Seòmar agus comataidhean

If Richard Leonard lets me conclude, he will have a chance to respond.

Liability lies at the feet of the UK—a UK which, as Richard Leonard knows, has taken £4.4 billion out of the miners pension fund without putting a penny into it. The UK is sitting on that money—they filched it. Compensation should come from there, not from the budgets that we have in this place for public services. That would penalise the health service, policing, education and so on. [Interruption.] I hear what members ask about what the UK will do. I call upon Labour members, along with their Welsh Assembly colleagues, to pursue the UK Government to reach into that £4.4 billion that it has filched from the miners pension fund to set up a proper compensation fund and, at the same time, to do what we are doing in this place, which is to grant a collective pardon. We are the first nation to do this; it is a disgrace that it has not been—

That was in response to actions that took place while the Scottish Parliament was in place. This is about what happened in 1984 and it is not as though they do not have the money. How can members possibly support £4.4 billion that was taken from the miners pension fund not being used for a compensation fund?

I say to Labour members: do not let yourselves be bulldozed by a Tory Government; get your colleagues at the Welsh Assembly to put on pressure for a compensation scheme as well, and let us shame a Tory Government that requires to be shamed.

Our office furniture contracts require suppliers to ensure that chairs meet all relevant standards in force at the time of purchase. We inspect chairs at regular intervals to ensure that they remain in safe condition and replace them when they reach end of life. If a member or member of staff feels that they require support for a particular health concern, they can contact the people and culture office—formerly human resources—for support. If necessary, a workplace assessment can be arranged with our occupational health provider.

I do not have the date of purchase to hand and I do not even know whether the chairs were all purchased at the same time, but I will endeavour to find that out and to advise the member in writing. Chairs are replaced if they do not pass an inspection, which is in line with our environmental policy.

I am not going to talk about age.

It is a privilege to speak in this debate—I also spoke in the stage 1 debate—because we are the first nation in the UK to recognise in law the injustice of the time of the miners strike. I say gently to Richard Leonard that Labour was in power for 13 years from 1997 until 2010, and it did nothing—

Eight years ago, in 2014, pensioners were told to vote no or they would lose their state pensions. Does the cabinet secretary agree with me—I am a pensioner—that with one of the worst state pensions in Europe, and with each pensioner now losing £500 a year as the United Kingdom ditches the triple lock, Scotland’s pensioners would benefit from independence?

In my drop-in surgeries in Tesco, I often find elderly people who do not use or have access to the internet or have a mobile phone. Many of them live alone, with perhaps no one to assist them in completing a paper form. What was identified as a factor in non-completion when those non-returning households were visited? What recommendations will fall from that?

There were more than 50 candidates in Midlothian, and there are such small margins between the winners and the losers in these votes. I noted that some returning officers were explaining the system to each voter who walked in, even if they said that they understood it. However, that was not happening at every polling station. Will the minister consider the instructions that were given to people who were working at the polling stations about what to say to explain the system to voters as they came in?

I recognise an intervention when I see it, and that was a speech. I take no lessons whatsoever from Brian Wilson—the Tories are desperate to pray him in aid.

We have had two years of Covid, years of post-Brexit—which is not concluded and which was not oven ready—the impact of the war in Ukraine and inflation, which is set to rise to 10 per cent with desperate and destructive cost of living and energy prices. I repeat that the UK has the highest rate of inflation of any G7 country, and it is almost twice France’s rate. I have noticed that the Conservatives dance round that. Who does the UK Government attack? The independent governor of the Bank of England. The UK Government criticised him, claiming that the bank had fallen “asleep at the wheel” on inflation. Mr Bailey rightly responded:

“There’s a lot of uncertainty around this situation ... And that is a major, major worry and it’s not just I have to tell you a major worry for this country. There’s a major worry for the developing world as well. And so if I had to sort of, sorry for being apocalyptic for a moment, but that is a major concern.”

The governor of the Bank of England used the term “apocalyptic”.

The increase in food and energy prices does not just impact on individuals and families; it impacts on the cost of manufacturing, the cost of running our schools and hospitals, and even the cost of filling the ambulance diesel tanks. Those bills will land at the feet of the Scottish Government.

It is as plain as a pikestaff that we, in Scotland, face the same economic challenges as other nations worldwide, except that we do not control the macroeconomy. We do not control all the other tax-raising powers, such as corporation tax, VAT and fuel duty.

Despite that, to protect the most vulnerable, we have commendable social policies. We make choices. We have free school meals for primary 1 to P5; free prescriptions; no tuition fees; free travel for all under-22s, over-60s and certain disabled people—and so on, because that is not the complete list. To that can be added the £770 million that has already been mentioned to mitigate—I hate that word—Tory policies.

I mention waste to Liz Smith specifically. UK Government waste includes the festival of Brexit, which cost £120 million; track and trace, which cost £37 billion and was criticised by the Public Accounts Committee at Westminster; high speed 2, which will cost at least £112 billion; ferries that did not exist, which Chris Grayling ordered at a cost of £81 million—[Interruption.] I have more to come. [Interruption.] Oh, the Conservatives do not want to hear it. Perhaps they should listen.

Nine Nimrods were scrapped in 2011 at a cost of £4.2 billion; Boris’s garden bridge when he was London mayor cost £43 million and was never built; Crossrail cost £4 billion above its £14.8 billion budget; and then there were the personal protective equipment contracts that were given to cronies. There is a great big list of waste.

I could add policies to that and an economic tsunami that Scotland did not vote for. There are six Tory MPs in Scotland, with only four wanting to toss out Boris—or is it three and a half? After all, Douglas Ross could give the Kama Sutra a run for its money. Of the UK Government’s man in Scotland, we would expect nothing less of uber-loyalist Alister Jack, who I am sure is expecting a comfy seat in the best special retirement home, the House of Lords.

Here is my message to Boris as he clings by his fraying fingernails to the door handle of number 10: grant that section 30 for a legally binding referendum. After all, with your Government’s track record, a victory for the union should be a skoosh. Go for it Boris; otherwise we will know that you fear yet another unhappy result.

I say to Katy Clark that independence is not an end in itself but the right to tax fairly and to deliver a socially just society. It is time that Labour woke up to that.

The member mentioned Amazon in relation to tax, but that is not a tax over which we have power. That is the whole problem for the Labour Party.