Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth

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Good morning conference.

Last year was a busy year for us all.

Personally I was proud to have been a candidate in our leadership election, to have taken part in that debate – throughout Scotland – about the policy direction for our Party, and for our country.

It was good-natured, and in the best traditions of our movement.
Since that election I have been proud to work with our new leader, Iain Gray, and I have to say he made a brilliant first conference speech as leader.

To work with him in a unified and progressive front bench team in the Scottish Parliament, working to set the agenda and expose the failings of the SNP.

It is also a great pleasure to work with Dave Whitton who is the Depute Shadow Minister, capable, talented with a razor sharp wit.

And just as our team has come together, it’s pretty clear that, day by day, Team Salmond – now there’s a contradiction in terms - has started to fall apart at the seams.

No one here will be surprised by that.

It’s always in times of real pressure, when people seek strong leadership from government - that weakness and indecision - is exposed.

The sheer scale of the economic crisis that has engulfed the globe has forced governments everywhere to stand up and be counted, and to work together – across borders and other divides – for the good of the people.

To risk unpopularity in favour of action, and to practice innovation in place of doctrine and dogma.
Whether it’s the Democrats in America, or Labour here, leaders everywhere have reacted, and fast.
Everywhere that is – EXCEPT Scotland. Everyone EXCEPT Alex Salmond.

In a new world requiring action over dogma,
needing leaders to reach out across borders,
to shelve popularity in the interests of workers and families
we have had indecision and prevarication –
argument and discord from an SNP Government determined to blame everyone else for their failings and to pick fights rather than work constructively for the common good.

Definitely not in the SNP manual, working for the common good…

And knowing that this kind of situation really wasn’t playing to the SNP’s strengths, we offered to help – we really did.

We said: maybe now would be a time to park the Scottish Futures Trust in the interests of getting Scotland building again. SNP manual said no.

We said: maybe we should get back on track with the schools and hospital building programme. The SNP Manual said no.

We said: maybe the introduction of a new local tax system wasn’t the best idea when we should be focusing on attracting and keeping employers in Scotland.

Well, that wasn’t in the manual either, but I give them credit – eventually they dumped that one, but only after Labour’s campaign had exposed the utter folly of making Scotland the highest taxed part of the UK.

We even produced a detailed fifteen point plan to help first time buyers, businesses and workers. Not in that manual, yet again. Although some months later they took some of our ideas in the absence of any response from them.

Then we said why not give up on the costly, never-ending and pointless National Conversation and focus on the big economic questions: Still the Manual says no!

We wondered whether the midst of a worldwide economic crisis was necessarily the right time to appoint a ‘constitutional minister’ to plan out their independence campaign.

Focusing on people’s jobs ahead of the breakup of the UK – DEFINITELY not in the manual.

Earlier this week Parliament agreed that putting referendums on hold might be a good idea until after we had tackled the recession.

Still the manual says no!

In fact, it’s hard to see what part of the SNP manual has them doing anything other than starting rows, the grudge and grievance agenda and staging press events while Scotland’s construction industry lies idle and 25,000 jobs are lost.

What Scotland needed, and needs today, is leadership and a team of ministers working together to address this massive challenge.

What we have is a weather-vane First Minister and a cabinet who simply don’t have it in their DNA to change focus from their independence dream.

Their portfolios like health and education a mere distraction from the real job of ripping Scotland out of Britain

They just can’t change gear, the manual won’t let them.

For example - we’ll all remember this quote from Mr. Salmond:
“Scotland sits at the heart of one of the wealthiest parts of the planet. In Ireland to our west, Iceland to our north and Norway to our East, we see an arc of prosperity.”

Any sane person might have thought ‘let’s chalk that one up to experience’.

They might have watched 120,000 people take to the streets in Dublin, and thought something was up with the mantra.

You know before the collapse of the Icelandic economy more than 100 references to Iceland were made in internal Scottish Government documents, three months after the collapse that was down to one reference.

So they watched the Icelandic economy descend into chaos as its banks collapsed and never thought ‘time for a Plan B’.

Or kept an eye on falling fuel prices hitting northern European producers hard, and said ‘bin that press release about ‘Its Scotland’s oil’.
But no.

Because these aren’t rational people.
They can’t adapt, or revise, or rethink.
It not in the manual.

Well clearly, Conference, we believe that Scotland needs better than this. We believe that the people’s needs – the needs of the many – should decide a government’s priorities, not a constitutional pipe dream shared only by a very few.

And that’s why we have been working, every day, to accomplish two things:

Firstly, to expose the SNP’s economic policy for what it is:
a blame game,
a pass the parcel farce that refuses to address the real issues
or to use the real and significant powers of the Scottish Parliament.

And secondly, we have been striving to regain the trust of the Scottish people in Labour,
to rebuild their confidence in us,
and to reshape our policies for today’s Scotland.

Because, in this time of uncertainty for everyone, we believe that Scotland has the right to ask of us “what would you do?”, and the right to expect us to answer.

Well, I believe that we have some of those answers.

We need to look beyond this downturn.

I believe that our commitment to making an apprenticeship available to every young person who wants one is a massive step forward for Scotland.

As is our commitment to investing further in town centre regeneration showing our determination to protect fragile local economies across the country.

As is our proposals to invest in Scotland’s future as a world centre for clean energy and green industry showing that we are looking to the years ahead, not just today’s landscape.

Our proposals on the PACE scheme, to support those facing redundancy, shows Labour leading the way in protecting our jobs and people.

Contrast that with the SNP.

Scotland is still waiting for their Scottish Futures Trust – a scheme so good the SNP promised that no one would want to use anything else to fund public procurement - meanwhile Labour’s pipeline of construction projects dries up

From 1300 million to 300 million a drop of 1 billion

Labour – protecting and creating jobs- the SNP destroying them.

And what of Labour and Local Government?

I know some welcomed the concordat and promises made over the council tax freeze.

But Labour stands today, as it has in the past, on the simple platform that what Government asks of local councils it must fund.

It is not good enough for Alex Salmond to demand a council tax freeze, and then impose new initiatives on councils without paying for them.

Who is supposed to pay for reducing class sizes?

Just how are councils supposed to build the new schools?

How exactly do you hire more trained nursery teachers, or deliver two hours of sport in every school, with not a penny more?

On these and a dozen other schemes, it’s Alex Salmond who has subcontracted his commitments to local government with no fee.

Let me be clear.

We believe that local Government should be free to keep what it gains from efficiency savings.

We believe that councils should have more control over their spending.

We believe that taxation to pay for local services should be set locally, reacting to local needs.

And we believe that, where Government expects councils to deliver policies developed centrally, they should be properly financed.

So today I renew our commitment to working with local councils across Scotland.
to renew our commitment to high quality local services.

And we also renew our commitment, as the Labour team in the Parliament, to working closely with the trade unions.

It is they fight who to protect Scottish industries and public services, in the face of a disinterested Government.

That’s why, in our efforts to make the most of the SNP’s half-hearted budget, we worked so tirelessly to secure a real and lasting commitment to Labour’s modern apprenticeship in Scotland.

Because we know, as do our trade union colleagues, that investing in our nation’s skills today is a real investment in the economy of the future.

So conference, as our country faces huge challenges today and in its future the SNP government indulges in the worst form of political grandstanding – hamstrung by an outdated ideology and a leader who thinks that Thatcher’s economic policies were not so bad.

Why were we surprised when he appointed an arch supporter of Thatcherite economics as his chief economic advisor?

Today’s further revelations surrounding Sir George Mathewson are extremely damaging not just to Salmond – but to Scotland.

Once again his key economic advisor is exposed as a tax dodger, a ’spiv and a speculator’.

Not only are his views on banking unacceptable but as Chairman of Salmond’s Council of Economic advisors it is outrageous that his own business seeks to avoid paying tax in Scotland.

His crime sheet grows weekly.

He supports the banks bonus culture,
short sells shares,
refuses to apologise for past banking malpractices
and now channels funds into offshore foreign tax havens.

Just what will it take for Alex Salmond to act decisively? All the banking practices Salmond claims to oppose his chief economic advisor promote.

So when our Prime Minister says that we clean up and clear out our banks. I say to Alex Salmond.

Put your own house in order and clean up and clear out your own Council of Economic advisors!

And there Conference we have it in a nutshell. A Prime Minister determined to bring probity back to our banks and a First Minister the principal apologist for a man who stands for the exact opposite.

We cannot rest in opposition, or spend our days gleefully watching the SNP unravel in the midst of their lies and broken promises.

We must continue to be a catalyst for real change and reform in our country.

We must continue to offer serious arguments to help in the work of rebuilding our economy.

We must continue to engage with communities and families and be their voice in Parliament.

And finally conference we must continue to be the team working, every hour of every day, to be ready and deserving of the challenge to fashion Scotland’s tomorrow for the better.