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Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 25 November 2024
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Displaying 2685 contributions

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Finance and Public Administration Committee

Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26

Meeting date: 17 September 2024

Kenneth Gibson

What would the perception be of the differences between Scotland and the rest of the UK in that case? It is clear that the new UK Government is not going down that road. I do not think that it has plans to revalue in relation to council tax or to bring in a land tax, for example. How would the change that you suggest impact on the balance in how people perceive Scotland and England in terms of their standard of living?

Finance and Public Administration Committee

Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26

Meeting date: 17 September 2024

Kenneth Gibson

Sorry—that was the wrong expression.

Finance and Public Administration Committee

Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26

Meeting date: 17 September 2024

Kenneth Gibson

To be fair, the NHS does a lot. You talked about vaccination, but there are also free eye tests, which avoid problems coming down the line that would cost a lot more.

Finance and Public Administration Committee

Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26

Meeting date: 17 September 2024

Kenneth Gibson

Alice Telfer has quite a lot to say about reform. I am not going to quote her document just yet, but I might—I have it sitting right in front of me.

Finance and Public Administration Committee

Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26

Meeting date: 17 September 2024

Kenneth Gibson

No, not replaced. I am talking about when you make the windows wind and watertight, but you retain the same windows. There is a word in my head. They said to me, “You do not want to do that, councillor. You want to get new windows put into 50 houses, and then you can get a nice photograph taken in front of them, rather than repointing them”—that is the word that I was searching for. I said that I wanted them to be repointed.

The point is that it is about how you allocate resources effectively. If you had the money, would spending it on retrofitting be a better use of the overall Scottish budget, if we think of its impact on people’s health and wellbeing, rather than spending it on building new houses, assuming that we had the skilled workers who were trained in number to do it ? I am being devil’s advocate.

Finance and Public Administration Committee

Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26

Meeting date: 17 September 2024

Kenneth Gibson

I do not have to be a Mystic Meg to know what Euan Lochhead is going to say, but I will let him say it.

Finance and Public Administration Committee

Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26

Meeting date: 17 September 2024

Kenneth Gibson

You say in your submission:

“Improving productivity is a key gap in the strategy. More emphasis on understanding productivity and why it is decreasing or fluctuating or varying across Scotland, and what can be done to address this is critical.”

How do we do that?

Finance and Public Administration Committee

Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26

Meeting date: 17 September 2024

Kenneth Gibson

That is a bit too rhetorical. The committee is looking for answers.

Finance and Public Administration Committee

Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26

Meeting date: 17 September 2024

Kenneth Gibson

The perspective is so huge.

Finance and Public Administration Committee

Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26

Meeting date: 17 September 2024

Kenneth Gibson

The difference between houses in the Western Isles and the Faroe Islands is incredible—and not to the benefit of the people in the Western Isles.