Inside Track SNP conference
“Scotland would go backwards into the cul
de sac that Labour exists in and this is a time of challenge and while I disagree passionately with the direction of travel of the Coalition – they are cutting too far and too fast – they have basically adopted the Labour plan on capital spend so all three parties are culpable. “I think the pressure of the Scottish
public sector is immense and the damage to individuals is potentially horrendous. Yesterday I met a young lady crying in Kilmarnock. She was distraught about the Coalition’s welfare plans and what it would mean to her Disability Living Allowance which she needs to maintain her employment and I daresay it is not the intention of the Prime Minister to make life difficult for that young woman but he is causing her tremendous anxiety and she has done nothing wrong. She has tried to get employment which she has now managed to do but needs that DLA to carry on. “Tings are going to get difficult and we
have to find solutions. It won’t be enough to say yah boo, we don’t like it and we are just going to protest about it. We have to find our own way and find a way to give people the opportunity and we have to re-profile the economy into growth sectors but we have to be able to control revenue and expenditure, otherwise we will always have a range of negative battles against the big boys and girls
down south who are telling us what to do. We have to be able to do things that are in our character, our scope and of our attitude and while I think it is right that work should pay, I don’t think the vulnerable should suffer.” What Salmond has is a grand vision for
Scotland. And while critics once dismissed his party as a single-issue one, four years in
“Yesterday I met a young lady crying in Kilmarnock.
She was distraught about the Coalition’s welfare plans”
government has shown that the SNP is much more encompassing than that. Independence may still be a long way off but along the way, Salmond hopes to create a healthier, wealthier and more just Scotland and what he has managed to achieve within the green agenda is either going to be a legacy that he builds on as the next FM or leaves as a very solid foundation for the next government to expand. “If you take it in terms of targets on renewables then we are at 33 per cent [of the
energy mix] this year, having overtaken our 31 per cent target and we have upped the target for 2020 to 80 per cent which, apart from Norway, makes us the highest in Europe. “We are strong competitors in offshore
wind which we demonstrated with the Mitsubishi announcement and what we are talking about here is the fantastic wholesale development for the continent of Europe with a real powerhouse of energy based in the North Sea. “Scotland is in the rapids of a green
revolution and if we are right in our belief that hydrogen fuel cell technology is a potential game changer then it is not just a game changer for transport, it will be a game changer for houses and domestic energy requirements. “Tis is also about Scotland’s marine engineering for the 21st century in the same way as we marine engineered in the 19th century in terms of transport. To now do it in energy production taps into our natural resources, into our comparative advantage, into our history and into our pride…I am pretty handless at lots of things but I tell you this, if I was an engineer, I would be so proud to be part of the process of the future energy production of Europe. Tat would be one hell of a job. I would be proud of that…and tens of thousands of Scottish youngsters will
28 February 2011 Holyrood 31
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