 I'm afraid that that concludes questions, and I apologise to the members we have not reached. We turn to the next item of business, which is a debate on motion number 12857 in the name of Gavin Brown on Scotland's economy and finances. I'll allow a few seconds for members to change places. Can I invite members who wish to speak in this debate to press their request-to-speak buttons and a call on Gavin Brown to speak to and move the motion in my name? I'm saying that the Scottish Conservatives today want to have a focused and analytical debate on the subject, specifically on the issue of full fiscal autonomy and the likely effect of that on the economy and public finances of Scotland. Since September, the Scottish Government have had a very clear stance on the issue. It wants full fiscal autonomy and it wants it as soon as possible. Mr Swinney said in the chamber three short weeks ago that Scotland should be fully responsible for raising and spending all its own resources. There are three reasons why we want the debate today. First, we do not think that anywhere near enough attention has been given to an issue that would represent a fundamental change to Scotland, and it could be a potential reality if the Scottish Government is in a position of influence in the coming months. Secondly, we want the debate because a number of experts have suggested that we would be worse off under full fiscal autonomy, not just slightly worse off but markedly worse off with some frightening figures from independent experts. We have seen those figures from people who are against full fiscal autonomy—that might be expected—but we have seen it from people who are neutral as regards full fiscal autonomy. This morning, we saw it from somebody who is in favour of full fiscal autonomy but has the maturity to accept and admit that there would be challenging times, particularly in the short term for Scotland, where we have to go down that path. We are only the Scottish Government to be as open and candid as we heard this morning. This is important because the entire package is being sold by the Scottish Government and the Scottish National Party at this election as the only way to end austerity. They are not saying that we might be round about the same. They are not saying that we might be slightly worse. They are saying that we will be so much better off that there will be no requirement for any spending reductions whatsoever over the course of the next Parliament. They even have the audacity to suggest that this would boost revenues that are available to spend by the Scottish Government. I am happy to give way to Mr Mason. I wonder whether the member would accept the principle that this Government and this party want both more powers for Scotland and the best possible deal for Scotland. We are not going to argue for a deal that makes Scotland worse off. I am not sure whether Mr Mason simply does not understand the arithmetic or is that an admission for Mr Mason, who is a very straightforward character when it comes to debating? Is that an admission that we would be worse off in Scotland where we have to go for full fiscal autonomy? Therefore, he is not going to argue for it, which is somewhat against what his front bench will argue today and has argued over the past weeks and months. The third reason we want this debate, because the Scottish Government has failed to publish any figures at all on the basic impact of our finances of full fiscal autonomy. They have been able to ignore some of the more challenging questions in the wider debates on the economy that we have had in here. Today, we wanted it to be specifically on that issue, so that we can hear straight from the Deputy First Minister what those figures are and so that we can implore him to publish the figures so that the people of Scotland can see in a transparent fashion what the impact would be. Some people in this country may well want full fiscal autonomy even if it means that we are markedly worse off, and that is their right. However, many people will be voting on the judgment of whether or not we will be better or worse off. That is where the Scottish Government, as the Government in this country, has a duty to publish those figures so that people can make their own decisions. Let us look at what the experts have been saying. The Institute for Fiscal Studies, independent experts and highly regarded experts have been pretty upfront on the issue. They have looked at the reduced oil revenues due to a lower price, production, higher costs and tax breaks, and they have looked at what the fiscal position would be for Scotland and the UK. We know through GERS that the UK had a fiscal deficit of 5.6 per cent in 1314. We know that Scotland had a fiscal deficit of 8.1 per cent, a marked difference. However, the projections from the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggest that the deficit for the UK will drop in the financial year to 5 per cent and then down to 4 per cent in 1516. For Scotland, under full fiscal autonomy, the deficit would increase in the financial year to minus 8.6 per cent, and it would stay there for the following year at minus 8.6 per cent. So, by the end of the financial year 1516, you could have a position where the UK has a falling deficit and a deficit of 4 per cent, but Scotland has a rising deficit at 8.6 per cent, more than double the United Kingdom. That would translate, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies have said, to £7.6 billion. £7.6 billion would have to be plugged either by decreasing spending but decreasing spending over and above the trajectory of the UK Government as set out in the recent budget. It would mean that every single spending reduction that is set out by the UK and £7.6 billion on top of it or that it did not want to make £7.6 billion worth of cuts, it would have to increase tax to a degree, or it would have to increase borrowing to a degree, or probably most likely a combination of all three. Does the Scottish Government accept the figure of £7.6 billion? Every time they have been asked, as they were again today by Neil Bibby at question time, they have ignored the question. Do they accept the £7.6 billion, or do they have an alternative figure? If they do, will they publish it? Will they tell the chamber and the people of Scotland what they believe the deficit or the figure to be? Perhaps we are about to get the answer. I will give way to Mr Mackenzie. Mike Mackenzie. I just wondered if, in the IFS calculation that you have laid out this afternoon, whether or not they have taken into account the potential outcomes of the forthcoming UK election and how they have figured that out into the calculation. The IFS figures are based on the projection that was set out by the UK Government at the time of the March budget, so no, it does not take into account what the make-up of the UK Government will be. For the primary reason that even the IFS at this stage do not know who the UK Government is going to be, come the election. They do not know, so of course they could not take into account what would have happened or what may have happened. We see from Fiscal Affairs Scotland another expert group, not at this moment, Mr Brody, in 2019-20. I have given you the likely figure for 15-16, but let us fast forward to the end of the session of Parliament. The UK, according to Fiscal Affairs Scotland, would have a positive fiscal balance of not 0.3 per cent of GDP, but Scotland, if we were to go through full fiscal autonomy, would have a fiscal deficit of 4.3 per cent. The UK would be in the second year of a small surplus of just over £7 billion. Scotland would have a deficit of over £8 billion by the end of the parliamentary session. What would happen if we were to go for it and we were to then be hit by another fiscal shock? It would be very difficult to cope with, and I repeat again, £8 billion worth of spending cuts on top of the ones that we are already going to have, or tax increases or increased borrowing. The Treasury pointed out—of course, I do not claim to be quite as independent as the Institute for Fiscal Studies, because they are part of the UK Government—that it will be a deficit of £7.8 billion in the next financial year, which will rise to £7.9 billion in 2018-19 and £8.4 billion in 2020, broadly in line with the estimates of others. We heard from a hugely respected businessman this morning, Jim McColl, who is a member of the Council of Economic Advisers and somebody who wants full fiscal autonomy. However, he accepts that there would be a gap. He said in response to the BBC today that there would be a gap if you were allocating all those revenues. Yes, there would be. He said that that is a direct lift from the BBC website. He contrasts that with the approach of the Scottish Government in the same article that said that Scotland already more than pays its own way. If you look at last year's GERS figures, that is not true. If you look at this year's GERS figures, that is not true. If you look at the projections for next year's GERS figures, that is not true either. There is not a single independent respected economist or forecaster on the planet who at this stage is saying that we would more than pay our way in any of the financial years over the course of the next Parliament, unless that respected economist happens to be Chick Brody, who wants to give way at this stage. I wonder if you can explain, Mr Brown, when you are going on about those numbers, why under the CRA, the adjustments in 2012-13, which fed through to 2013-14, why Scotland's—there was an upper revision of over £600 million in estimates of spending by Scotland as referred to by the HM Treasury, and yet the UK expenditure was cut by £1.9 billion. Why are we paying more and have paid more than you claim that we are not? Presiding Officer, I am not quite sure whether that was Chick Brody playing Sudoku with a few numbers, and probably nothing much more than that. The Scottish Government, in all seriousness—that is why we want this debate today—has thus far, I have to say, ducked the question. It has not put forward its own figures. It has given very opaque answers. I asked John Swinney a couple of weeks ago, does he accept that we would be worse off in the short term? His answer was, word for word, that I have set out the fact that, by exercising responsibilities in accordance with the needs and priorities of the people of Scotland, we have the ability to achieve some of the improvements in economic performance that I have set out. That was his answer to a direct question. What does that mean, Alex Johnson? I do not know whether that means yes or no, but not only have they ducked the question, Presiding Officer, they have published documents with, I have to say, a very partial analysis. If one were being cynical, they might say that it was deliberately a partial analysis of some of the effects. That is serious. They published the benefits of improved economic performance just a couple of weeks ago, giving the scenario of what they called full revenue retention. They concluded that their analysis demonstrates that our economy would be improved and our overall impact on the economy would be increased. We could reinvest the proceeds of our successful economic policies. They missed two critical factors. First of all, they showed potential upsides if they get greater productivity, greater business investment and a boost to experts. Crucially, they missed out how they would go on achieving any of those things. Their policies could easily fail just as they could succeed. It is very easy to say what would happen if what they did not demonstrate is how. Secondly and more importantly, they only looked at one side of the profit and loss account. They looked at some potential increased revenues that we might get if we grow, but in ignoring entirely the prospect that we would lose all of the Barnett consequentials—the additional £1,200 per head that we currently get in terms of public spending—they ignored it entirely, as if it did not exist. They went to the trouble of producing a computer-generated equilibrium model over a 10-year time period for total factor productivity, but they completely and blatantly ignored the basic calculations on full fiscal economy. What did he contrast with two years ago, when he published Scotland's balance sheet? At that time, Scotland had a slightly lower deficit than the United Kingdom. That was for 2011-12. John Swinney said repeatedly in the chamber, and out there in public, because we have a slightly lower deficit, that means that in Scotland we could have had higher spending and lower taxation and still end up with a lower deficit than the rest of the UK. If John Swinney was correct, and he said it dozens of times, that must mean by implication that now, with the higher deficit in Scotland and projected increasing deficit, that means that Scotland, if we did have full fiscal autonomy, we could have lower public spending and higher taxation and still end up with a higher deficit in the UK. That is why we have pushed the Scottish Government to publish the figures so that the chamber and the people of Scotland can look transparently at the numbers to see what the Scottish Government is actually planning for the people of Scotland. I now call on John Swinney to speak to and move amendment 12857.2. Deputy First Minister, 10 minutes please. Presiding Officer, let me begin by moving the amendment that stands in my name in the debate this afternoon. Scotland requires the social and economic powers necessary to reflect the needs and preferences of the people of Scotland and to ensure that we can enable the people of Scotland to build on the strong economic foundations that we have and to tackle some of the long-standing issues and challenges that we face as a society. Challenges that the United Kingdom system has so far failed to enable us to address. Let's take the issue of inequality. We have persistent inequality in our society. The efforts of this Government and indeed our predecessors in trying to tackle this issue which we are making progress for a number of years are now being halted by the policy choices made by the United Kingdom Government in terms of the burdens that have been carried by some of the poorest in our society. As just one example as to illustrate why we have to do something differently, because what Mr Brown essentially has argued for in his speech today is a continuation of the status quo that we should not do anything to try to tackle or interrupt some of these deep-seated problems that exist and trouble many of us in our society. The Government wants to do something about that. That was at the heart of our initiative around the referendum last September. In the aftermath of the referendum, we seek the opportunity to try to shape a better future by obtaining the powers that would enable Scotland to build a stronger economy, a more productive economy and a economy that would enable us to deliver a level of economic performance that we would then be able to reinvest in the delivery of public services within Scotland. If Mr Fraser lets me make a little bit of progress, I will give way in a second. As we consider those issues and as we make the case, we accept the outcome of the referendum, so the proposals that we are setting out are set within the fiscal framework of the United Kingdom, where a ffiscally autonomous Scotland would be operating within the fiscal and macroeconomic framework of the United Kingdom, but we would have responsibility for virtually all the taxes and the spending on almost all public services and the welfare system in Scotland. For me, the benefits of such an approach are clear. They would enable us to build on the foundations that we have for a successful economy and to tackle some of those deep-seated issues that we have to face. Scotland's onshore output per head is similar to the UK average and it ranks behind only London and the south-east within the United Kingdom. Where our Nazi resources are included, Scotland's output per head is over £1,600 per person higher than the UK average. We also have a higher employment rate than any other country in the United Kingdom. For the benefit of the historical analysis of all of this, in every one of the past 34 years, Scotland has generated more in tax revenue per person than the United Kingdom as a whole. I cite those facts to tackle some of the issues that Mr Brown has raised, because the inference of Mr Brown's speech is that, somehow, Scotland is incapable of building on those foundations to deliver a better outcome and a better future for the people of Scotland. That is the inference of Mr Brown's speech. I will give way to Mr Brown. I promise that I will give way to Mr Fraser. I certainly do not think that we are incapable, Deputy Presiding Officer, but I think that the Scottish Government should be candid and up front that, certainly over the course of the five-year projections that we have, it would be more challenging and we could not increase public spending. We would have to decrease and tighten even further. Surely he should be up front about that? That is not the inference that I took from the speech that Mr Brown has just made, because I think that with the full policy levers of independence, we could deliver on the performance that we have already delivered. I will come on to set out some of those benefits, but I will happily give way to Mr Fraser if he wishes me to give way to him just now. I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for giving way. The point that I was simply going to make to the cabinet secretary was this. If he is right in his analysis, if he is right to say that the Scottish Government is trying to create a stronger economy and trying to reduce inequality, and those are all laudable objectives, can he explain how a reduction of £7.6 billion per annum in the Scottish Government's budget will assist that process? I will come on to address some of those issues about how that comes about in a moment, but let me just go through some of the implications of the exercise of different responsibilities in Scotland since this Government came to power in 2007. We have managed to increase the value of Scottish international exports by 40 per cent. Business research and development spending has increased by 29 per cent. Scottish productivity has moved from being 6 per cent lower than the United Kingdom in 2007 to sitting at around the same level as the United Kingdom. To those who say that we cannot possibly in exercising distinctive responsibility to create a better level of economic performance, I just dispute that dismal assessment that is put forward. If we look at the success of Scotland in terms of inward investment, despite all of the issues that were said about the fact that, during the referendum, nobody would want to invest in Scotland, we are ranked the first or second most attractive part of the UK for inward investment in every year since 2006. As well as being able to tailor economic policy to encourage investment in job creation, full fiscal autonomy would ensure that decisions about the level and the composition of taxation in public and spending in Scotland reflected the needs and the preferences of the people and the businesses of Scotland. In that respect, the point is important because what fiscal autonomy enables us to do is to take a different course of action. Mr Brown has charted in this debate a whole variety of different numbers, but all of the analysis does not take into account the potential benefit of fiscal autonomy. He cited the Institute for fiscal studies on 11 March. The Institute for fiscal studies said that full fiscal autonomy would give more freedom to pursue different and perhaps better fiscal policy and to undertake the radical, politically challenging reforms that could generate additional growth. There are undoubtedly areas where existing UK policy could be improved upon, and that rather makes my point for me that that is in a nutshell what the opportunity of fiscal autonomy to enable us to take decisions that build on that different economic record that I set out a moment ago to deliver a stronger economic performance as a consequence. I'll happily give you that. The Institute for fiscal studies also said that there would be a £7.6 billion gap. Now, if you take the assumptions made in your second paper about the economic performance of the country, even using your best figures, you would generate £3.5 billion a year, whereas actually the gap is £7.6 billion. Where would we get the missing £4.1 billion from? What Jackie Baillie just passes by is that the Institute for fiscal studies put in there that the whole issue, the performance of the economy can be influenced but as a consequence of exercising these responsibilities and these levers. The other point that I want to make in answering Jackie Baillie's question is about how fiscal autonomy comes about. If we look at the process whereby this Parliament has acquired additional fiscal responsibilities, the additional fiscal responsibilities that have come into place today in Scotland, the new taxes, land and buildings transaction tax and the landfill tax, were provided for in the Kalman commission whose proposals were published in June 2009 and they are now being implemented here in Scotland a number of years later. My point is not to say that that is the ideal timescale because I think that all of us would agree that that has taken too long to get us from the point of conception to the point of implementation but my point is that there is a period of time during which we have to take the steps to implement new arrangements and new mechanisms. As we look also at the approach that is proposed to be taken on the Scottish rate of income tax, the approach that has been taken on the Scottish rate of income tax accepts unreservedly that there is a necessity to operate within the parameters of the fiscal framework of the United Kingdom. In his view, the crack timescale for independence was 18 months. What in his view is the crack timescale for full fiscal autonomy? That inevitably would be a product of negotiation with the United Kingdom Government. I can set out my view all I want, but I have to accept the reality that that would take place within a negotiation with the United Kingdom. As I look at the issues that we wrestle with around the fiscal framework, just for the taking forward of the Smith commission proposals, there is a process of negotiation that we have had to go through to enable that to happen. The final point that I want to make, Presiding Officer, is this. Mr Brown is called for scrutiny today on this issue, and he is perfectly within his rights to ask for that. I think that the people of Scotland will want scrutiny also. Of the cuts programme, the £12 billion of welfare reforms and cuts—not reforms, but cuts—that the Prime Minister wants to take forward, let us have some detail from Mr Brown today about the welfare cuts that people will be asked to judge on on 7 May. From the Labour Party, we would like to hear what the Labour Party will be doing to ensure that they fulfil the charter of budget responsibility, which involves £30 billion worth of cuts that they have to take forward. I look forward to hearing that from the parties that have come to Parliament today and to understand the choices that people will have before the election on 7 May, which is between austerity and cuts from the Labour Party and the Conservatives and investment in the economy from the Scottish National Party. Jackie Baillie, to speak to you and move amendment 1, 2, 8, 5, 7.1. Six minutes, please, Ms Baillie. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can I start by moving the amendment in my name? That, of course, is another Wednesday, another debate on full fiscal autonomy and the economy. Indeed, another debate is brought by the Opposition parties and not by the Government into its flagship policy for Scotland, raising all its own taxes to cover our spending. However, that is the choice facing the voters in Scotland at the general election, whether to retain the block grant and the Barnett formula that shares resources with Scotland from across the United Kingdom or whether to go for full fiscal autonomy within the United Kingdom. However, let us put that in context of what it would mean in reality to the people of Scotland. We know that the 2013 revenue accounts for Scotland showed that we would have a black hole of £4 billion in the country's finances, and that was before the dramatic slump in oil prices was taken account of. Then, for 2014-15, the black hole is forecast to grow to £6 billion. Of course, with the recent OBR projections on oil and the changes in the UK budget, the black hole is forecast to grow to a staggering £7.6 billion, as confirmed by the IFS that SNP members have been keen to quote today. You would either need to slash services or increase taxes by a huge amount to fill that gap. Let us look at what that would mean. A gap of £7.6 billion is 60 per cent of our NHS budget, more than all of our school's budget. It would completely wipe out state pensions for all of Scotland's older people. However, if that is not to happen, we would face a tax bombshell of more than £1,400 for each and every one of us. Give way to John Mason if he will tell me which he will do—cut services or increase taxes. Thank you to Jackie Baillie. I was going to refer her to the Smith commission, which says that, as a result of a transfer of other powers or a transfer of tax, neither the Scottish nor the UK budget would be any larger or any smaller. Does she not accept that principle applies? We are talking about full fiscal autonomy here. The record will show that there was no answer from the SNP-backed venture as to what it would do to deal with that black hole. However, of course, there is the suggestion that we can somehow grow ourselves out of the situation. That is just fantasy economics. The SNP had to fiddle the figures in their modelling to include assumptions about the block grant continuing, which we know it would not. Even if you were allowed for such a gross distortion, there is still a multi-billion-pound black hole at the heart of their budget, and that is using their own figures. I used to think that John Swinney did not want to talk about that because he thought that the policy was somehow wrong-headed. After all, he is apparently the safe pair of hands in the SNP Government, the man who is all about fiscal rectitude, the man who does not take risks. Imagine my surprise, indeed my astonishment, to find that John Swinney was the architect of this policy. He argued for it in Cabinet. He embraced it in the national conversation in 2009. It is his name on the tin. That is a policy that has been roundly criticised by independent experts, a policy that is all about economic risk, a policy that will hurt the people of Scotland, destroy our NHS, our schools and our pensions and make no mistake, that is a policy that builds on Tory austerity plans and gives the people of Scotland austerity marks. My goodness, no wonder John Swinney does not want to talk about it and prefers instead to hurl insults at Opposition members because attack is, of course, better than defence. I especially do not want to talk about it this week when we discovered that the SNP has signed up to the same austerity plans as the Tories for 2015-16. For this new financial year, the people of Scotland will continue to suffer from Tory austerity if they vote for the SNP. We used to see the Tories and the SNP voting together on the budget, joined at the hip, between 2007-2010 in the Scottish Parliament, but really this is a new low because the SNP have agreed to follow to the letter Tory austerity plans for this year. If John Swinney is slightly confused, can I refer him to his own Scottish Government website that confirms the absolute detail of that? What we have on the one hand is the SNP condemning the Tories for austerity in public but, in private, they fully agree with them, sign on the dotted line to continued austerity. What hypocrisy? I genuinely do not understand the point that Jackie Baillie is making, so I wonder if she would explain it to us. Jackie Baillie, you are approaching the last minute. Can I refer you to the Scottish Government's own summary, where it sets out clearly under the heading of increasing public spending, comparison of policy costings, dated March 2015, alternative spending proposal, additional spending 2015-16-0? I refer you to your own website that will tell you that. We are now in no doubt at all. A vote for the SNP is a vote for continuing Tory austerity. The truth is that the only party promising to end Tory austerity is the Labour Party. What has been demonstrated by the SNP is just how untrustworthy they are with figures. Firstly, they deny the black hole at the heart of Scotland's finances. Then they fiddle the figures to make the position seem even better. Then they deny what the independent experts are saying, and they hide their plans for continued austerity. One thing is absolutely clear. Honesty and transparency have been posted missing with the SNP Government. We believe that the SNP Government needs to publish the oil and gas analytical bulletin that made a brief appearance prior to the referendum and published an updated outlook for Scotland's public finances to take account of those recent projections. In both cases, to do so before May 2015 so that people can judge whether or not they have something to hide. We now turn to the open debate. All members ensure that they have pressed the request to speak buttons if they wish to speak. Speeches of six minutes, please. Linda Fabiani to be followed by Malcolm Trism. It was interesting looking at the Tory motion in the Labour amendment. What struck me was that very seldom can the Parliament ever have debated a motion and an amendment in which so many words change but so little of substance is altered. The motion from the Conservatives and the amendment from Labour are essentially the same. We heard it from the opening speakers in both these better together allies. Scotland is too wee, too poor, too being in a position to manage its own affairs and should accept whatever macroeconomic policies and welfare provision that Westminster decides to apply. The only thing that changes between the two texts is the tone. The Tory motion says that experts predict a weaker fiscal position for Scotland and Labour talks of instant and damaging consequences for Scotland's economy. It is easy to see which party drew the short straw and inherited project fear, but I will tell you what the relish with which Labour and the Tories and, to some extent, the Lib Dem's scenario plan for bad news for Scotland is very, very sad for people that represent the people of Scotland. They never quote other small nations that do very, very well even without the strong economic foundations that we have. I was delighted to hear John Swinney outline what is, in fact, the reality and our plans to make things better. I can almost find it understandable from the Conservative Party, seen by voters across the UK as representing the interests of the rich and affluent. However, what has increasingly come home to Scots over the past year is the electoral battle between Labour and the Conservatives, which is dragging Labour further and further towards the Tories. I thank the member for giving way. You have just mentioned the electoral battle that is coming up. Do you not think that it is right and proper that the Scottish public knows what the SNP statistics are on this whole issue and, as yet, does it have any opportunity of finding that out? Linda Fabiani Well, I will tell you what. If Labour and the Tories were honest in putting across the full detail of the Treasury paper, which did not take into account additional powers, etc., people would know better. However, what people in Scotland really want to know is the extent of the welfare cuts that are coming down the line from the Conservatives and backed by Labour when they tripped through the lobbies to vote with them on austerity. The banks failed in Labour's watch, Labour reached for a solution, planned austerity, but what Labour is now accepting is that that makes the poorest in society pay for the mistakes of the wealthiest. As I said, the Tories are at least a bit more honest. They openly pursue that ideological agenda and champion that approach. The OBR, seven years after the crash, was forced to conclude that, of the major economies, the UK was the only country where the deficit has not been reduced by having revenue growing faster than national income, because the UK focused most on lower spending. All of that is the latest example of the cosy consensus that operates around Westminster, with Labour, if they are in government after May, happy to have their policies measured against targets that were put in place by George Osborne. In relation to the SNP's spending plans for this year, I have good news for the finance spokesperson of Labour. We are in 2015-16, budgets have to be agreed in advance, subject to available resources, and, although unionist politicians agree that Scotland should get no more than pocket money from London, we have to cut our cloth accordingly. I keep hearing on the radio from Labour, from the Tories, from the Lib Dems, that we need here in Scotland the security of the bigger partner. Security of a bigger partner than other small nations who do perfectly well independently do not appear to need. It seems to be us here in Scotland who are uniquely incapable, but I will tell you what. That security is not felt by a lot of people. It is not felt by the 145,000 households affected by this Government's changes to incapacity benefit, losing about £2,000 each. That security has not felt by all the Scottish households who have seen tax credits reduced this year. It is not felt by the more than 100,000 people losing an average of two and a half thousand a year as DLA is removed. I think that people in Scotland want to do things differently, because there is a growing body of opinion proving that we do not need to simply to have a growing economy to fund our welfare provision, but we need to squeeze inequality out of the system to provide a solid platform in order to grow the economy. I believe that, once again, the Tories, the Lib Dems and Labour jointly, having signed up to all those cuts, are all swimming against the tide. We can do things differently, we should do things differently and better. I would like to see people across the chamber working together for the benefit of Scotland to do things better. There are even some Labour MPs in England who have called for that. How sad that Labour in Scotland has not supported John Swinney's amendment. Thank you and to now call Malcolm Trism to be followed by Mike Mackenzie. If I be honest, like other SNP members during the last few weeks, and no doubt over the next five weeks, I do not want to talk about full fiscal autonomy. I shall come to that in a moment, which is the main subject of the debate today. Of course, what the SNP wants to talk about, as we heard at the end of the cabinet secretary's speech, is the alleged unity of Labour and Conservatives in terms of cuts. The cabinet secretary must know that that is not the case. Ed Balls is saying in Scotland today that he rejects the extreme and risky plans of the Conservatives. He is not saying anything new because, in the debate that John Swinney and all his colleagues keep referring to when there was a vote on the charter of budget responsibility, Ed Balls in that speech also rejected the Chancellor's extreme and unbalanced plans. As the Institute of Fiscal Studies in a moment has pointed out, there is no agreement between Labour and Conservative about 30 billions of cuts. The Institute of Fiscal Studies makes clear that there is a £30 billion gap between the spending plans of Labour and the Conservatives in the next part. I am sure that the Conservatives will probably go around Scotland emphasising that, and I do not mind if they do, because, quite clearly, we have to rebut the central SNP allegation of this campaign, repeated over and over again and no doubt today that somehow Labour is signed up for the cuts. The reality is that our proposals, as I referred to in my question to the cabinet secretary, are for fair tax increases across the UK, rather than increased borrowing for current expenditure. That does not mean that we do not want increased borrowing for capital expenditure, and that is very important. I am sure that the cabinet secretary would agree with us on that. When it comes to current expenditure, we have specific proposals, which I mentioned in my question this afternoon. The top-rate tax that we know about, the mansion tax for more money for the health service, the bankers' bonus tax for the job and training currency, the changes to pension tax relief for the highest earning pensioners in order for our various youth pledges. Let us be absolutely clear that we can meet the fiscal mandate without the cuts. We can do it over the next parliamentary session because the economy will be growing over that period, but clearly there may well be specific cuts in particular areas if money can be saved. Overall, there will not be the cuts that the SNP is talking about, and we have to say that loud and clear on every day during the next five weeks. Thank you, Mr Chisholm, for taking intervention. Will you sign up to the First Minister's proposal that the UK Government, after the next election, should agree to 0.5 per cent increase year-on-year in departmental public spending as an alternative to austerity? As Jim Eadie knows, this also undercuts the central charge that the SNP has been making, the Institute of Fiscal Studies, which is much quoted quite rightly this afternoon, has made clear that there is a much smaller gap between Labour and SNP proposals and there is between Labour and Conservative proposals. I would support Labour's proposals on that with the provisor that there is a much smaller gap than the one that, in fact, his colleagues say does not exist between Labour and the Conservatives. We must move on for the second half of the speech to full fiscal autonomy. Gavin Brown outlined what the Institute of Fiscal Studies had said about that. The main point being that the projected deficit for the UK is 4 per cent this year, which is 8.6 per cent for Scotland. That is currently filled by the UK expenditure via the ballot formlet in cash term. That is equivalent to £7.6 billion. Of course, the benefits of improved economic performance paper from the Scottish Government suggested on a best-case scenario that £3.5 billion of tax revenues could be accrued over 10 years, so the gap would still be there. We do not need to remind people about the absurd assumption in that paper that the Barnett formula would continue. I have been looking very carefully, and I will listen very carefully to other SNP speakers, about the varying positions of the SNP on full fiscal autonomy over the last few weeks. The most interesting thing was that I listened very carefully to Nicola Sturgeon's eloquent speech on Saturday. She is always eloquent. She mentioned independence four times, so that was not surprising. She did not mention full fiscal autonomy once. I think that it is really interesting because she does not want to talk about it. When she pressed on the radio, I listened carefully yesterday, she seemed to be saying, well, it is not really anything that is going to happen any time soon. It can all come in due course. Stewart Hosie tried to say that on television today when he was pushed by Andrew Neil. John Mason has got the no detriment idea. Perhaps he should try that out with his front bench colleagues. I am not entirely sure what position John Swinney was adopting today. Anyway, it is being reformulated, and basically they do not want to talk about this for the next five weeks at all. It is supposed to be the central plank of their UK general election. Manifesto no less a person than Alex Salmond announced this a few weeks ago. The SNP is all over the place on full fiscal autonomy, but it is perfectly legitimate for us to say, given that it has been presented as their main demand—what would they do if a UK Government actually offered it to them? Or not yet? We will have it in 10 years' time. I mean, there actually are some Conservative backbenters in the UK Parliament who are saying, give it to Scotland, because they think that the UK could save some money on that way. So I think that it is perfectly legitimate for opposition parties to at least have some clarity about this central SNP policy position over the next five weeks. So if this debate achieves nothing else, could we please have that clarity so that we actually know what we are talking about before we may have this happen? Gavin Brown's motion in the Labour amendment is nothing other than the restatement of the same old arguments that we have heard from the Tories and their Labour friends for many years. Their central and only proposition is that we are too wee, we are too poor, and we are too stupid to manage our own affairs. The argument that we are too wee has long since been dismissed by reference to a great number of small countries that outperform us in every way that this can be measured. I reject absolutely the suggestion that we are too stupid. I am sure that Gavin Brown believes, as I do, that Scotland has got talented and clever people. Every bit is clever and talented as those across the rest of the UK. I reject absolutely the proposition that we are too poor to successfully embrace full fiscal autonomy. Scotland is a wealthy country with significant oil reserves, a huge renewable energy potential, abundant natural resources and an educated and highly skilled workforce. Those, certainly. Liz Smith, if he is so confident of all those things, why is it that he cannot give us the numbers to back it up? As the cabinet secretary has already outlined, the IFS predictions do not take any account of the significant opportunities that would arise if Scotland's finances were in the capable hands of John Swinney instead of the incapable hands of George Osborne. We have all the ingredients of success, and if Gavin Brown believes that we are too poor, we have to ask him the question, and I hope that he will tell us later on perhaps why he believes that this is the case. We have to ask him the question why he believes that this can never change in a second or two. We have to ask him why he is so complacent about his dismal prospectus. I do not think that we are too poor at all, but I think that if you look at the independent projections, we would be poorer in each of the next five years of the UK Parliament, whereas your party is saying that we would be better off and that we would have no need for any austerity. In that case, why do not you publish the figures? Mike McKenzie If Gavin Brown believes that this is correct, we would have to ask him as a Tory who presumably does not believe in a dependency culture why he believes that we should be forever dependent on the rest of the UK. We would have to ask him as a Tory who presumably believes in self-sufficiency why we in Scotland should not be self-sufficient. We would have to ask him why, as a unionist and a Tory, he does not agree that it would be better for Scotland and also for the rest of the UK for Scotland to have the full powers to improve its economic performance. Surely that is also better for his beloved UK. I believe that Gavin Brown believes that, as I do, the Scottish Government has been following a wise economic course since 2007. I believe that Gavin Brown believes this because the data is unequivocal. The Scottish economy has begun to outperform the UK economy since 2007. I believe that Gavin Brown believes, as I do, that we have great opportunities to grow the Scottish economy, significantly increasing our productivity and therefore our competitiveness and our fiscal performance. However, where we differ is that Gavin Brown believes that maintaining the union in its present form trumps all other considerations. Gavin Brown believes that maintaining an archaic system of government should be our highest consideration and our highest priority. Gavin Brown believes in a dismal economic philosophy based on the outdated idea that driving down real wages and creating a new class of working poor increases our competitiveness. If this plan was working, George Osborne would have met his deficit reduction targets rather than missing each and every one of them. It is true that the UK is growing faster than some other economies, but it is growing from a lower base. It is growing on the backs of increasing numbers of poor rather than growing by creating real prosperity, and it is growing in a way that is failing to produce sufficient taxation to properly reduce the deficit. There is another way that we can see the reduction of the deficit delivered over a slightly longer time frame. That can see the deficit reduced in a more sustainable way. The SNP economic plan has been endorsed by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. It is a plan where growth is delivered through investment in our people and in our infrastructure. It is a plan where growth is delivered by fiscal stimulation and investment directed to areas where we have comparative advantages. It is a plan to deliver higher wages and a prosperity that is shared by all of Scotland's people. It is a fairer and ultimately a faster way to master our debt, where we are the masters of our finances and not the victim of them, because money should always be our servant and it should never be our master. Thank you for the opportunity to play a part in this afternoon's debate. To some extent, it is depressing, although one should have anticipated that we reaffirm some of the arguments that we engaged in last autumn. No one in those mentions anything about Scotland being too wee or too poor. No one in those benches said anything about the history that led us to that well-known debate about full policy levers of independence, a phraseology that the cabinet secretary returned to today. It is in that context that no one in the front benches of the Government mentioned full fiscal autonomy. It is the subject under discussion just now. It is important that we have clarity as to the impact that arises from full fiscal autonomy. To me, as a simple Scotsman, it looks suspiciously like independence chapter 1, with Barnett apparently in there somehow, but with the IFS showing signs that £7.6 billion will be the shortfall in our budgets in the coming years. To that extent, it is frightening to think that a Government would take us forward with no clear idea of how much is coming forward. I am happy to take an intervention. Is what he has just said not another way of saying that we are too poor? It is certainly not. If we were too poor, we would not have the light switched on in the chamber today. We do have money. It is how we manage that money and where we anticipate the money will come from in the future. That £7.6 billion shortfall has impacts and implications for public services. Only today in this country the Scottish Federation has pointed to the fact that £60 million being cut from the Police Scotland budget has serious implications for policing on our streets. How much more impact does the loss of £7.6 billion from a total budget of somewhere in excess of £30 billion? How much impact does that have on a whole range of national health service, education, roads and all the other responsibilities that we accept here in Scotland? I am happy to take an intervention. I thank Graham Pearson for taking a brief intervention and following on from his comments regarding how he spends the money. Will he agree with me on that? In order to save money, it would be better off to scrap Trident and the £100 billion that that would cost the economy. I do not know how full fiscal autonomy has any impact on whether we run Trident or otherwise. I am sure that it is a good distraction from the main purpose of our argument today. However, the important matter that we must face is that, as a Parliament, we exist in a country where the number of food banks currently stands in excess of £345 million. The number of homeless persons that are maintaining at an unacceptable level with 299 children declared homeless in addition to the numbers that were declared homeless this time last year. Therefore, our attention should be dedicated to ensuring that those £30 billion plus are better spent across Scotland and that we function in a way that our Government is effective in delivering the services that Scottish people want. The cabinet secretary indicated that the benefits from his approach will enhance economic performance. I cannot join the dots up between the declaration that he makes in this Parliament and how he will deliver the enhancement of economic performance. There is an illusion that there will be an increase in productivity and enhancement of productivity. Again, that seems to me to be outwith the influence and power that the cabinet secretary has in that regard, because the enhancement of productivity across the private sector will be very much a matter for those industries that are based here in this country and the way in which they deliver the services and the exports that we require from them. I am happy to accept that. I thank Graham Pearson for taking intervention. Is that not exactly the point that the Scottish Government seeks the power to stimulate our economy? That being the case, what is Labour's proposition to accelerate growth specifically in Scotland? Graham Pearson? I wish that I had time left and the time that I have here. The minister knows fine well the game that is played here in these debates. The reality is that we are facing the growing presence of zero-hour contracts. Labour has declared against zero-hour contracts. The reality is that there is too much part-time working and people who exist on the margins of real living in our nation. The reality is that Labour proposes that there should be an eight pounds on our living wage and we have committed to it. We have encouraged the Government benches over the last year to declare that for their published contracts across Scotland. I am glad to see that they have eventually come forward and supported that proposal. In short, I would like to hear more of what full fiscal autonomy really means and what the impact would be for Barnett and the total budget that is available in the years ahead should the cabinet secretary get his way. I have to say that it is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to debate the economy once again, I think, the third time in about a month. Clearly, the Opposition parties think that this is a strong point for them, yet all the evidence shows that this is not the case. I think that it is useful, too, to look at past record as an important factor in this kind of debate, and I would like to just spend a minute or two looking at the past record of some respective Governments. First of all, the Conservatives. At Westminster's Mike MacKenzie told us that the Conservatives have missed virtually all their targets as far as debt and so on was concerned. Sure, we might accept that they have controlled expenditure, but they have controlled expenditure in a very harsh way, which is not acceptable to most civilised people in Scotland. The Conservatives have a history of being cold-hearted and often seem to forget that it is real people who suffer as a result of their impersonal economics. Then we have Labour. Labour at Westminster oversaw a collapse of the UK economy, and some people would argue that mismanaging the economy is a trademark of Labour Governments. However, again, it can be said, of course, that in the past, if Labour were mismanaging the economy, it did it in a much nicer way than the Tories did. Yet, in more recent times, Labour have lost that caring approach as they sought to get votes from Tory middle England. Of course, these days, we are focused on resisting the harsh Conservative welfare reforms, yet, during my time at Westminster, we were also resisting harsh welfare reforms. Only that time, those were harsh Labour welfare reforms. Unless the Lib Dems feel that they are being left out of my past recollections, where are they standing these days? Before 2010, people thought that the Lib Dems were to the left of Labour, and they thought that the Lib Dems stood for democratic reform like STV. Yet, five years later, and after five years of the Lib Dems in government, we see no serious electoral reforms, and they have propped up a Tory Government which most of their supporters did not want. By contrast, I would suggest that the SNP record in government has been extremely good. We have run a balanced budget, we have introduced more progressive taxation and protected most vulnerable from the worst Westminster cuts. Just today, we have a new bankruptcy laws in place. We have two new taxes in place, and Revenue Scotland has also been introduced today. I understand that the rail franchise projects have been given a very positive appraisal by Audit Scotland. The records speak for themselves. In the 2011 election, I and others were elected on the slogan, record team vision. It continues to be the case that this party and this Government have the best record, the best team and the best vision. I am grateful to the member for giving way. He talked about balanced budgets, but is it not the case that this financial year there will be something like £150 million that his Government is unable to spend, despite demanding more money and demanding more money now? I think that the member looks at the percentages. That is exceptionally good, and if he works within that level of accuracy with his monthly salary, he is doing very well. To change tax slightly and to keep Malcolm Chisholm happy, as he referred to no detriment earlier on, we have the Labour and Tory's suggesting that more powers might lead to Scotland being worse off. Clearly, the no detriment principle is a central factor in all of this. If any further powers are to be transferred to the Scottish Parliament, that was agreed by all the parties as part of the Smith commission. If I can quote from paragraph 95, sub paragraph 3, it says, underlined, no detriment as a result of the decision to involve further power. The Scottish and UK Government's budgets should be no larger or smaller simply as a result of the initial transfer of tax and or spending powers before considering how those are used. That means that the initial devolution and assignment of tax receipts should be accompanied by a reduction in the block grant equivalent to the revenue for gone by the UK Government, and the opposite applies if it is spending powers. From that, it is clear that the additional transfers of powers should be matched by a change in the block grant. Theoretically, if he took that far enough, if it happened to be a year when Scotland was subsidising the UK, we might have to pay a compensation, and if it was a year when the UK was doing better, they might have to pay us. Lewis MacDonald. I am grateful to Mr Mason. Does he acknowledge that the Smith agreement is precisely in terms of a position where taxes and revenues are shared between the United Kingdom and the Scottish Government and that full fiscal autonomy could not be more different from what is described in the Smith agreement? John Mason. Progression beyond that, but it can never be complete. We voted against independence, sadly, in my opinion, but we voted against it to stay in the UK so that we would be no better off, and the principle of no detriment applies even if we are sharing to the extent that only that defence and foreign affairs are excluded. Theoretically, if all the powers were transferred and if that was calculated to put Scotland at a net disadvantage, that commitment is there as far as I can see that the block grant would compensate for that. There is also the political issue that no Scottish Government or a team to discuss those things would be arguing for powers and being poorer off, we would be arguing for powers and being either equally well off or, in fact, better off, and getting things like high-speed rail brought right to Scotland. That part is particularly straightforward as far as I am concerned. I would suggest that it is more complex when we get to post-devolution but will not go there today. The Conservatives seem to be suggesting that the SNP might want more powers, even if that was to leave Scotland worse off, and this is clearly nonsense and no one believes it. Presiding Officer, we are debating the economy today. I hope that I have shown that, both on past record and as we look forward to the coming elections, it is only the SNP that can be trusted with this important area of ordinary people's lives. Many thanks. Can I begin by congratulating the SNP? We have done very well here. We are more than an hour into this debate and have still successfully managed to avoid, given the impression that they even understood the question that was set out in the opening speech. We have had a lot of rubbish. We have heard the accusation that we think Scotland is too wee and too poor, one that simply causes a fence on this side of the house and should cause a fence to large numbers of people within Scotland. We have heard the accusation that we have a bad record, and they choose to rely on their record—one that was achieved under the fiscal discipline imposed by a Government in Westminster—and one that has praised John Swinney for many times. I think that Jackie Baillie was disgraceful in the way that she attacked John Swinney. She was suggesting that he somehow had committed himself to Tory austerity simply by putting forward a budget that included the requirements to balance the budget in which he works under. I have praised John Swinney in the past. I will do it again. He is a man who has done a great job in making limited money go as far as it can within Scotland. That is why I find it extraordinary that that same man, who has done so well for so long under such pressure, is now prepared to put his name behind the policy of full fiscal autonomy and deny and not take up the opportunity that he has to give us those numbers. The truth is that what the SNP is trying to do today is to exercise blind faith against real judgment. What we have asked for are the numbers. We know that full fiscal autonomy is possible. We know that, if we were to come to agreement, Scotland could take charge of its fiscal future. What we are suggesting is that, as far as we can see and in the view of a number of fiscal experts, when the numbers are placed on the table and the calculations are made, there is a black hole at the centre of that calculation. No, I will not. We have today challenged the Scottish National Party to come up with an explanation of how that black hole would be filled. Time and time again, we have taken interventions from people who might have been thought would come up with some numbers but, no, no numbers have been forthcoming. Time and again, we have heard the minister and others on his back benches say that, of course, we need the powers to address Scotland's fiscal position, but they seem only too willing to take the powers without taking the true fiscal responsibility. I hear what John Swinney has to say. I understand that a Scottish Government with full fiscal autonomy would have the ability to change the way that Scotland runs in the future. It would have the opportunity, if it did the right things, to stimulate growth. However, there is this massive blind assumption at the centre of this argument that all that growth and all that additional revenue would be with us very early in that process. Those of us who have understood and studied Government and its finances over the years realise that that simply would not be the case. A Scottish Government with full fiscal autonomy would wish to make changes to stimulate growth, but there would be an upfront cost. I do not know what that upfront cost would be. I do not know what the policies of that Government would be, but there would be an upfront cost. Money would have to be invested in order to achieve those returns. Not only is there the apparent black hole that exists at the centre of Scotland's finances, but there is also the cost of that necessary investment. We have heard from John Swinney earlier that Scotland produces £1,600 more per person in revenue per year—I presume that is overall productivity GDP—but, of course, that figure was based on a full geographical share of oil revenue. That oil revenue, we know, will be smaller over the next few years. However, neither did he tell us how much of that £1,600 per person would have to be taken in tax in order to invest. We even heard last Thursday that the First Minister projected that, in a few years' time, Scotland's total productivity—it's total GDP—could be up by £15 billion. I think that that is the figure that she used. The irony is that more than half of that £15 billion in growth would be required to be taken in tax in order to begin to plug that black hole. We are in a very lucky position. Scotland has a devolved Government, but it has shared finances with the rest of the United Kingdom. That saves us from the impact of economic shocks such as the collapse in the oil price. What we have as a result of this deal is a financial position that allows us to ensure that we will continue to have a national health service. We will continue to have our welfare payments made. We will continue to see pensions paid to our pensioners and continue to see our young people educated. However, the hole in our projections indicates that we could lose one or more of those things if we make an error at this time. The challenge is that, to the iron chancellor of Scotland, to prove that you aren't the cowboy, prove that you aren't the gambler who is willing to borrow the stake in Scotland's future, prove that this is not a leap in the dark, give us the numbers and then we might start to believe you. I am going to focus my comments on the amendment in the name of John Swinney, which I support. However, yet again, it is another economy debate and another two and a half hours of talking Scotland down from the Unionist parties. It is important to ensure that some facts are highlighted in the debate. Scotland's economic expansion in the last quarter means two years of uninterrupted growth. Scotland is outperforming the UK with higher employment and lower unemployment. Youth unemployment has fallen to its lowest level in five years and female employment has increased to its highest level and record. Those facts clearly show that measures from the SNP Scottish Government are helping the economy. The measures such as we have the most competitive business rate in the UK, investing £11 billion in Scotland's infrastructure from the three years up to 2015-16, expanding the level of funded childcare from £475 to £600 per annum. That helps those with young children to get back into the workplace and the Scottish Government's activities of certainly working towards providing 30,000 new modern apprenticeships per annum by 2020. Those measures are significant but also limited. The powers of this Parliament are limited, as Alex Johnson just mentioned a few months ago. The powers of this Parliament are limited, and I am sure that, if more powers were here, such as being independent or with fiscal autonomy, then a Scottish Government could actually do more. Today's debate is clearly focused on the Westminster election, however, and it is under way. Obviously, Westminster policies have an effect on all of us here in Scotland. Alex Johnson also mentioned a few months ago on the bad record. Let us consider some of the bad record that has happened in recent years. The level of UK net borrowing has exceeded the June 2010 forecast by over £50 billion in 2014-15. George Osborne predicted in 2010 that the UK would run a surplus on the structured current budget of around £5 billion of 2014-15. He now expects a deficit of £46 billion. In the most recent budget, only a couple of weeks ago, the Tory Lib Dem UK Government committed to a further £30 billion of cuts by 2017-18. £12 billion of that is to come from welfare cuts. The Tories and Lib Dems are not content with forcing 71,428 people to food banks in 2013-14, of whom 22,000 were children. Women are bearing more than three quarters of the impact of tax and welfare changes. More than half of disabled people who claim DLA will see their benefits cut by £1,000 per annum, and the poorest 10 per cent of households are being hit the hardest, and that is coming from the IFS. However, they want to inflict even more pain and misery into the households of Scotland. Child poverty action group. Given that the SNP Government in Scotland has committed, after a UK general election, to stick to the Tory spending plans for 2015-16 financial year, how would he tackle the issues around food banks and all the other issues that we need to tackle in Scotland that we do not have a year to wait? First of all, I will come on to that point regarding continuing austerity measures, because that is certainly a point that the Labour Party has signed up to, time and time again, and also Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, the day after the budget indicated on the radio that he would not have changed anything in the budget. The child poverty action group suggests that £100,000 more children will be pushed into poverty because of the Tory Lib Dem plans, and the poorest households will be worth off by £466 due to cuts in welfare. That particular figure is not mine, and that comes from Her Majesty's Treasury, the budget document itself. It is grim stuff, and it is clear that the UK establishment is bad for your health. The IFS is questioning where the axe is going to fall next in terms of the welfare budget. It indicates that no more than £2 billion has been highlighted, and it is asking about the remaining £10 billion of cuts. Those cuts are to be in place for 2017-18, so time is running out. I make no bones about highlighting the Westminster attack in the poorest in society, because Labour has backed the Tories all the way. Unfortunately, Malcolm Chisholm has not intervened on well, but it is no longer in the chamber. I have already given one intervention. Ed Balls gave the game away. The day after the budget, when he was asked the question, he quoted his saying, that there is nothing that I am saying to you from yesterday, I would reverse. The Westminster parties, the Westminster elite in fact wanting Scotland to vote for business as usual, have been tied to the cuts that have happened, and to those in the pipeline is a clear message to everyone. If you are in benefits or if you are from the working poor, then you will be punished. That is why Scotland needs more SNP MPs at Westminster. It is not to join the unionist establishment, it is about trying to help the people who need it the most. If we do that to help Scots, then we will be able to help everyone across those islands. By sending more SNP MPs to Westminster, we might actually get the Smith proposals and more to help our constituents. Who knows, we might even provide a spine to Labour that they sold a long time ago to help to keep the Tories out of Downing Street. Whether it is by issue, by issue or a confidence supply, if Labour has a progressive conscience, then they can do the correct thing for a change, however the Westminster parties need to set out their detailed plans for welfare ahead of this election. Thank you very much. I now call on Ian Gray to be followed by Chick Brody. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Jackie Baillie was right. It is passing strange that here we are debating the core demand of the SNP, short of independence, and yet we are doing it not in Government time but in Opposition time yet again. Indeed, not only are the SNP reluctant to debate full fiscal autonomy, they are nearly incapable of pronouncing the words, having to find contorted euphemisms. It is social and economic powers necessary to reflect the needs and preferences of the people of Scotland. Mr Brown gave us an even more egregious example from earlier on. Truly, this is the policy of which dare not speak its name. No wonder, because full fiscal autonomy would leave Scotland with a fiscal black hole of £7.6 billion. That is £1,400 for every person in Scotland. It is equivalent to a 15p increase on every tax band, and it would cause the loss of 138,000 jobs. Every aspect of the public finances from education to health to police and security would be jeopardised by such a cut. The detrimental effect, too, would not just be felt by users of public services. The investments that we need to make in skills, innovation and infrastructure to support and grow our economy would be damaged as well. Economists know those figures are true. Commentators know those figures are true. Indeed, Peter Jones in the Scotsman called full fiscal autonomy insanity. Indeed, it is such a crazy idea that it is clear that John Mason cannot quite bring himself to believe that this is the policy of the party that he represents. I wonder if the member might address the macroeconomic framework in which we operate as part of the UK, which has led us to the situation that he subscribes to of Scotland being incapable to stand on its own two feet financially. If he subscribes to that opinion, does he not shed some of the light of blame upon the Westminster system in which we can operate? Let me come to that point in just a moment. Let us stick for a second with the consequences of full fiscal autonomy, because the First Minister knows that those consequences are true as well. When they were put to her yesterday on the radio, she did not deny them. She said, do not worry, it will not happen just now. This is the St Augustine defence. Lord, grant me full fiscal autonomy, but grant me it not yet. Presiding Officer, nobody in this chamber has ever said that Scotland is too wee, too poor, or too stupid, except for SNP members. However, right there, as the First Minister said on radio yesterday, Scotland is not quite ready for those powers yet. It is not the timing that is wrong with full fiscal autonomy, it is the principle. Pulling and sharing resource is the best way to manage our economy and our public finances. It is not just about oil either, although that is the best way to manage that kind of volatility. It is not about the status quo. For Labour, it is also about a mansion tax redistributing wealth across the UK. It is about sharing in a 50p tax rate on 300,000 taxpayers, not 15,000. It is about taxing bankers' bonuses in the city of London, not just the city of Edinburgh. Pulling and sharing will not only avoid the extra austerity of fiscal autonomy but fund extra nurses, extra grants for students and extra resources to close the attainment gap in our schools. Then there is the other defence of fiscal autonomy, the magic growth defence. New powers will suddenly see productivity boom, export surge and the population grow. The economy will surge like an Asian tiger to levels never seen before in Western Europe. In evidence for this, the cabinet secretary offered us the progress made in recent years, but that progress is exactly the successive devolution. Using the stability and additional resource that is made available by the very pulling and sharing of resources, he seeks to dismantle. Indeed, now the SNP has managed to reduce its only actual economic policy, a big corporation tax cut for big businesses, to ambiguity. The First Minister, spinning that she has dropped it, the cabinet secretary saying that he has not. How ironic then that the Government most asks for everyone else to lay out economic plans? Labour is doing just that. The cabinet secretary knows it because he has been borrowing them. For months, we have been committed to a 50p tax rate. No way, said Alex Salmond. Read my lips, no tax rises. Then last weekend, uppops Mr Swinney to announce a 50p tax rate. Today, Labour has announced that, after 12 weeks in work, no one can be forced to work in a zero-hours contract towards a fairer country in which everyone shares in economic growth. I look forward to the imminent announcement by the SNP that this was always their policy and they just hadn't mentioned it to us. As for welfare, I heard the cabinet secretary say judge me by my actions. The little bit of welfare that has been devolved in recent years and much more to come under Smith has seen 80 per cent of cash benefits replaced by vouchers and payment in kind. That is harsh welfare reform and SNP welfare reform. Is that their plan? We know what the SNP's policy is, even if they will not talk about it. They cannot admit it because they know that it would be a disaster. I welcome the debate and its recognition that we seek full fiscal autonomy. Let me focus on and demolish some of the chivaliths and foundations that are proposed in the motion. I said last week that the UK forecasts of tax receipts in Scotland by the OBR and fed into the Treasury were reflected in our funding by the UK. They were nonsense. The OBR is the basis of not just the Treasury forecasts but also some experts. Listen to this. The OBR report, which I looked at yesterday, said that its report of March 2012 is not possible to replicate in full the methodology for Scotland's tax receipts that we use for the UK. The data goes on—not just for them, but for the experts—and it says that we would need to produce a Scottish macroeconomy forecast and that the information is generally not available. That was in March 2012. What did the OBR say yesterday? That still remains the case. Of course, despite that admission to continue to opine on oil and gas revenues showing a decline, despite the Brent crude barrel price today rising by 11 per cent since it was low earlier this year and the commodities future projection increase of 30 to 40 per cent by the middle of 2016. In fact, the economic recovery agency predicts a rise of about 100 per cent and the bookies are never wrong. Why would we leave our fiscal determination and negotiation of meaningful full fiscal autonomy to that incompetent organisation? It is an ability to forecast, and its narrowness of forecasting leaves other experts to come up with misplaced scenarios of impending economic doom. Scenario is built on a halfway house of partial Scottish Government receipts and the Barnett formula, and we are supposed to negotiate with them on full fiscal autonomy. As I quoted last week, and for the benefit of Mr McDonald, who misquoted me, Lord Barnett himself said in the event of Scotland getting more tax powers, retaining the Barnett formula would be, I quote, a terrible mistake. That, of course, was then mirrored by Jack McConnell predicting that new tax powers coming to Holyrood would diminish the Barnett formula. No, no, no. Do we then believe that they, at least, did not know the ultimate destination? Of course they did, but we are where we are. In invoking of financial experts and our Pete doing their forecasts on the back of the OBR, I would prefer to listen, as I did this morning to Jim McCall, who on GMS laid out his rationale for full fiscal autonomy. Of course that timescale can and will only be determined after discussion that we'd have to have with the Treasury. No. Respecting where we are, I have to ask Mr Brown and the Tories to accept that Scotland is not an economic basket case and that commentary of that sort would best be served by looking at performance over a period of time and not just looking at one moment in time. Over the past five years, excluding North Sea revenues as a percentage of GDP, Scotland has consistently had a higher revenue to GDP percentage than the rest of the UK. That's why the First Minister illustrated quite clearly with confidence that growing the on-shore economy by £15 billion by 2020 was very relevant. Our tax receipts, as the Deputy First Minister just said over the last four years, have been higher than the rest of the UK. We can't just look at a one-off scenario where, for example, in 2014 in the oil and gas industry, where operating costs grew by 11 per cent and we all know why, and capital investment increased by 12 per cent, reducing company tax liabilities but, of course, having a beneficial effect on future income. Because of the UK Government policy, there are other aspects, particularly changes in NI, but I mentioned earlier on the allocation of indefinable expenditure through the CRA. Over the past five years, Scotland has been allocated £730 million for nuclear decommissioning. It was allocated £263 million for the Olympics. Wouldn't it be better that we decided our own revenue, determination and expenditure? We have to be in a position where we increase investment, innovation, exports and growth. We have already shown the impact of non-North Sea oil activity on the base performance of Scotland. In the EET committee on our inquiry on exports and internationalisation, we should have vital the impact of that would be on our economy and its performance. The Government's strategy is to increase exports by 50 per cent over the period 2010-17. Over the first three years of that period, we have in fact already increased it by 20 per cent. Comparing where we are with Smith and with full financial powers and looking at the OCEA report, under Smith the impact of exports would increase GDP by 2.7 per cent, employment by 67,000 and tax revenues by £1.6 billion. With full financial powers, GDP would rise to 3 per cent, employment to 81,000 and tax revenues of £1.7 billion. The same are similar comparisons that would apply to the impact on further capital investment and improved productivity. All that and more without a beneficial impact of oil and gas in the North Sea, not to mention as I would on the west coast and the western isles. We have to ensure that we try and complete the journey on full fiscal autonomy as soon as we can so that we can have full determination of the economic destiny of our country. Willie Rennie to be followed by Mark McDonald. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, for allowing me to participate in the debate this afternoon. I apologise to the chamber and to Gavin Brown for not being able to be here for the start of the debate. I was in Turnbury, a place that I never thought I would go, to Trump Turnbury, to take part in the Scottish Police Federation conference. Unfortunately, the transport secretary's road works on the way back up delayed me. I do not know if he is here to apologise for that, but I apologise to the chamber nevertheless for me being late today. It is a very simple motion, a very simple request and a simple question that Gavin Brown has posed today. In all the debate about full fiscal autonomy, in all the rest of it and about the finances of our country and about economic growth and all those other matters, it is really just a simple question. Can we have the publication of a document? That is all that we are asking for, not making any judgments. I think that members from the SNP side could probably support Gavin Brown's simple request, but so far not one single SNP member—I have been listening very carefully—but not one single SNP member has even indicated that it might be quite a good idea for us to know whether what the SNP has in their plans for the analytical bulletin on oil and gas is just an updated document. We do not have all the information. It is unpredictable. We could not possibly publish it. Thank goodness is just an academic exercise. Thank goodness we do not have an independent country. Thank goodness people last year did not decide to vote yes. That excuse would not be something that this chamber or the people of Scotland would be satisfied with. I think that they would want a little bit more information that their independent government might know what they were doing and might know what the projections were for oil revenues going forward. However, I think that that proves the point that we were making during the referendum last year, that this is an unpredictable resource. It is volatile. It is falling over time. It is difficult to predict. To base the finances, the economy of a country on such a volatile, such an unpredictable and falling resource, is something that I would regard as political folly and therefore I would not support it. I think that that is why people in Scotland rejected it. Perhaps by the failure to publish this updated oil and gas bulletin, they proved the point that we were making last year, that it is unpredictable, it is uncertain and it is falling over time and they are too embarrassed to publish it therefore. That, I think, is the summing up of this debate. I am sure that Gavin Brown will reflect on that in his summing up himself. When I question the plans of Labour-run Fife Council, I am not in favour of abolishing Fife. When I criticise the plans of any UK Government, I am not in favour of criticising or abolishing the United Kingdom, likewise for the European Union. When I question the plans of the Scottish Government and the SNP Government, I am not saying that Scotland should be abolished or I am questioning the existence of it. All that I am doing is doing my duty as a member of the Scottish Parliament to question their plans and to suggest otherwise. I think that it is insulting, it is tired and it is false and they need to reflect on their tired old rhetoric. I think that what we have seen in the budget and that I was pleased that John Swinney recognised that the UK Government had met the ambitions of the oil industry in the budget, with the changes on the investment allowance, the supplementary charge, the petroleum revenue and various measures of reducing tax to incentivise investment in the North Sea. I heard him on the radio where he found it really difficult to find anything at fault with the UK Government's plans and I credit him for doing so. That was £1.3 billion worth of cost to the UK Treasury, but it will return £4 billion of investment from the industry, resulting in 0.1 per cent of GDP for the United Kingdom. We were able to do that within the framework of the United Kingdom. There was not one penny cut from the budget of the Scottish Government as a result of those measures. If we had been independent, we would have certainly had to pay the price of trying to get the oil industry back into growth and investment, but thank goodness we did not make that decision last year or we would not have been able to have the flexibility and agility to do things differently within the United Kingdom to get the oil industry moving again. We have heard from Jackie Baillie about the reality of the £7.6 billion cuts that will be required by the independent Institute of Fiscal Studies to make that very clear. What we do not see any more, as a result of the publication of the GERS figures, is the SNP's favourite leaflet, the 9.6 to the 9.3, because the 9.6 has dropped to 8.6, even though the 9.3 has stayed exactly the same. I do not know whether it will produce any new figures and new leaflets that will perhaps promote the benefit of using the old figures, as Alex Johnson says. He is absolutely right. The reality is that, even though the tax take from Scotland has fallen, not one penny has been cut from the budgets of the Scottish Government, that is the benefit of the United Kingdom of pooling and sharing across the UK. In conclusion, the SNP says that it is all about the potential that we could have. If we had the economic levers, we could change everything. The one big economic lever that the SNP never stopped talking about during the referendum was co-operation tax. I am still waiting. We have had how many debates in the last few weeks about the economy, and not one of them has mentioned co-operation tax. Perhaps because it has ditched it, but perhaps because the UK Government plan created eight times as many jobs in a quarter of the time that the co-operation tax proposal would have resulted in. The reality is that the SNP has no ideas, no plans, that it is bankrupt, and it is time that it is shut up about full fiscal autonomy. Mark McDonald will be followed by Alex Rowley. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I shall pass on to the transport minister that the roadworks that he put in place were not as effective as we might have hoped that they would have been. Here we are again today. Another afternoon filled with depressing familiarity as we discuss the Opposition Party's interpretation of the financial sustainability of our nation. I am a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction as a genre, but only when it is well written and well delivered. Sadly, Mr Brown's entry to the genre did not stand up to either of those measures. However, let us play devil's advocate because it is always fun to do so. Let us take Mr Brown and his arguments at face value. Mr Brown is a fully paid up member of the UK fan club and believes that the UK system serves Scotland well. It is a point that I put to Mr Gray in my intervention. I did not quite catch the response that Mr Gray said that he was going to give me later in his speech. Perhaps I missed it as a subtle reference. However, if we accept at face value the prognosis of the economic situation as laid out by Mr Brown and enthusiastically lapped up by the Labour benches, what does it say about the macroeconomic framework in which Scotland has operated over many years and in which Scotland will continue to operate under Mr Brown's proposals? What does it say about the effect that that has had on the economic circumstances of Scotland? If Mr Brown is to be taken at his word that Scotland's economy is in a position where it could not sustain full fiscal autonomy, then surely it must be a damning commentary on the macroeconomic framework in which Scotland has been operating and that its economy has been allowed to develop to that situation. That is the conclusion that we must draw if Mr Brown is to be taken at face value, that the UK is not serving Scotland well and that the UK is actually holding Scotland as an economy back from being able to perform to its full capabilities if we are to take what Mr Brown says at face value. I see that Mr Gray has had to leave the chamber. Mr Gray has asserted that nobody on the Unionist side has said that Scotland is to be or to poor. I am very sorry, Presiding Officer, but the very implication of what is being said by the UK parties is exactly that that Scotland as a nation is to poor. That is the very implication that has been put forward by the arguments which Mr Gray and those with whom his party occasionally fraternises continue to perpetuate and to propagate. I hear the cabinet secretary saying that he occasionally frequently fraternises and that it is becoming ever more difficult to tell the two apart. Indeed, the very argument around pooling and sharing has been put forward on repeated occasion and indeed the way in which it was articulated by Mr Gray, where what he spoke about was using money that is levied in London to be spent in Scotland, is entirely designed to perpetuate the notion that we as a nation are subsidised and that we require subsidy to be transferred from other parts of the UK to Scotland. That is the direct implication of that and that is what this phony war that has been going on between Mr Murphy and Diane Abbott and others in the London Labour Party has been entirely around generating. That perpetuating that myth that Scotland is a subsidised nation. I thought that we would move beyond that as a result of the referendum campaign but it seems that the unionist parties are back to playing the same old songs and with that I will hand over to Mr Brown. What is the member's primary objection to John Swinney publishing the projections for full fiscal autonomy? As Mr Brown may be aware, we have been explicitly clear throughout that, firstly, our belief was that Scotland should have full control of our own resources as an independent nation and I think that we laid out very clearly the implications of that in the white paper and during the debate and then we've been very clear that within the framework of the UK that Scotland should have the opportunity to exercise fiscal autonomy and I see myrd of razor, I think it's myrd of razor, it's difficult to always tell from back here, I see myrd of razor sat next to Mr Brown. Mr Fraser, of course, used to be a very enthusiastic advocate of Scotland having fiscal autonomy, indeed made many speeches to that effect. I'm not sure what Mr Fraser has made, Mr Fraser changed his mind on that but, nonetheless, I'm sure he'll be happy to share it with us. Indeed, Mr Rennie is well a man who believes in federalism and presumably within that regions of the United Kingdom having financial accountability and autonomy, it seems to also disagree with the position that he has previously sincerely held. We were told by Mr Gray that the Scottish Government has not put forward or the SNP have not put forward an economic plan while he may have been asleep over the last couple of weeks but we've charted a very clear plan for how we can tackle the austerity agenda and put forward an alternative to the austerity agenda, which we believe should be pursued. It's an alternative to the austerity agenda, which the IFS, who have been quoted quite liberally during this debate, have stated that the Labour Party could sign up to and still meet its proposals for deficit reduction, so there's nothing to stop them from doing so. But what is clear, Presiding Officer, is that what we want to see is Scotland as a nation achieve its full potential. In order to achieve its full potential, we need to have control of all of the powers that will enable us to do that. We recognise and respect the result of the referendum, and we recognise that we must operate within the United Kingdom framework. Within that framework, we will never apologise for seeking the full extent of powers to ensure that the full potential of Scotland can be realised. Thank you so much. I now call on Alex Rowley to be followed by Sandra White. Thank you, Presiding Officer. What's been disappointing in this debate today is the way that some SNP members have chosen to talk Scotland down. When we try and have a serious discussion about what is very important issues for the future of Scotland, for Mike Mackenzie to come away with the suggestions that Scotland is too wee, too stupid, too pear is just ridiculous. For Mark McDonald to start talking about the unionist side, I'm very clear as a very proud Scott that I have supported Home Rule for Scotland all my life. I'm not on the side of the unionist, I'm on the side of Scotland. Again, it is insulting to have these attacks made on you every time you try and ask serious questions. I'm supporting the amendment that has been put forward by Jackie Baillie today. It's picking up on the point that Willie Rennie made. Jackie Baillie's amendment calls on the Scottish Government to publish an updated outlook for Scotland's public finances on the basis of full fiscal autonomy and an updated oil and gas analysis bulletin before the UK general election. If the Scottish Government is saying that it will not publish those documents, it will at least have the good grace to explain why it will not. That issue is such an important issue. Mr Swinney, when he was speaking, talked about the £12 billion of welfare cuts that are still to come and the damaging impact that would have on Scotland. I agree entirely, and no doubt we would stand shoulder to shoulder to oppose that kind of approach to the economy. Indeed, in last week's debate we were in agreement that there was nothing to celebrate about where the economy is right now. I was reminded of that when I read a hereditorial back in July, where they talked about the recovery being a long time in common. Longer there was necessary and it has some significant weaknesses. Conservative Party plans to gouge another £12 billion out of social security does not bode well for the future. Indeed, Francis O'Grady off the TEC makes a fair point when she says that economic growth is driven by low pay and low productivity. For my constituents across Scotland, I am sure that the election that is coming forward is really important because if we are going to have more failed austerity and we are going to have those types of cuts, billions of pounds into welfare, we know that the future looks pretty bleak. That is why it is legitimate if there are concerns around full fiscal autonomy. If the view is being expressed by a lot of independent experts and economic experts that we would be facing a £7.5 billion further deficit, I suggest to you that any member of this Parliament to get to their feet and ask those questions. That is all we are doing. I am grateful to the member for giving way. I have a lot of time for Alex Rowley and the arguments that he puts forward in the chamber. He mentions that he wants to see a reversal to some of the austerity cuts that are taking place. Is he supportive of the proposal for a 0.5 per cent increase per annum in public expenditure, which would meet Labour's deficit reduction targets but would allow us to take an alternative approach to the austerity agenda that is being put forward? I am supportive of the proposal to abolish the bedroom tax and use the funding that is currently being there to mitigate the bedroom tax. £175 million would be to create an anti-poverty fund in Scotland. We lack, in this Parliament, a clear anti-poverty strategy for Scotland, and that is where we need to get to. In terms of the welfare state, I am in favour of abolishing the Government targets for benefit sanctions. I visited a food bank in Cowham Beath yesterday. I praise the work of the Trussell Trust and all the volunteers, but we have to find a way to tackle the underlying problems of poverty so that we can abolish food banks once and for all. That is what I am in favour of, Mr Mackenzie. I thank the member for taking the intervention. I note that earlier in the speeches calling for a Scottish Government analysis of the fiscal position that Mr Swinney has explained, I think, quite reasonably, would not come about for some years, hopefully not for six years, but hopefully sooner than that. Given that Gordon Brown did not recognise the credit crunch coming till it happened, I wonder whether the Tories and the Labour Party have some kind of crystal ball that allows them to accurately predict the future to that kind of degree of precision. Mr Kelly, I will give you an extra minute from now. I actually think that the only good thing about Gordon Brown being in power when the credit crunch came was that he was in power and was able to take the steps that were necessary immediately to actually try and see us through that. I think that history will show that. However, the point that I am making is that it has been suggested—Gavin Brown in moving his motion today says—that full fiscal autonomy will mean fundamental change for Scotland and will mean a £7.6 billion deficit. Indeed, it goes further and says that it will rise year on year and it will almost be at £9 billion, not in five years' time but in three years' time. What does that mean? What does that mean? Is massive cuts in public services in Scotland? What does that mean? Is massive cuts in the economic programme to get Scotland moving forward? I finish by saying that it is right, surely, of every member of this Parliament if there are serious questions to ask the Government to answer those questions. That is all we are doing today. I now call on Sandra White, after which remove the closing speeches. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Sometimes I just shake my head. There is obviously a general action around the corner, as can be seen by the speeches from the unionist parties. Sometimes we think that they protest too much. They sometimes think that they protest too much, as even the Secretary of State is saying that they protest too much. Alec Rowley said that they have every right, and they do have every right, regardless of what political party they are, unionist or otherwise. They have every right to question, but so do we in the Government party as a backbencher have a right to ask a question of the Labour Party. Why they phoned old-age pensioners, sent them letters, told them during the referendum, they would not get their pension. I have a right to get replied for that. I have a right to get replied from the many people that live in my constituency of Polish and other origins who were told by the Labour Party and others by phone calls that they would be deported if they turned up to go and vote in the referendum. I did not want to go down that road again, but to be perfectly honest, when unionist parties get together, as they did during the referendum and as they are doing just now, to talk Scotland down—I did not want to have to repeat this, but that is what they are doing constantly to frighten people. They frighten people during the referendum and they frighten them once again. I honestly do not understand their psyche, and the Scottish people do not understand that either. The Scottish people will actually look at them and they will pay the price for what they did, not just during the referendum, but what they are trying to do now. When you tell people in your own country that you are not genetically programmed to think politically, there is something sadly wrong, not with the people in this country, but with the political parties that say that, I will let Mr Rennie in. She is a master at digression. Is she in favour of publishing the oil and gas bulletin? Thank you. Can I just say to Mr Rennie that it will happen? Do you know what is quite funny? You never put forward your policies, either, which states the fact that Scotland puts more money into the Westminster treasury than we actually get back out. When are you going to produce that? Tell the Scottish people the truth that we are not too poor. We do not need that lies that you tell. I am sorry, Presiding Officer, I should not have said that. On truths that have been told during the referendum, I do want to get back to the motion and the amendment. I would have liked that to happen in some of the other people, but never mind, Presiding Officer. I take that on board. Can I just say, Presiding Officer, it was not my intention to start my speech off like that, but I cannot sit and listen to the unionist parties constantly saying that Scotland needs the United Kingdom to survive. We can survive perfectly well on our own, and I am sure that they will find out on May 7 this year. I want to go back to what the motion says. Let us look at some of the key points about full responsibility, Fiscal Aton, or whatever you want to call it. With full responsibility, Scotland's resources would be given here to the Scottish Parliament and we would be able to respond to the challenges that are coming forward in the austerity measures from Westminster, which, whilst we may deny it, the Labour Party supports the austerity measures that the Tory Party has put forward. Let us just put that one to rest. It supports it and the billions of pounds of cuts that will come to the Scottish people will come, regardless of whether it is Labour or Tory who are in power in Westminster. I want to put forward some of the arguments that we had put forward at various meetings also. If we had full responsibility over the taxis, welfare, etc, we could look at the economy absolutely, we could look at jobs, we could create more jobs to the Scottish people and protect their rights in the workplace, something that we asked the Smiths Committee to deliver and they did not deliver that. That is another issue that we have got to look at as well. The people of this country were promised the so-called vow by all those three unionist party leaders and none and they did not get that vow delivered. That is something else that they have to answer to the Scottish people. We also could look at equality. It can be right that people with the most money get the most. We have to look on over after our vulnerable people and everyone should be treated the same. That is one of the issues that I think not a lot of people here have mentioned today. Let us look at something in regard to whether the Scottish Government held the power to have a positive impact on GDP. Employment and tax revenue would be significantly increased. Let us look at the moment that the Smiths report set out steps to help to improve the economy. However, those plans really benefit Scotland. Do they or do they not? Let us look at whether they could benefit Westminster more than they do Scotland. The report states that plans to create 11,000 jobs in Scotland and the revenue would be estimated to £400 million. That sounds really good, but the money is not coming to Scotland, to the Treasury and the revenue here. It goes to Westminster. If we want to have control over the issues and create employment in a fair society, we have to have the power over the revenue and the fiscal economy as well. I see you nodding to me, Presiding Officer, and I have only got a couple of seconds to finish. We need to have the powers over welfare as well. As has been said by Alex Rowley, there are people going to food banks in a rich country, not just like Scotland but Britain as well. However, food banks are actually coming more and more and more. There are people on the streets, as has been said before, who are homeless. Why is that? We have control over our economy, we have to do things differently, and it would be for the benefit of the Scottish people. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Thank you. We now move to closing speeches now. Thank you very much. Here we are again, another debate on the economy, about the choices facing Scotland and another opportunity for SNP ministers to spell out the implications of their flagship policy of full fiscal autonomy. Another chance for the Scottish Government to tell voters just what they will get if they vote SNP. Still, what is most striking is how little ministers have had to say on full fiscal autonomy. The amendment that John Swinney brought forward in this debate fails to use those words at all. Instead, it says that, as Ian Gray pointed out, Scotland requires the social and economic powers necessary to reflect the needs and preferences of the people of Scotland. In other words, Scotland needs the powers that Scotland needs in order to meet the needs of Scotland. Totology would be a polite way of describing that. Stringing words together that mean nothing in order to avoid saying anything might be more like it. At 3 o'clock this afternoon, John Swinney was asked, challenged by Jackie Baillie, to say how he proposed to fill the funding up of £7.6 billion a year after the abolition of Barnett. He sat down six minutes later, having offered absolutely no detailed explanation of how Barnett funded formula funding could be replaced overnight. He was then challenged on when the SNP wanted to achieve full fiscal autonomy by. He said that that would have to be negotiated with somebody else, so perhaps he can now tell us his negotiating position when he would like to achieve full fiscal autonomy by. Perhaps he agrees with Mike McKenzie that full fiscal autonomy should not happen any time before 2021. When the SNP was challenged on its support for Tory spending plans in this new financial year, Linda Fabiani said that that was all right. It was too late to do anything about that. What a contrast with Labour's position. Confirmed by Ed Balls in Glasgow today that he will use his first budget if we win in May to begin to end Tory austerity, with £800 million of extra spending in Scotland brought in as early as possible, if only we could have something as clear and straightforward from the SNP. They could, for example, say today that they would support that Labour budget if they had the opportunity to do so. After all, at the weekend John Swinney said that the SNP would support Labour's policy of a 50p top rate of tax after all, so perhaps there are more U-turns to come, more areas where the SNP will come round to supporting Labour's plans, but if so, they have a lot of catching up to do. Or perhaps, like Mark McDonald, they regard any proposals to raise taxes in London to pay for services in Scotland as a cunning ploid to promote Scottish dependency on England. Surely they are revealing insight into the peculiar work that some members of the SNP have done. Mark McDonald, does the member believe that Scotland is or requires to be subsidised? I know and I hope that Mr McDonald knows and understands as well that the Barnett formula provides additional public spending per head in Scotland, has done so over many years and that the funding gap that is created now is growing and growing and the SNP has brought forward no proposals to fill that gap. Of course, if SNP ministers do not want to talk about full fiscal autonomy or scrapping the Barnett formula, they can always get others to do it for them. Last week, we heard from the SNP back benches that full fiscal autonomy did not matter much because, after all, it would not happen tomorrow. As we heard today, SNP Deputy Leader Stuart Hosie was asked by Andrew Neil about the same issue. His answers were revealing. I think that that would be impossible to do within the year, he said. We are not at the position where we are talking about that today, he said. The time frame, even if it is two, two and a half years, sounds fine, but we are talking into the future. You would not do something like that in three or four weeks. Then a POP's Jim McCall on today's Good Morning Scotland to offer his version of full fiscal autonomy. He acknowledged the funding gap, as has been said, but his answer to the Barnett formula and the black hole created by full fiscal autonomy was simply to borrow the billions of pounds required to make up the difference and for the Scottish Government to get to keep all the taxes raised in Scotland and to keep the block grant from the UK Government at the same time. Surely, our risk to Scotland's public services, both now and in the longer term, is still uncosted and is still fuelled by wishful thinking, but the nearest thing yet to an explanation of what the SNP leadership is really trying to achieve from this election campaign. Perhaps if SNP ministers endorse the McCall version of full fiscal autonomy, they can tell us how much they want the Scottish Government to borrow to pay for it and at what on-going cost. Ministers really need to address those issues. They need to be open with voters and to tell them that full fiscal autonomy means scrapping the Barnett formula that supports Scotland's public services. They need to acknowledge that a black hole of £7.6 billion must mean real cuts in public services, either to address the deficit now or to pay back the borrowing if the pain is put off until later. They need to be open that they have no ambition to add a single penny to Tory spending plans for the new financial year. The nearer we get to polling day, the harder it will become for Mr Swinney and his colleagues to disguise the consequences of their policies. The more voters know about those consequences, the more of them will choose real change by voting Labour. Many thanks. I now call on John Swinney. I thought by the standards of Jackie Baillie's contortion of arguments, the one that she advanced today, that the Scottish Government, by setting a budget within the financial limits that we are required to set it within, was somehow to surrender some control over our ability to set a budget was just a quite ludicous argument. I actually did not follow it until Alex Johnson actually explained it for me, and it is some day that it takes Alex Johnson to explain to Jackie Baillie's contorted arguments to me. I think that the public of Scotland would be really quite surprised if I did not set a budget within the limits that are prescribed for me by the existing financial framework of the United Kingdom. After all, that would somewhat injure my reputation with Alex Johnson for financial stewardship, which has been something very precious to me over the years. I thought that argument from Jackie Baillie was frankly one of the most ridiculous arguments that I have heard or pedalled in this Parliament over many years. I want to talk a little bit about Malcolm Chisholm's challenge to me about the whole process of fiscal consolidation, because I think that there are a couple of facts on which we—three facts—I think that Malcolm Chisholm and I should be able to agree. The first is that the Labour Party has signed up to the Charter of Budget Responsibility. That is point 1, voted for by the Conservatives as well. Point 2 is that the Charter for Budget Responsibility requires £30 billion of fiscal tightening in 2016-17 and 2017-18. That is point 2. The Labour Party has signed up to, along with the Conservatives, to £30 billion worth of fiscal consolidation over those two financial years. Point 3, which I hope that Malcolm Chisholm and I can agree with, is that the proceeds of the mansion tax, the £50p tax rate, the bank levy, the bankers bonus, the pensions tax relief, and the tobacco levy will generate in 2016-17 and 2017-18 between them less than £10 billion, which leaves £20 billion of fiscal tightening yet to be identified by the glorious Labour Party. So there we have it. There is the black hole, the bombshell at the heart of the Labour Party's fiscal policies. We have not heard much about all of that today. So I simply say to Malcolm Chisholm that there is a necessity for the Labour Party to stop trying to say to people that somehow they are doing anything other than perpetuating, in this forthcoming United Kingdom general election campaign, a continuation of their happy, better together alliance with the Conservatives to take £30 billion out of public expenditure as a consequence of these. I better give way to Malcolm Chisholm. Malcolm Chisholm, I know that he is still reluctant to talk about full fiscal autonomy, but if he was listening to the whole first half of my speech, I did deal with all of those issues. So the simple summary of it is that the Labour Party is not signed up to the cuts of the Conservative Party and the Institute of Fiscal Studies. The Institute of Fiscal Studies has pointed to the £30 billion gap between Labour spending plans and Conservative spending plans. John Swinney? I think that Mr Chisholm was in for my speech, but I spoke about fiscal autonomy earlier on today, and I want to say more about it today. However, Mr Chisholm cannot escape the three facts that I have put on the record, which align—well, the first two facts align the Labour Party with the Conservative spending plans and the spending reduction plans, and the third demonstrates that the Labour Party still has got to set out where £20 billion worth of fiscal tightening is coming from. That is a very significant issue. Mr Rennie made a comment about the oil and gas tax changes. I think that he fairly recorded the fact that I have publicly encouraged before the budget and welcomed after the changes to taxation that the UK Government has made. However, I would gently point out that one of the changes to taxation was to remove the supplementary charge increases that the chancellor himself put in place in 2011. That cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be described as an example of sensible stewardship of the North Sea oil and gas revenues for that to be applied in the first place. However, Mr Rennie made the point that that would cost £1.3 billion, and that was a huge sum of money that could only be afforded by the United Kingdom. However, in 2011-12, to give one example, North Sea oil and gas revenue increased by £2.5 billion. In one year, £2.5 billion up, and Mr Rennie has made a big thing about a £1.3 billion cost of the oil and gas tax changes. However, in the same year, as the oil and gas revenues went up by £2.5 billion, the Scottish Government's budget was cut by £900 million. My point in putting that information on the record is to illustrate that there are years of financial strength where Scotland has contributed significantly and had very strong contributions, and we have had to face cuts, despite the strong financial contribution that we have made to the United Kingdom Treasury. If he is so confident about this, why does he not just publish the bulletin? That is all we are asking for. Just publish it. John Swinney? The Government has said that we will publish the bulletin once we have completed all the analysis, so there is the answer. We have said it, and that is not some great revelation. That is something that the First Minister has told Parliament on countless occasions beforehand. If we also look at Mr Rennie's other claims, Mr Rennie also claimed that Scottish tax revenues had collapsed and were projected to collapse, none of the data that I have got in front of me from the performance of Scottish taxes 1314 x 1415 shows anything other than the growth in taxes in Scotland. I do not know particularly what point Mr Rennie was making in that respect. The heart of the debate is about how we obtain the economic powers that enable us to strengthen and improve Scotland's economic performance. That is what the debate is about. I demonstrated in my speech earlier on a number of examples where, by exercising our devolved responsibilities, we have increased exports, we have improved research and development spending and we have improved Scottish productivity by moving it from 6 per cent lower than the UK to almost at the same level of the UK. By having distinctive and different levers of policy in Scotland, we can deliver better outcomes and better performance. The proposition of the Scottish Government is that we can do that to a greater extent with a fuller range of powers and responsibilities. I will give way to Mr Rennie. He has published a partial analysis. Will he commit today in the chamber to the Scottish Government publishing a full analysis of projections for full fiscal autonomy? What I said is that we will publish the oil and gas bulletin, which is exactly what Mr Rennie asked us to do, and that is what the First Minister has made clear. Let me make a final point about the nature of the analysis that we are talking about here in the debate that we are having. The Institute of Fiscal Studies—I used this quote earlier on—indicated that full fiscal autonomy would give freedom to pursue different and perhaps better fiscal policy and to undertake the radical politically challenging reforms that could generate additional growth. There are undoubtedly areas where existing UK policy could be improved upon. None of the miserable analysis provided by the Conservative Party or the Liberal Party—sorry, the Liberal Party or the Labour Party—no, I think I have got to draw my remarks. He wants. I am very generous at giving what— You can. Oh, I can't always say anything. Yes, of course. Can I thank the cabinet secretary for taking an intervention? His keen to quote the IFS. Does he also therefore understand that the IFS is saying that the cost of full fiscal autonomy this year is £7.6 billion? Does he agree with that figure? Yes or no? There are two issues with what Jackie Baillie—well, there are two points that Jackie Baillie has got to take into account. The first is that in 2015-16 Scotland will not have fiscal autonomy. That is the reality of the situation. The second is that the IFS analysis is predicated on making absolutely no judgment other than saying that if you have wider financial levers at your disposal, you can deliver better economic performance. I am prepared to rest the case on the talent and capability of the people of Scotland to do better than the miserable unionist bunch of ever-done and running at a corner. I now call on Murdo Fraser to wind up. Mr Fraser, you have until 5 o'clock. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I need to start my contribution with a confession. This is for the benefit of Mark McDonald. In 1998, I co-authored, along with Michael Fry and Peter Smale, a pamphlet for the Tuesday club called Full Fiscal Freedom for the Scottish Parliament. It was written long before this Parliament was even constituted. It was written so long ago that I cannot remember how much pink champagne we drank in the process of writing it, although, knowing Michael Fry, it was probably quite a lot. However, I came to the conclusion many years ago that full fiscal autonomy is not the best way for Scotland to go, and that is for two reasons. First of all, the version of full fiscal autonomy proposed by the SNP, which, as far as I know, is that all tax revenues are collected by this Parliament, that we fund all spending in Scotland and that we pay a sum to Westminster for the very minor reserved items that would be there that they wish to see, such as defence and foreign affairs, simply does not exist as a model anywhere on this planet. The closest example is the Basse country in Spain, but even there, there is an element of control of tax levels from Madrid. It is a very good reason why there is no president, and that is that such a system is simply unworkable. In any constitutional arrangement, in any country, there should be a sharing and pooling of resource. Ian Gray made that point earlier. The stronger parts of the country help the weaker and, in bad times, the richer areas can help the poorer. The concept of pooling and sharing resource underpins the financial arrangements in devolved and federal countries across the world, which is why we have bodies, such as the Australian Grants Commission, operating within the federal system in Australia, to reallocate resources from the richer areas to the poorer. There is no federal country in the world operating full fiscal autonomy as proposed by the SNP. It is not a workable proposition, simply a route to independence by a different name. Of course, there is a second reason why full fiscal autonomy makes no sense, and that is because of the fiscal gap that would be created. The analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that this would be £7.6 billion by 2015-16, a gap that would need to be filled by borrowing, tax increases, cuts in spending, or a combination of all three. We have heard nothing in the course of this debate for the last two hours and 20 minutes from the SNP as to how that gap would be filled. I exempt only from that John Mason, who at least made a brave—and it was a brave—attempt to explain it by claiming that we could have full fiscal autonomy but also keep the Barnett formula, which is arguing for two opposite outcomes at once. Mr Mason is called full fiscal autonomy for a reason. The clue is in the word full. Believe me, I know what it means that I once wrote a pamphlet about it. As set out in Gavin Brown's motion today, there is no doubt that that would be immensely damaging for the Scottish economy. However, what we are calling for today is simply a set of modest proposals, as Willie Rennie confirmed. All we are asking is for the Scottish Government to update its projections for the public finances to reflect its current policy, ask them to publish an updated oil and gas analytical bulletin and ask that the Scottish Fiscal Commission supposedly abody independent of government do the necessary work. I thank the member for taking intervention. I wonder if he shares my disappointment that we are almost at the end of a debate entitled Scotland's economy and finances, and we haven't heard one positive thing from the UK party about Scotland's economy or what their hopes are plans for that. The UK economy is projected to be the fastest-growing economy in the Western world in the years to come. What could be more positive than that? You want to take us away from that, but I am disappointed to see the SNP and Mr Swinney rejecting our modest calls this afternoon, because the SNP will be standing candidates for election in just five weeks' time on a platform supporting full fiscal autonomy. Surely the people have a right to know what that means and why should the Scottish Government be so reticent in bringing forward the detail on their policy? You would think that they would be keen to publish it so that people can be well informed, yet they seem strangely reluctant to talk about its consequences. The SNP's proposition seems to be that we can grow our way out of the fiscal deficit by growing our economy faster—even faster—than the UK economy is projected to grow over the coming years. That will be growing some. However, if they want to do that, it would help if they set out exactly what policies they intend to follow to deliver that dramatic level of economic growth. Until a few weeks ago, it was clear what the flagship SNP policy was. The way to grow the economy, they told us, was to attract more large companies to invest in Scotland, and the way to do that was to cut co-operation tax by £3. All the way through the referendum campaign, I can remember all the debates that I had with Mr Swinney and others, where this policy was paraded as the panacea to all our economic ills. Now, of course, it has been quietly shelved. Under the stewardship of Nicola Sturgeon, there will be no more sweeteners to large multinational companies. Amazon and Google will have to take their corporate headquarters elsewhere. What is to replace this measure? What exactly is being proposed to deliver this miraculous level of economic growth? How will we raise the extra money to fill the £7.6 billion fiscal gap? We are still on tenterhooks awaiting that announcement. When I intervened with Mr Swinney earlier, he promised to come back and tell me how he was going to fill that gap, and we are still waiting. Now, is no wonder that this is a policy that the SNP does not want to talk about. Malcolm Chisholm was right. In the SNP conference speech from Nicola Sturgeon at the weekend, there was no mention of full fiscal autonomy, but she did not get off the hook when she was on Good Morning Scotland yesterday. She said this. I would want to see Scotland moving to a position of fiscal autonomy. That is not going to happen overnight. That will happen over a period of time. We can picture the protest marches now, the mass-ranked of the SNP down Whitehall with her placards. What do we want? Full fiscal autonomy. When do we want it? Not now. If Mike McKenzie is there, when do we want it in six years' time? That is not going to capture the public imagination. This is the party that told us that we could be independent, a fully independent country in 18 months' time, and yet it will take six long years to deliver fiscal autonomy. The fact is that the SNP is all over the place on this issue. How do we know that they are in trouble? At one point this afternoon, Mr Swinney had to be bolstered on the front bench by no fewer than four ministerial colleagues. I have never seen a situation in this chamber before where there were more people on the SNP front bench than there were back benchers sitting behind him. Just as well they went all last to make a speech on this debate. We probably would have got five different contributions. It shows just how weak Mr Swinney's position is on this particular issue. However, why do they not publish that analysis? If they think that their position is so strong, why do they not publish analysis showing the effect on the Scottish economy and the public finances? They will not even let their placement in the Scottish fiscal commission do the necessary work. Realising the negative impact of full fiscal autonomy, that is a policy that they do not want to talk about. I will give way to Mr McDonald. I thank Mr Fraser for giving way. At least one of us has managed to leave the university debating society behind. Perhaps Mr Fraser can advise whether he considers that the UK macroeconomic framework, if his prognosis for the Scottish economy is correct, has been good or bad for Scotland. I think that I only heard part of that. Such was the hilarity around me, Mr McDonald's contribution. However, he cannot deny the fact that the UK economy, under a Conservative Government, is growing strongly at the moment. Scotland has benefited from that growth and we should not put that at risk. We have an election coming up on May 7. Despite all the manoeuvring, all the backpedalling and all the shillies shelling around on his issue, a vote for SNP candidates in that election is a vote for full fiscal autonomy. It is a vote to create a black hole in the public finances of £7.6 billion. We know that the SNP will not do a deal with the Conservatives. We know that they are only interested in propping up a milliband Government with a Labour leader so weak that they will have to give in to their every demand in order to get the keys to Downing Street. That would be a disaster for Britain and an even greater disaster for Scotland. It is only the Conservatives who have the strength to stand up against the combined forces of Labour and the SNP and the danger they present to the Scottish public finances and Scottish taxpayers. Let me just say this in closing. Our proposal this afternoon, if you read Gavin Brown's motion, is modest and reasonable. Who could be more modest and reasonable than Mr Brown? We are not in our motion condemning full fiscal autonomy. We are not denouncing his advocates. We are calling for something that is very simple, publication of some research. Not one SNP speaker in the course of this afternoon addressed the key point in Gavin Brown's motion. Not one argument was heard against publication of the information requested. Even now, in my closing seconds, I appeal to the good grace, to all the reasonable people in the SNP backbenches, to give the Scottish people the information that they need. Just what are you afraid of? That concludes the debate on Scotland's economy and finances. I am grateful for Patrick Harvie. It is a point of order, but for a change, you will not be asked who was right and who was wrong in today's debate. I was grateful, as I am sure other members were, for a copy of the text of your speech to the David Hume Institute this week on the subject of parliamentary reform. I think that a great many members across the chamber and many people outside of this Parliament recognise that we need to do scrutiny better in this Parliament and that you are right to raise the issue of reform. At whatever pace this debate continues, and in whatever direction it goes, and there will be a range of views about that, I believe that it is important to be subject to some degree of public and transparent scrutiny. Motions that I know may be discussed and the subject may be discussed at the Parliamentary Bureau, but the Bureau does not meet in public or on the record. What process do you have in mind for some public and transparent debate on this matter, one that includes all members and includes others who have an interest in the quality of the scrutiny that this Parliament provides? I thank Patrick Harvie for advance notice of his point of order. As the member will have noted from my speech that I set out on Monday, that was my personal view on changes that I think we could make. Today, I have had discussions with the convener's group and business managers and colleagues from across the Parliament. At this stage, I am seeking views of all members and ideas, and I would very much welcome input from Mr Harvie or any other colleagues. My office is available at all times. Can we now move on to decision time? The next item of business is consideration of business motion 12884, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau, setting out a business programme. I ask any member who wishes to speak against the motion to press the request-speak button now, and I call on Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion number 12884. The next item of business is consideration of business motion 12882, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau, setting out a request time to go for the Assisted Suicide Scotland Bill at stage 1. Any member who wishes to speak against the motion should press the request-speak button now, and I call on Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion number 12882. The next item of business is consideration of business motion 12883, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau, setting out a stage one-time table for the smoking prohibition children and motor vehicles Scotland Bill. Any member who wishes to speak against the motion should press the request-speak button now, and I call on Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion number 12883. The next item of business is consideration of two parliamentary motions. I would ask Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion numbers 12885 and 12886 on the Mayday holiday and the Springbank holiday. The question on these motions will put decision time to which we now come. There are five questions to be put as a result of today's business. The first question is at amendment number 12857.2, in the name of John Swinney, which seeks to amend motion number 12857, in the name of Gavin Brown, on Scotland's economy and finances to be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Parliament's not agreed. We move to vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment number 12857.2, in the name of John Swinney, is as follows. Yes, 63. No, 41. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore agreed to. The next question is at amendment number 12857.1, in the name of Jackie Baillie, which seeks to amend motion number 12857, in the name of Gavin Brown, on Scotland's economy and finances to be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The amendment is not agreed to. We move to vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment number 12857.1, in the name of Jackie Baillie, is as follows. Yes, 23. No, 81. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. The next question is at motion number 12857, in the name of Gavin Brown, as amended. On Scotland's economy and finances to be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Parliament's not agreed. We move to vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on motion number 12857, in the name of Gavin Brown, is amended. As as follows. Yes, 64. No, 40. There were no abstentions. The motion, as amended, is therefore agreed to. The next question is at motion number 12885, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, on the May day holiday be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed to. The next question is at motion number 12886, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, on the spring bank holiday be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed to. That concludes decision time. We now move to members business. Members who leave the chamber should do so quickly and quietly.