I am very sorry, but I want to make progress. I will come back to Liz Smith if I can.

I highlight the very helpful contribution that Ross Greer made in saying that politics is about choices. Labour’s choices will continue to ingrain poverty through continued austerity for public services and, as he said, the support for our poorest families.

I will now engage directly with the Tory and Labour amendments, which are false and hypocritical and do a grave injustice to those who are working hard in our public services to deliver for the people whom we serve.

First, I say to the Conservatives that Scotland is not the highest-taxed part of the UK. That is patent and demonstrable nonsense. The majority of people in Scotland pay less income tax than they would pay if they lived in the rest of the UK, and the average band D council tax bill in Scotland is £700 less than in England and £600 less than in Wales.

In Scotland, we have taken action to help to mitigate the UK cost of living crisis that has been presided over by the Conservatives, by freezing council tax for 2 million Scots this year. We have used the tax powers that are available to us to mitigate UK austerity by raising £1.5 billion more in revenue than we would have if we had done nothing. Without that, we would have seen cuts to our NHS, local government and other public services, which we have seen elsewhere in the UK. The Tories should at least be honest about that—which Brian Whittle, when I challenged him, squarely failed to do. However, I would expect that action from this SNP Government to be opposed by the Tories, who pass on tax breaks for the wealthiest in society while cutting public services that we all rely on.

Shamefully, Labour also opposes us raising additional finance for public services. I also find it curious that Labour’s amendment would delete the commitment to

“high-quality services”,

the statement that we recognise

“the key role that the workforce plays in delivering”

those services, and the acknowledgement that

“public sector pay is higher in Scotland”

than in the rest of the UK.

It would also delete the criticism of spending cuts from the Tory spring statement. Why on earth would Labour do that? Why would it miss an opportunity to criticise the Tory UK Government and its austerity agenda, especially when Wes Streeting defended the challenges that are faced by the NHS in Wales by saying,

“all roads ... lead ... to Westminster”?

Perhaps that should not be curious at all, however, because Labour is laying the groundwork for the continued austerity that we have been promised from a Labour UK Government—£20 billion-worth of austerity, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies today.

On the one area of public service investment that we might see coming from Labour, which Pam Duncan-Glancy referred to—investment in the NHS—Labour has confirmed that that will be worth just £134 million for Scotland, which is barely enough to cover a 1 per cent pay rise for NHS staff and is less than most of the recent Tory consequentials. That is not change; it is continued short change, and it is continued austerity. That is why Anas Sarwar’s claim that there would be no more austerity rang so hollow the other night, when the First Minister exposed the austerity consensus in the Westminster establishment. Mr Sarwar’s “Read my lips” line had about as much credibility as it did when George Bush used it.