to the Scottish Government. Despite anything that they have stated today, they have lacked coherence in indicating where exactly the money will come from to pay for their demands. We all know that they want tax cuts for the rich and to make the poor pay for that privilege. How else can they explain the shambolic roll-out of the universal credit system and the rampant rise in food bank use across Scotland and the UK? Their actions and calls in recent months would have put the Labour Party to shame, with their antics in the last two parliamentary sessions when they were the main opposition in this Parliament. When the past Labour sat in the sidelines and failed to come up with any alternatives, not much changed their lens, some would say. However, the Tories seem to have taken on that mantle of second-placed party, second-rate policies and second-rate outcomes for the people of Scotland. It now appears to be so bad that this morning the biggest kept secret became public with Ruth Davidson now looking to leave this Parliament to become an MP in the future. Even Ruth Davidson knows that her writing is on the wall and wants to get on to the green benches to continue the economic vandalism that her party is meeting out to the population. Overall, today's debate will deliver nothing for the population. Each MSP will stand up and defend her party in their position and, two and a half hours later, will all vote, and will it change the finance secretary's mind? Probably not. Today's debate is about the white noise— Today's debate is about the white noise— Okay? Murdo Fraser? I'm grateful for Mr McMillan for giving way. He's talking about the vote later. Is he going to vote to support his own manifesto commitment or not? Stuart McMillan. I think that Murdo Fraser will have to wait until five o'clock to find out, Mr Fraser. Wait until five o'clock. Today's debate is about the white noise— Excuse me a minute. The front bench of the Conservatives. I'd like to hear the replies, Mr McMillan. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Today's debate is about the white noise before the actual budget statement tomorrow, when we actually find out the income tax proposals, as well as every other aspect of the budget responsibility that the finance secretary has at his control. I'm sure that the finance secretary will have taken on board all 70 requests for additional monies to be spent, and if he had the money, he may even have given some consideration to some of them, even if the finance secretary wanted to give each of the 70 requests £1 million extra. That still couldn't be paid for, as the Scottish allocation from the Tory UK Government has been cut by £230 million at the recent budget, but also by £2.6 billion by 2019-20, and as the SNP amendment states, a further £500 million, according to the Fraser of Allander institute. So the economic mismanagement and the financial illiteracy of the Scottish Conservatives has really been laid bare for all to see today. The austerity programme is driving more people to food banks. Areas with a full roll-out of universal credit have seen a 30 per cent increase in food bank usage, and 26 per cent of food bank users are on low incomes or on benefits. I don't often do that, but I will quote Mr Finlay a few moments ago when he spoke about the issue, the shameful bedroom tax and also the two-child limit that the Tories have wanted to introduce from Westminster. Added to that is the utter shambolic nature of the universal credit system, and the ludicrously long wait before a claimant can actually get their payment. Waiting up to six weeks is a nonsense, and the chancellor apparently has listened to the arguments and reduced that to five weeks. It's obvious that the chancellor will never need to claim universal credit, otherwise he would have reduced that payment time even further. For the Conservatives to come to this Parliament with a santa list of 70 items for own money, not identifying where the additional money will come from, and refusing to accept that this Parliament's budget is being cut really shows how out of touch they are with reality. We've already heard from Parliament's very own Scrooge, Murdo Fraser, earlier on today, calling for the end of the baby box. I've looked at the list and there are many examples that certainly additional money would be very useful to go into. However, this Parliament's limited powers over finances highlights yet again that our finance secretary is trying to do a job with one hand tied behind his back. I have to remember that 60 per cent of Scotland's spending power is still reserved to Westminster. Before I came here today, I received a letter from Maurice Golden and his so-called appeal for local government funding. Mr Golden, it's the Tories that could no shame, they've got a brass neck, it's the Tories' cuts and their crocodile tears to the budgets to this Parliament that are actually having a hugely detrimental effect to the population of Scotland. It's the absolute hammering of budgets to this Parliament from his colleagues down at Westminster. The Tories' financial policies are a wrecking ball to the economy, and it's clear that the nasty party has returned to Scotland. Thank you very much. I call Maurice Golden. We are followed by Ben Macpherson. Mr Golden, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Simple fairness dictates that government must not raise taxes on families struggling to pay their bills. For too long, the Scottish people have been forced to endure the economic illiteracy of the left, that no matter what the problem is, the answer is always higher taxation with wage packets raided to pay for it. I'd like to make some progress. Last year, the people of Scotland overwhelmingly voted for a better approach. Almost two thirds of Scots voted for parties that promised not to raise taxes—the Scottish Conservatives and the SNP. We saw what happened to the parties who advocated higher taxes. Labour was relegated to third. The Liberals went nowhere, and the Greens barely scraped together 13,000 constituency votes. Assuring hard-working Scottish families that they would not be burdened by more taxes was the right thing to do. I thank Maurice Golden for taking the intervention following that analogy. Can Maurice Golden explain how the Tories are now in third place behind even Richard Leonard? Maurice Golden We are still here, we are still in second and we are going upwards. The Scottish Conservatives have consistently argued for the approach that does not hurt Scottish workers. The UK Conservative Government has cut income tax for basic rate payers in Scotland by raising the tax allowance from £6,475 to £11,850. Initially, it seemed that the SNP shared the desire to protect low earners. In its 2016 manifesto, the SNP made clear commitment to the people of Scotland that they would not raise the basic rate of income tax during this Parliament. It is right there, on page 17, in black and white. Sadly, the SNP's determination to make Scotland the highest taxed part of the UK suggests that this promise will soon be broken. Last year, it caved in to the Greens to get support for their budget, and the result was raiding the pay packets of middle earners for an extra £400. Then last month, we saw their proposals to tax anyone earning over £24,000, and yes, that includes basic rate taxpayers, so much for the SNP's promises. Indeed, on 21 February this year, Ivan McKee said that the decision to maintain the basic rate at 20 per cent ensures that we do not penalise those on low or average earnings, but today we heard from John Mason saying that that does not make sense. It is a flip-flop, I am confused, but what we do know is that there is an extra half a billion pounds that has been provided for Scottish public services in the UK chancellor's budget, which means that the SNP has no excuse for raising taxes. There is also a mountain of waste to avoid hundreds of millions of pounds since the SNP came into power. If the SNP raised taxes, it will not be because they are forced to, but because they want to. It would be shortsighted and a reckless decision because Scotland's economy is already underperforming after a decade of SNP mismanagement. Currently, Scottish growth is one third of the UK rate. Scottish productivity is too low, and Scottish business growth is the lowest in the UK. 80 per cent of business owners do not want higher taxes. According to the Federation of Small Businesses, it is easy to see why. The SNP's most radical tax proposal would raise £255 million. That is £255 million of consumer spending sucked out of the economy. Money that will not be spent in local businesses and those businesses cannot afford to pay the price for the SNP's misguided approach. That is economic damage that we can avoid, and repairing it could take years according to the Scottish Chamber of Commerce. The Scottish Conservatives are the only party calling for no basic rate rise. We are not even asking Mr Mackay to adopt our policy, just his own. That is where we have come to. The Scottish Conservatives have nothing to stand up for the SNP manifesto, because the SNP will not. If that promise is not kept and it will not matter how much grievance the SNP manufactures, how many cries of tories or Westminster they are, the people of Scotland will vote again, and this time they will vote with their wallets. Thank you, Mr Gold. I call Red McPherson, who is followed by James Dornan. People across Scotland today will be as bemused as I am to hear the tories trying to cast themselves as the party of low- and middle-income families. It would be ironic if it were not so absurd. What is also bemusing is that today and for some time, the tories have tried to portray themselves of some sort of all-knowing authority on the economy when, in reality, across the UK, they are a picture of economic incompetence. On the basis of the mess that Tory Westminster MPs have made of economic policy over recent decades, it is reasonable to ask whether the tories here today and across the United Kingdom are in denial about the reality of their party's economic ineptitude. Let's remember that more than 60 per cent of Scotland's spending power is still dependent on decisions taken at Westminster. The truth is, on the basis of history, evidence, economic performance and ethical analysis, the tories actively pursue and impose policies that damage the lives of low- and middle-income families. The tories, whether here in Holyrood or down in Westminster, are the party that has ripped off low- and middle-income families. They have attacked public services with their nonsensical ideological austerity agenda, including cutting Scotland's discretionary budget by £2.6 billion in real terms. It is the tories that have widened inequality, punished the most vulnerable through their so-called welfare reform agenda, resulting in pain in social security cuts around Scotland of around £6 billion. It is the tories that have damaged economic performance with the ORB recently slashing productivity and GDB forecasts for the UK. Adam Topkin I am grateful to Mr MacPherson for giving away on the point of social security. He and I sit on the social security committee together. Is the member concerned about the unintended consequences that raising income tax will have on the pensions relief of young basic rate taxpayers and on the lump sum payments of pensioners cashing in a lifetime of hard-earned money? Ben MacPherson I mentioned earlier that more than 60 per cent of Scotland's spending power is still dependent on decisions taken at Westminster. Mr Tomkins is intelligent enough to know that pensions law is completely reserved to the UK Parliament. Presiding Officer, the last 10 years of Tory policy and austerity agenda have made deliberate choices targeted to punish low and middle-income families, causing suffering and distress for many of my constituents and many others across Scotland. This Parliament does not control laws around tax avoidance and tax evasion, not yet anyway, but the UK Tory Government does, and multinationals have avoided paying billions in UK corporate taxes last year and years before by booking profits overseas. The UK Tory Government could have done more about that instead of tackling and slashing Scotland's budget and services for low and middle-income families. This Parliament does not control capital gains tax, or inheritance tax, or dividend income and savings tax, or corporation tax, but the Tories at Westminster do. If the Tories were genuinely concerned about low and middle-income families, why haven't they utilised those wealth taxes in recent years to raise revenues more justly instead of cutting public services for low and middle-income families, cutting social security and cutting Scotland's budget? The problem with the Tories is that they nearly always fail to see the bigger picture. However, someone who did understand the wider view used to live not too far from here. His name was Adam Smith. Seen as the father of modern economics by many, Smith's theories of competition and competitiveness are, of course, as impertinent today as they've ever been. However, what the Tories miss is that Smith's theories of moral sentiments are also as pertinent today as they've ever been. Smith's belief that empathy is what holds society together, his belief in the visible hand of collaboration and compassion, as well as the invisible hand of competition. Smith understood in a way that the Tories never will that it is our collective benefit—the inner collective benefit—to invest in each other, that businesses can only thrive in a healthy social environment and that creating conditions for growth and prosperity requires public sector investment in skills, care, infrastructure and the common good. In the words of Smith to conclude, humanity, justice, generosity and public spirit are the qualities that are most useful to others. On the evidence of recent years and decades, the Tories have been sorely lacking in those principles and virtues. On the other hand, I'm confident that tomorrow's Scottish budget will exemplify them and I support the cabinet secretary in that tomorrow. I call James Dornan. Mr Dornan is the last speaker in the open debate. Mr Dornan, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. When I saw this Conservative party motion, I was, again, blown away at the sheer audacity and hypocrisy of it. But hey, hey, it's mud though. What else would you expect? While some of their colleagues and partners, like so many of the rich and elite, are able to squirrel away money whilst avoiding their duty and responsibility to take care of those most in need, those in the lowest income—in fact, middle incomes—find themselves becoming poorer and poorer at the hands of their Tory Government colleagues in Westminster, and at the same time, some of my constituents are so far from paradise that they are living in an almost Victorian era-type hell. Maybe it's here that Richard Leonard should have used the word decency and attacking those who are actually responsible for it, but hey, joined up political thinking, eh? So the Tories want to pretend they're serious about protecting the poor. Okay, well, let me enlighten them as to the type of nightmare that their policies are inflicting on people in my constituency of Cathcart and my city of Glasgow. Now, these stories are real and stories which have only come to my attention in the last week. Now, pay attention here because this is the reality of what your Government has created. A grandmother raising four grandchildren is her daughter's unable to cope. Her pension would be considered meager for an elderly person on her own, yet forced to bring up these children and benefits continuously slashed. The woman still needs clothes to get them through the winter, so she's driven to shop lift from a local shop. She was so ashamed by her behaviour, she returned to the store the next day to confess and pay for the goods and thankfully the shop allowed her to do so. But what will the sacrifice be? Will it be food? Will it be fuel to heat her home? Can any of you even imagine what it's like to be a proud elderly woman who's never committed a crime in her life to feel forced to steal just for the basics? I doubt it very much. I'm sure that there are some people on these benches to my left who really believe that the barbaric benefit cuts and sanctions that were getting regularly from Westminster will enable, or let's be honest, forced people into work. Let me share one other example. A young, care-experienced girl who's lived in sofas most of her life manages to get herself to university and becomes a teacher. She then gets married, says three lovely kids, seven, three and one. Her husband becomes emotionally abusive and controlling. He's coercive and convinces her to fall pregnant with a fourth. The woman, now completely controlled in many ways, is still trying to be the best parent and contributor to society that she possibly can be, learns a new skill, gets a job with a community organisation. Point of order. Excuse me, Mr Dornan. Presiding Officer, Linda Fabiani suggested that Adam Tomkins was not sticking to the terms of the motion. I would ask is Mr Dornan sticking to the terms of the motion. Please sit down, Mr Dornan, and don't win your comments just now. I think that the points that Mr Dornan are making—I take it as a point of order—are with regard to issues of poverty and how one resolves it. Those are exemplifying it. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I have to say that I'm very, very disappointed by that so-called point of order. The woman, now completely controlled in many ways, is still trying to be the best parent and contributor to society that she possibly can be. She learns a new skill, gets a job with a community organisation for a few hours a week. The husband leaves her and leaves her without money. She then has to claim benefits to survive, but now can't afford the childcare that is needed to up her working hours to 16 hours a week. Even though the local nursery is accommodating in every way it can, she has to give up her job. Here's a young woman that the Tories would say they support, someone who wants nothing more than to contribute to the best way that she can be enforced into poverty and potential hopelessness. The caps to housing benefit means that she can no longer afford to rent a privately rented flat, which rend the turn of three children homeless. This young woman has fought and fought, camped outside housing offices, sought advice from every third sector organisation possible and had support from wonderful members of her community. However, because of the policy of this Westminster Government, she's left in this dire state of poverty. Are you moved yet? Are you getting it yet? No, clearly not. The motion isn't just deflection to hide some of the horrendous assaults on the lives of the poorest in Scotland. It's a downright insult to the people they talk of protecting. In contrast, while her budget has been slashed, this Government has still spent hundreds of millions of pounds on improving lives in mitigating Tory austerity, offsetting the bedroom tax, which is forcing people out of their homes across other parts of the United Kingdom, free prescriptions, which means that no one is denied access to medicines, and free tuition fees that allow any young person in Scotland to attend university enabling them to have at least the opportunity to arrive at a positive life destination, regardless of their social economic backgrounds. The Tories can sit there and pretend that they care, and that this motion is for the benefit of the poorest in Scotland, but we can all see it for what it is. It's a vacuous pretense of doing the right thing. If they really wanted to do the right thing, then what they would do is— Excuse me, but you can all sit down the members in these last minutes. They would remember the cases that I talked of today, they would take them to their colleagues at Westminster, and they would beg them to reverse the policies that are damaging lives across this country. Oh, and maybe while they're at it, they can then beg for forgiveness for every single life that they are heartless and inhumane economic policies have destroyed. I'm done. Thank you very much, Mr Dorman. Can I call Willie Rennie, please to close for the Liberal Democrats? Six minutes are thereabouts, Mr Rennie, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. This debate has been peppered with condemnation from either side. I have to say that I enjoyed Neil Findlay's inciting the next revolution. I wasn't quite sure whether it was starting this afternoon or tomorrow morning, but I enjoyed his speech half an hour. Nonetheless, I enjoyed his speech. The most humorous condemnations were from the SNP Benches, who proceeded to condemn the wording of their own manifesto only 18 months ago. The series of speeches could have been made at any time condemning the cuts from the Conservative Government. I have some sympathy with that, but the fact is that, 18 months ago, they were standing on a platform of doing absolutely nothing about it. Being prepared to sit there and take the reduction in expenditure that was very clear was evident 18 months ago, but now they are standing on a platform of possibly increasing the basic rate of income tax, which is something that I welcome. In fact, I thought that Kate Forbes' speech was a good speech, talking about having a mature debate—an honest debate—about the future of our country. However, the SNP needs to come clean. It needs to accept that it got it wrong 18 months ago. It needs to apologise for getting it wrong 18 months ago. Then we can move forward to have a proper debate about the future of the country. From his own party's experience, has he learned any lessons about making promises in an election that he was then not delivered on? It is a salad dressing for other parties. People will laugh and joke that the real consequences of not being absolutely clear about your manifesto commitments and following them are penalties and consequences for that. If it was a fair world, I think that the SNP would suffer some degree for that. I welcome the fact that they have moved, and that is why I am conflicted in that debate. I welcome the fact that they are moving on to a territory in which we can have a mature debate about the future of the country and about balancing the needs of money and people's pockets with the need for investment in public services. We know that it is a tight balance. We should not indicate from today that this is an indication of an awful lot more tax rises to come. We need to act with moderation. We need to understand that money and people's pockets is a precious thing, and we should not be looking to raise taxes at every opportunity. However, the one thing that I reject from Murdo Fraser's party is Bill Bowman's embracing of the pickpocketing comparison. I do not think that investing in social care for elderly people or trying to look after people in hospital through the NHS or educating our children is pickpocketing. I do not think that that is theft. I think that that is investing in our people and caring for our people. I hope that Bill Bowman will reflect on the language that he uses, and he should remember those 22 Tory tax rises that John Major introduced. We did not condemn him at that time for pickpocketing. What we said was that he was stealthy, he was dishonest about it, but what he was definitely not doing was pickpocketing, because tax can be a force for good to invest in public services for the future of the country. I was very worried during the debate, incredibly worried, that John Mason, on two occasions, said that his thinking was similar to mine. I might not sleep tonight as a result of that. I am deeply concerned that perhaps John Mason and I are aligning somehow in political thinking, and I will therefore need to rethink our political position all over again if that is going to happen. However, I think that the Conservatives should rethink—I know that we are not allowed to use props, but I think that Murdo Fraser has been raising the Fraser of Allander graph upside down, because my graph from the Fraser of Allander Institute shows the resource budget falling in real terms. It goes down. He might have been reading it this way, but I read it this way. I try to work out where the wording is at the top of the chart, and I read the chart in the same direction rather than upside down. Murdo Fraser should recognise that there is a cut in real terms to the budget. He also needs to recognise that his Government does not like to point out the fact that the Conservative Government is cutting the revenue budget in real terms for this Government. Jackie Baillie was absolutely spot on once again—£250 million this year in real terms to the resource budget—absolutely spot on, and that is why the Conservatives were rather embarrassed during Jackie Baillie's contribution to the debate. However, have you also looked at what the OBR has said about the growth? The GDP forecasts have fallen every single year. We have got a real problem with inflation now, as a result in the fall in the value of the pound, which is a direct result of the Conservative's reckless gamble with a hard Brexit. However, we also have very concerning figures today about unemployment and employment, which is why we really need to think again about investing in the skills and the talents of our people, because that is the way that we drive forward our economy in this country. We do not do it by cutting funding for education. We invest in colleges, we make sure that we reverse the decline in part-time places, and we invest in young people, so that we have an opportunity of closing that inequality gap to make sure that everybody participates in the future of the economy. That is the way to grow the economy. It is certainly not the way that the Conservatives would have it, and that is why we should reject their motion today. We have had some fairly predictable knock-about stuff, which the political party or government will blame the other for the downside in the economy and take the credit for what little good news there is. A motion that misses the opportunity to have a substantial debate about tax policy by obsessing about one band of one tax. There have been some very good speeches. John Mason was just mentioned. John Mason is someone with whom I disagree on a great many fundamental issues, but he did at least attempt to engage with that debate about the reform of tax policy. When an individual member or a political party changes their position, my instinct is not to jump up and down, wag my finger and say, ah, we told you so. It is to welcome the fact that the debate is moving on. James Dornan and Neil Findlay were among the members whose speeches recognised that real world experience of poverty and inequality in our society should matter more to us in this debate than grass in the Fraser of Allander report. It is valuable, though they are, that lived experience matters more. I would also like to mention Ben Macpherson's speech, which reminded some of us what many people forget about some of Adam Smith's writing. Andy Wightman has had opportunities to remind the Conservatives in this debate previously that the principles of taxation were written before income tax was introduced. If we are going to have a proper meaningful debate about tax reform, we should take it with the breads that that implies. The Smith commission got many things wrong, Presiding Officer, and I take my full share of responsibility for that, but the basic proposition that tax policy in Scotland should be at least largely determined in Scotland was agreed by all sides. The idea that the Conservatives appear to have advanced since that time that taxes in Scotland should never be increased beyond that that is applied south of the border is absurd. There is no basis on which that principle can clearly be argued operating in one direction but not the other. If it applies in both directions, it is a recipe only for tax competition, unending austerity and the brutal inequality that results. This Parliament and the Scottish Government have responsibility for income tax policy in Scotland, and we should have the courage to debate that comprehensively. Adam Tomkins gave a very detailed speech about infrastructure and about the city region deal and about capital spending. We did not hear anything about income tax until his final sentence. Even so, if Adam Tomkins now, or anybody else in fact, would like to rise to tell me why someone on an MSP's salary, rising to £62,000 this coming year, would be reduced to penury if we had to pay a fair tax rise, I will listen to it. That is a challenge that I have made in this chamber, on public platforms, on hustings and in the media, time after time after time, why is it that somebody on our high salaries could not afford to pay a bit more tax? No one has yet answered it. I suspect that Neil Findlay might give me a different take on that. Neil Findlay? Indeed, I will, because does he not understand that even if that were to happen, Mr Tomkins, for example, would not be affected because he has actually got three jobs? I would want to save Professor Tomkins' blushes after the embarrassment that he must have felt from Murdo Fraser condemning those who had second jobs in the opening speech. Let us just take that as rent. Let us get real, though, about incomes in Scotland. We are talking about income tax, so let us be honest about the nature of incomes in Scotland. A median full-time salary in Scotland is just over £28,000. The median for all working people is £23,000. That is what a middle income is in Scotland right now. Since 2009, people have seen real-terms wage cuts of around 8 per cent, and that has hit hardest to those at the lowest end below that median and to those with the most precarious work, including part-time work, as 78 per cent of whom are women in our economy. Yet many people still have a distorted view of our income inequalities. During this debate, a Conservative supporter online told me that £40,000 isn't a high income. He said, £40,000 to £120,000 counts as middle class. Maurice Golden repeated an assertion that he gave at the stage 3 debate of the budget at the beginning of this calendar year in talking about that change to the higher rate threshold affecting middle earners. People earning £43,000 are not middle earners. It is called the higher rate because it applies to higher earnings. That £23,000, that £28,000, those are middle incomes in Scotland right now, and we need to get a bit realistic about that. Maurice Golden, though, after making that comment, let the mask slip somewhat. He said that he wants people to vote with their wallets. He is asking people to go into a ballot box to participate in the democratic process, asking themselves not how can I contribute to a fair and decent society, not how can I make sure that my neighbour has food to put on the table, but how can I make sure that my wallet feels a little fatter in my pocket? That is what the Conservative parties represent in this debate. It is the party that wants to serve the interests who have financial riches but who are morally bankrupt. We need to ensure that, as we recognise that food poverty is returned on a scale that many thought would never happen again in our society, we have a responsibility to use tax policy to close the inequality gap, as well as funding our vital services. I call James Kelly to close for Labour. Six minutes are there abouts, Mr Kelly. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Thank you to the Tory benches. I welcome the opportunity to close this debate this afternoon and speak in support of the Labour amendment. The debate started with a speech from Murdo Fraser, when he concentrated on the issue of tax. In many ways, it is a speech that we have heard many times before from Murdo Fraser. It was a bit like Groundhog Day. However, his obsession with delivering a tax policy that benefits those that are better off borne nor resemblance to the consequences for those in local communities who will face swinge and cuts as a result of Tory policies. You have to see it in the context. Jackie Baillie was absolutely correct to point out that the direct result of the Tory budget is £199 million for the revenue grant to Scotland. That has a real impact on communities throughout Scotland. That is how we will see the continuation of the Tory austerity policies that we have seen since 2010. It manifests itself in the introduction of the implementation of policies such as universal credit. The delays, crucially for people in receiving benefits, result in people being short of money. Therefore, they are not able to afford proper amounts of food, they are not able to afford paying rent and, sadly, we see people driving on to the street. When I left Waverly station this morning, I saw a young man sleeping on the street in a puddle in the pouring icy rain. It is that sort of consequence that the Tory ventures do not want to know about. Murdo Fraser might think that it is fine to look down and play on his phone, but the reality of it is that there are people sleeping rough on the street and people being driven into poverty as a result of the policies pursued by the Tory Government. I remember going back to the first week when we came back after recess, when we debated the programme for government and members may remember that the big Tory idea towards the end of the summer recess was that they suddenly discovered the need for social housing. We heard member after member speak about housing. We did not hear anything about that today in a debate that essentially is a rehearsal for budget priorities that are going to be announced by Mr Mackay tomorrow. The reality of that is that we know the Tory legacy on housing that was pursued during the 1980s and 1990s, a policy that run down the public sector housing stock. That was coupled with swindgeon cuts to local authority budgets. That is the legacy nod. I do not want to take an intervention at this time. We then heard a contribution from Adam Tomkins all about growth and the importance of the growth of the Glasgow economy, but we heard absolutely nothing about the importance of the Glasgow City Council budget in order to produce that growth in Glasgow. It is quite clear that if the budget has been reduced by £53 million, that will undermine growth. I challenge Mr Tomkins to join me tomorrow and argue for a fair settlement for Glasgow City Council and the rest of the councils across Scotland. As Neil Findlay pointed out correctly, the swindgeon level of those cuts does not only reduce the level of budgets for councils, but it also reduces people's dignity. In terms of tomorrow, it is clearly a very big day for the cabinet secretary, Derek Mackay, as Richard Leonard pointed out. That is an opportunity to use the powers of the Parliament to promote a progressive budget and to make a real difference to some of the issues that we face across the country. You just need to look at the column yesterday from Kenny MacAskill where he said that police officers were now being run ragged. As a result of that, the public should not expect police officers to be available to investigate low-level crime. I am sure that that comment would come as a shock and no comfort to those in local communities who face the prospect of anti-social behaviour or vandalism. Let us see what happens tomorrow. Tomorrow is the opportunity for the SNP to come off the fence on taxation. Let us give us a budget that supports local councils, because local councils are an important driver of economic growth. Let us have fair pay for public sector workers across Scotland. Let us make a real difference. Let us stand together against the Tory austerity and produce the progressive taxation that can give us a budget that is bold for Scotland and will be welcomed by Scotland's communities. We have, on a slightly lighter note, learned a few things this afternoon. The first thing that I have learned is that James Kelly's Labour's finance spokesperson, which is immensely helpful. The second thing that I have learned is that, with Ruth Davidson's prospect of going to Westminster, Murdo Fraser has launched his leadership bid already this afternoon, and he might win in the Conservatives at this time, that Willie Rennie is conflicted, but it is not all John Mason's fault in terms of the debate this afternoon. However, what we have essentially debated, yes, is tax and how it relates to the budget. The serious point that I want to make is this. I think that James Dornan in outlining real-life human stories was entirely appropriate. What was substantial here was the way that the Tories snared and laughed and howled at the real-life stories of the pain and suffering that is going on in communities across the United Kingdom because of the decisions that the UK right-wing Tory Government is making in living standards on the economy and in finance. It relates to Patrick Harvie's point about taxation and what he does with taxation and the contribution to society. It was the way that people like Edward Mountain said what this has got to do with the debate, how he raised and how he spends resources really matters, and the Tories have been exposed very clearly in this debate for wanting to raise less and spend more. It is just not possible. However, there is a dishonesty in their position today—not right now. The dishonesty in their position is this. They have said that they want to stick to their manifesto position. That is not what you are proposing. That is not what the Conservatives are proposing. What the Conservatives have said in relation to tax is that they want exactly the same as England or less—a race to the bottom. What that would mean is that less resources for our public services would mean tuition fees, less support for care for older people, less support for childcare, no universal free school meals and prescription charges reintroduced. They want to cut tax for the richest in our society. I thought that Kate Forbes and Ivan McKee specifically gave a very potent contribution in the forensic analysis of the Tory economic strategy, which has failed and continues to fail people, not just in Scotland but right across the UK. We have said that we will look at evidence and we will look at the information before us to come to a balanced decision on taxation. Almost in a Donald Trump-esque style, they said why they are listening to experts and particularly challenged Anton Muscatelli and said why they do not confuse us with all those expert opinions. It is that kind of understanding of the issues before us that will inform our decisions about tax. I have committed to delivering stability and stimulus in the budget and, of course, sustainability for our public services in a very ambitious programme for government that is focused on education, the economy and the environment. That is why we have to take the right decisions about taxation and how we pay for our priorities. When we heard the human, the real-life stories about how we support our society and mitigate the impacts of welfare reductions coming from the Tory Government, those issues really matter. It speaks to the kind of society that we want to build. I will take an intervention. I am sure that I want to welcome Kezia Dugdale back to the chamber, back from the jungle, but into the wilderness. Let me ask him a serious question about his tax proposals. Has the cabinet secretary consulted with HMRC to establish the possible harm to pension relief of 890,000 basic rate taxpayers? I am glad that Jackie Baillie thinks that that is funny if a new band is created at the £24,000 threshold next year. There are a number of points that Aram Tomkins made earlier in the intervention just yet. First of all, I think that the UK Government has to take some responsibility for the economy in the UK. They feel that they are partly responsible for the economic performance within Scotland, and absolutely they should do more. Specifically in relation to HMRC, of course the Scottish Government engages with HMRC to ensure that any changes that we may propose are factored into their workings and their preparation. Our powers are limited. We do not have complete control over all elements of taxation. I wish it was so, but it is people like the Conservatives that have stopped the full transfer of powers to this Parliament so that this country can tackle any anomalies that there may be. Of course we want the full range of tax leavers to be able to deliver a better society, but the test that this Government put forward in relation to taxation includes principles around progressivity, protecting lower income earners, supporting the economy and ensuring that we sustain and promote our public services. I believe that we will get the balance right. I have engaged in round tables with key stakeholders from across civic society and the business community, listened to expert advice from the Council of Economic Advisers and looked at the forecast from the Scottish Fiscal Commission. It is now discharging its duties as an independent organisation, providing us the forecast. That engagement will bear fruit when I present the draft budget tomorrow. When faced with the economic recklessness of the UK Government, the uncertainty coming from Brexit and the continuation of the principle of austerity reduced real-terms resources for our front-line services that every other member of Parliament, other than the Conservatives, considered was the case. Those reduced resources, that on-going austerity, the uncertainty of Brexit and the damage that is reaping upon the UK and Scotland particularities. First, with all that, I look forward to presenting a budget tomorrow that will be about investing in our future, protecting our public services, using our tax system in a fair and progressive way, and building a better Scotland. I call indeed Lockhart to close the Conservatives till 5 o'clock, please. The debate today has covered a number of the fiscal and economic considerations that will be central to the budget tomorrow, not least of which is the question of income tax, and whether the budget tomorrow will increase the income tax burden on the hard-working people of Scotland. My colleagues have provided the finance secretary with a stark reminder that any increase in the basic rate of income tax will break a critical manifesto promise upon which his Government was elected. The fiscal reality is that the Scottish National Party does not need to increase the basic rate of income tax or any other tax for that matter because the total block grant funding from the UK Government will increase in real terms over the next three years. Page 17 of yesterday's Fraser Van Der Report makes this clear, and I quote, that the Scottish Government's total block grant is on track to increase in the next three financial years. The only reason that we are having a debate on the level of tax revenues in Scotland is not because of a decline in the UK block grant but because of the SNP failures in three critical areas. First, failure to grow the economy. We now have an SNP economy characterised by low growth, low wages and low productivity, an economy that has grown by 0.1 per cent in five of the last six quarters and is growing at a rate a third of the UK. Under the fiscal framework, negotiated by the SNP, the economic gap means that there will be a real negative impact on Scotland's budget going forward. That is why we and every leading business organisation are calling for urgent action now to grow the economy. Increasing tax will only damage the economy and runs the real risk of tipping Scotland into recession. How does the member explain the slash to economic growth forecast on the day that his Tory colleague in the UK Government announced his budget? Dean Lockhart, I think that the member will find that the forecast growth for the UK economy is still significantly higher than the forecast growth for the Scottish economy under her Government. Secondly, the SNP's mismanagement of public services means that despite increasing Barnett consequentials, despite much higher spending per capita than elsewhere in the UK, public services across Scotland are suffering because of the SNP's mismanagement of the NHS, education of Police Scotland and other vital services. Thirdly, the Government's incompetence has resulted in £1 billion of taxpayers' money being wasted through overspending and waste. If and when the SNP decides to increase tax in tomorrow's budget, it is not because funding from the UK Government has been cut. It is because of the SNP's on-going failure to grow the economy, its mismanagement of public services and its wasteful incompetence as a Government. It will be the hard-working people of Scotland who will be paying the price for those SNP failures and paying the price for SNP-broken promises. During the debate, we heard from Labour, the Greens and the Lib Dems, who all confirmed their support for increasing the tax burden on the hard-working people in Scotland. Three of the four scenarios outlined in the SNP's consultation paper do likewise. On that side of the chamber, my colleagues have made a powerful and compelling case against any increase in tax. There is no electoral mandate, there is no financial requirement and there is no economic justification to increase tax in Scotland. In terms of the mandate, page 17 of the SNP's hollywood manifesto could not be clearer. We will freeze the basic rate of income tax throughout the next Parliament to protect those in low and middle incomes. That is also the text of our motion today. Something that John Mason rather bizarrely described as illogical and not making economic sense. James Dornan described it as a vacuous pretense. Perhaps this explains why the SNP MSPs today will vote against their very own hollywood manifesto. The Scottish Conservatives had the same manifesto commitment not to increase the basic rate of tax. That means that 94 MSPs in this chamber were elected on the basis of a manifesto commitment not to increase the basic rate of tax. That is a Parliament of minorities, but it was not elected to be a Parliament of tax-increasing minorities. There is no electoral mandate in this chamber to increase the basic rate of tax. Financially, there is no need to increase tax tomorrow in Mr Mackay's budget. As I said, the Scottish Government's total block grant is going up. The Scottish Government will receive an extra £2 billion in Barnett consequentials over the next four years. I will in a second, but in his remarks, Mr Mackay has complained that it is the wrong type of money. Only the SNP would get £2 billion of additional money and then complain about it being the wrong type of money. I will give way. I thank Mr Lockhart for giving way. He seems to be in the middle, along with his Tory colleagues, of a grand exercise in gaslighting. Very specifically, is the resource budget, the resource but not the capital budget, not financial transactions, the resource budget going up or down? Answer the question up or down. Dean Lockhart, I would recommend that Mr Arthur read the financial analysis of the Fraser of Alun report. Page 17, the Scottish Government's total block grant is increasing. The economic case against the tax increase could not be more compelling. There is now a serious consensus within Scotland's business community that higher tax will cause real and lasting damage to the economy. Those organisations have given a number of compelling reasons not to increase tax. Let me remind the finance secretary what those reasons are. The Scottish Retail Consortium, any tax increase will have a negative multiplier effect on the economy. Scotland already has the lowest disposable income and consumer confidence of any part of the UK. Any further reduction in take-home pay will damage the economy. The Federation of Small Business, higher income tax will increase the cost of doing business in Scotland. That comes on top of Mr Mackay's large business supplement, higher business rates and lower business confidence in Scotland. According to the CBI, increasing tax in Scotland will exacerbate the skills gap, make it more difficult for business in Scotland to attract and retain talent, and make investors think twice about setting up in Scotland. The Scottish Chamber of Commerce has warned that making Scotland a high tax country will cause long-term damage to Scotland's international investment profile. Those are the views of leading business organisations in Scotland. They represent hundreds of thousands of large and small businesses across Scotland that employ millions of people. They have made it clear that increasing tax will damage the economy. Perhaps Mr Mackay can tell the chamber what he knows about the economy, what he knows about business and what he knows about expanding the tax base that those organisations do not. If Mr Mackay listens to business, he will know that the only long-term sustainable way to fund world-class public services in Scotland is for Scotland to increase and realise its full economic potential and become a high-wage, high-growth, innovative and enterprising economy. For that to happen, we need a new direction in economic policy. That change in economic direction can start with the budget tomorrow. That is why we are calling on the finance secretary in his budget tomorrow to reverse the SNP policy of making Scotland the highest tax part of the UK, not to increase income tax on the hard-working people of Scotland and to honour his Government's promise, his manifesto commitment not to increase the basic rate of tax. I support the motion in Murdo Fraser's name. Thank you. That concludes our debate on finance. The next item of business is consideration of three business motions, motion 94545, setting out a business programme, and motions 9441 and 9448 on stage 1 timetables for two bills. I would ask any member who wishes to speak against any of those motions to say so now calling Joe Fitzpatrick to move the motions above named. No member has asked to speak against the motions. The question is that motions 9545, 9541 and 9548 be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. The next item of business is consideration of five parliamentary bureau motions. I would ask Joe Fitzpatrick on behalf of the bureau to move motions 9542 to 9544, 9546 and 9547 on approval of SSIs. I remind members that, if the amendment to the name of Derek Mackay is agreed, then all the other amendments would fall. The question is that amendment 9513.4 in the name of Derek Mackay, who seeks to amend the motion 9513 in the name of Murdo Fraser on finance be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. We will move to a vote, and members will be cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment 9513.4 in the name of Derek Mackay is yes, 64, no, 56, there were no abstentions, the amendment is therefore agreed. All the other amendments fall, therefore the next question is that motion 9513 in the name of Murdo Fraser as amended on finance be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. We will move to a vote, and members will be cast their votes now. The result of the vote on motion 9513 in the name of Murdo Fraser as amended is yes, 64, no, 56, there were no abstentions, the motion as amended is therefore agreed. I propose to ask a single question on the five parliamentary bureau motions. Does anybody object? Good. The question is that motions 9542 to 9544, 9546 and 9547 in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. That concludes decision time. We will now move to members' business in the name of Mary Gougeon on heads up for Harrier's project. We will just take a few moments for members to change seats.