Labour hasn’t changed

Today the Scottish Parliament is debating Scottish Labour Business - "Managing Scotland's Finances".

Derek Brownlee MSP, Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Finance & Sustainable Growth, said:

Any hope that Parliament would come together to reach a consensus on the Scottish Budget will have been shattered by Labour's motion today, which rather than offering a vision for the future is merely a rant about the past.

Labour is fond of saying the deficit is all down to the banking crisis. Yet Labour started to run a deficit not in 2008, when Labour's recession - the longest and deepest in British history began - but in 2001.

And the SNP can join the Labour Party in complaining about the spending review, and can condemn the deficit reduction as too far, too fast, but until and unless they set out an alternative, they will have no credibility on the issue.

In less than two weeks, the Scottish Government will have to produce its own substantive Budget Proposals for next year. There are choices to be made. Those choices are not just for next year, but for the long term.

We argued against those who demanded the Scottish Government publish a budget before knowing what the spending totals would be. But the totals are now clear. They are set out for the next four years.

It is clear that Labour has learned nothing from its election defeat in May. Labour hasn't changed.

Labour has shown today that it is stuck in the past, unable to offer a vision for the future other than more debt, higher taxes and a wish list of spending demands.

It will be left to the other parties in this Parliament to face up to reality and offer the leadership Scotland needs.

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