Looking good for May

The YouGov poll published today gives us good reason to face the coming election with a spring in our step. Showing us increasing to six MSPs and still holding an influential place on the political landscape, it suggests a return to a position almost as good as our historic high point in 2003 when we returned a Parliamentary group of seven.

The LibDems, still dealing with the anger many people feel at their role in the Tory-led UK Government, are severely down and the gap between us is now just a fraction of a percent. This is of course only an opinion poll, and we’ve got a lot to do between now and the election to put our case for protection of public services and investment in a low-carbon future. But as an indication of where things stand it’s a clear message that every single Green vote in Scotland can make a huge difference to Scottish politics.

If a future minority government – of whichever party – was able to reach a majority with the support of Green MSPs, we would of course sit down and talk with them. We’ve always tried to be constructive with both sides of that divide. But it’s such a hostile relationship between Labour and the SNP that each party’s supporters sometimes find it hard to understand why we don’t share the same feeling of hostility.

We’ve got common ground with both. We’ve got major differences with them too. On the crucial issues for Green politics, like the economy, oil addiction, climate change, and investment in public services, there’s little to choose between them. But Green influence on either party would let Scotland build on the initiatives we’ve launched in recent years, like the Climate Challenge Fund, home insulation to cut people’s bills, and investment in public transport. It would also deny them the chance to press on with building 1960s carbon-hungry projects, or to slash higher education funding and social housing.

In short, wherever your constituency vote is going, you can make the biggest difference for a better Scotland if you Second Vote Green!

NEWS RELEASE – Greens hail challenge to deepwater drilling

Patrick Harvie MSP has welcomed a High Court ruling giving permission for a challenge to UK energy minister Chris Huhne’s decision to grant licenses for deepwater drilling off the coast of Shetland. (1) The decision follows admissions by companies with licenses for deepwater drilling that they are unprepared for a blowout on the scale of the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Patrick Harvie MSP said:

“This is a significant decision. The UK Government granted these licenses even before the investigations into BP’s Gulf of Mexico disaster had finished. Since then even some of those already given licenses to drill in deep waters off Shetland have admitted that they are not prepared for a similar disaster in Scottish waters. The courts will now hear the case, and I hope they send Chris Huhne back to the drawing board.

“Events in Libya and the subsequent spike in oil prices have illustrated again how over-dependent our economy is on oil. Rather than take unjustifiable risks exploring for yet more reserves in even harsher environments, we should be moving urgently to clean energy sources for transport, heat and power. Neither our economy nor our environment can afford to stick with business-as-usual.”

NEWS RELEASE – Holyrood pressed to end Vodafone contract

Green MSP Patrick Harvie today challenged the Scottish Parliament’s Corporate Body to end their current contract with Vodafone unless the phone company can demonstrate it pays full UK corporation tax on all its profits. Vodafone have recently avoided almost £6bn in tax liabilities following negotiations with HMRC. (1)

The Green MSPs have also today lodged a motion at Holyrood urging the Parliament authorities to end the contract. (2) The motion also supports the campaign by UK Uncut (3) to ensure companies who make profits in the UK pay appropriate levels of tax on those profits as part of an alternative to Ministers’ cuts agenda.

Patrick Harvie MSP said:

“Scotland’s public services are coming under the most extraordinary pressure we have ever seen, from a cuts agenda driven by Tory Ministers at Westminster and handed on by the SNP. At the same time, some of Britain’s richest companies are spending a fortune on accountants to get them out of their legitimate tax liabilities.

“Vodafone, for example, have dodged an extraordinary £6bn in taxes in recent years. It’s therefore unacceptable that Holyrood should have a contract with them under these circumstances, effectively giving substantial sums of public money to subsidise one of Britain’s worst tax avoiders. It’s time to end the contract and ask tougher questions next time.

“Parliament should also be supporting the efforts of UK Uncut to raise the profile of these tax scandals and the consequences they have for public services. UK Uncut have done great work in shaming both the tax dodgers and the Ministers who let them off the hook, and are perhaps the most constructive and public-spirited campaign group active in this country today.”

Notes

1. See:
/www.guardian.co.uk

2. The draft motion in the name of Patrick Harvie MSP reads as follows:
Ending The SPCB’s Contract With Vodafone
That the Parliament believes public contracts should not be awarded to companies who deprive the public sector of vital funds by using substantial tax avoidance schemes; supports the campaign by UK Uncut to highlight tax avoidance and set out alternatives to the cuts agenda; notes that Vodafone’s recent deal with HMRC reduced their tax liability by almost £6bn; and urges the SPCB to terminate the Parliament’s contract with Vodafone until the company can demonstrate that they pay the equivalent of the full rate of UK Corporation Tax on their profits.

3. http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/

What the SNP cuts budget means

So the Scottish budget for 2011/12 has been passed. Every budget is important, but this one stands out for several reasons.

It’s the last big vote at Holyrood before we end this session and begin the campaign for May’s election. Now that the budget is out of the way the political temperature can be expected to rise, as Gray and Salmond in particular indulge in the sort of aggressive clash of egos which generally takes place between prospective First Ministers.

It’s not just the last budget in the session though. It’s the fourth SNP budget to have been passed by Parliament, and that’s something which few people predicted back in the first days of minority government. With most of the SNP’s flagship policies scuppered by the opposition, there’s a strong case for saying that minority government isn’t the best option for Scotland. But the last four years have demonstrated that it is at least viable, stable, tolerable. It can function. That will likely prove to be a hugely important lesson for the future, and owes far more to John Swinney’s abilities than to those of his bombastic leader.

But far more significantly, this budget will stand out because of what it tells us about the new political alignment in an era of cuts. This is not an SNP budget. It is an SNP/LibDem/Tory budget.

On paper, the SNP oppose the UK Government’s cuts agenda. They use the same core argument as Labour – “too far, too fast”. On paper, the SNP looks like a centre-left party with a commitment to collective values. But in practice they have chosen to work with the UK coalition parties to pass a budget which cuts just as deeply as the coalition dictates. They have not been forced to do so. They have chosen this partnership simply because of the tribal hostility which still marks their relationship with the other large, supposedly centre-left party which claims a commitment to collective values. If the relationship between the SNP and Labour had been remotely functional (civilised at least; I don’t expect anything closer) we’d be looking at a very different budget, one which protected public services not just for their social value but as an important part of the economy. For months I have been offering constructive ideas for achieving this, from changes to non-domestic rates to different capital spending priorities. It can be done.

In reality, there is little truth in either party’s attempt to claim left of centre ground. Both were enthusiastically chanting the mantra of deregulated free markets before the crash, and now seem to think that the old failed economic model can simply be propped up again. The SNP has capitulated to a Tory economic agenda just as quickly as they capitulated to Donald Trump, and I have no reason to think that Labour would have done much different.

All this will seem pretty depressing to many people. What on earth has happened to Scottish politics? But it does offer a real opportunity for the Greens to offer a clear, distinctive and radical message in the forthcoming election. We will be the only party untainted by the economic policies which led to the crash, opposing the cuts which have followed, and with a credible track record of electoral success and policy achievements.

Everyone knows I’m not in the running to be the next First Minister. Quite frankly that ego-driven battle between Salmond and Gray just wouldn’t be my style anyway. But a large group of Green MSPs in the next parliament would have the opportunity, the mandate and the influence to bring radical politics back to life in this country.

To anyone who shares my excitement at that prospect, the message is simple: join us today, and help make it happen!

Greens set out alternative budget proposals

The Green MSPs have today set out almost £400m of revenue and spending changes, the most comprehensive package of changes to the draft Scottish Budget proposed by any opposition party, and offered to meet Ministers again to discuss them. The Greens believe the current Draft Budget fails to protect Scotland from the Tory cuts, and that with a few relatively straightforward changes to business taxation and a prudent delay to the additional Forth Road Bridge scheme almost a third of the £1.3bn cuts could be overturned.

Savings and additional revenue
* Delay additional Forth Road Bridge by a year to allow current work to be evaluated: £200m (1)
* Bring empty properties into non-domestic rates, as in England and Wales: £75m (2)
* Bring urban vacant land (“land banks”) into non-domestic rates: £49.6m (3)
* Raise the Large Business Supplement from 0.7p to 2p: £68.7m (4)
Total: £393.3m

Spending changes
* Limit cuts to higher and further education, including full funding for bursaries: £167m (5)
* Reverse cut to housing budgets: £94m (6)
* Fund shortfall in the Small Business Bonus Scheme following rejection of the Large Retailers Levy: £30m (7)
* Commit to full-scale universal home insulation programme: £100m (8)
Total: £391m

Patrick Harvie MSP said:

“This package of practical measures would allow Scottish Ministers to protect education, housing, small businesses and to start the comprehensive free insulation programme we have long argued for. It’s not too late even now for the SNP to reconsider the cuts they have set out, especially given their commitment to bring a revised Budget should the current proposals be rejected. If John Swinney wants to broaden support for his Budget amongst the opposition parties I would urge him to sit down with us and look at these changes. At the very least he has to fill the gap in the Budget left by the rejection of the large retailers levy.

“Even with these changes, this would not be the progressive Budget that Greens in government would bring. These measures would however tackle the worst of the Tory cuts, cuts the SNP currently plan simply to hand on to Scottish public services. This Budget is a defining moment for Holyrood – do MSPs of all parties have the vision and the determination to do things differently, or would they rather cling to George Osborne’s coat-tails?”

Notes

1. Dehumidification work is underway, and tests will be conducted later this year. For the cost, see p98 of the SNP’s Draft Budget:
www.scotland.gov.uk

2. Details previously set out here.

3. The latest available data on urban vacant land and derelict land with development potential in the short and medium term in Scotland shows a total of 6,508 hectares. See Table 15: Development Potential of derelict and urban vacant land, 2009:
www.scotland.gov.uk

Using the average land value per hectare for vacant land, excluding improvements, of £625,000, as estimated by Andy Wightman (see. See figure 8, page 15 of A Land Value tax For Scotland), Scottish urban vacant and derelict land has an estimated value of just over £4bn. Current discount rates are around 6%, but using a conservative discount rate of just 3% at the current 40.7p non-domestic rate poundage, this move would net around £49.6m in 2011/2012, excluding discounts to cover assistance for remediation costs of bringing derelict land back into use.

4. Details previously set out here.

5. Bursaries are currently facing £1.7m in cuts. See:
www.budgetforbursaries.com

6. Excluding accelerated capital investment. See Shelter’s evidence to the Local Government and Communities Committee.

7. For Scottish Government figures on the Large Retailers’ Levy, see:
www.scotland.gov.uk

8. As set out during the 2009 Budget process:
http://scot.gr/warm

NEWS RELEASE – “Supermarket parties” put paymasters before public

Today’s vote by Labour, Tory and Lib Dem MSPs to block the proposed tax on large retailers confirms that all three parties will vote in line with the interests of the companies who fund them, Greens argued. (1) The tax itself would have raised just £30m, less than a fortieth of the Tories’ reduction in the Scottish Block Grant, not enough to offset any significant proportion of the cuts. Most of that revenue would have come from some of the UK’s biggest companies, including ASDA, Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s and Wm Morrisons, (2) and Greens also note research showing that the average new supermarket leads to a net loss of 276 jobs. (3)

Following today’s vote, Green MSP Patrick Harvie has written to the Presiding Officer, asking him to review whether Members should be required to declare interests of this sort in the same way as they are required to do so when they have a personally declarable interest. (4)

Patrick Harvie MSP said:

“The other opposition parties have voted to aggravate the SNP’s cuts still further, and they could not be more out of touch with the Scottish public if they tried. Over the years Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems have taken hundreds of thousands of pounds from the big retailers, and today it seems as though those companies got value for money. I therefore have today urged the Presiding Officer to consider whether MSPs who fail to declare interests of this sort should be found in breach of the Code of Conduct.

“In the interests of honesty and transparency, Jeremy Purvis, Andy Kerr and Gavin Brown should have stitched corporate logos onto their suits for this debate. Parliament deserves better than this gaggle of apologists for the big retailers. What this unholy alliance have forgotten is that, while supermarkets have their place, they are anything but engines of employment – all too often they mean local shops driven to the wall and communities gutted.”

Notes

1. Since 2003, the Labour Party received £10,942,808 from Lord Sainsbury, plus £99,056.50 from Tescos, £28,445 from Asda, and £10,000 from Selfridges. Over the same period, the Liberal Democrats received £35,684.50 from Tescos, and the Conservatives received £30,000 from Selfridges plus £6,000 from Asda. See the Electoral Commission website.

2. All five are listed in the FTSE 100.

3. See research cited by ACS.

4. Letter available on request.