I thank the Government and the official Opposition Front-Bench teams for the way in which proceedings on the Bill have been conducted. We have all learned an awful lot about each other, and it has been a genuinely interesting process. I thank the Clerks, Chris Stanton and Kevin Maddison, for their support, without which we would definitely have struggled to put our amendments forward. I thank Clorinda Luck, one of the SNP’s senior researchers, for stepping in at short notice to cover some of the research on the Bill—I am very grateful to her for that work.
Although some of the measures in the Bill are welcome, we in the SNP have to oppose it because it is such a missed opportunity to do so much more about economic crime and the scourge of money laundering and kleptocracy coming to the shores of these islands. There is a lack of action to tackle the misuse of Scottish limited partnerships and shell companies, and to tackle the money flowing through the very city we are standing in. The Bill is also a missed opportunity to do more on net zero in particular. Given last year’s COP, there should have been a great deal more to focus minds and move to a greener and fairer economy.
The Bill is indicative of a Government who are removed from the problems that ordinary people face and who are without solutions to the challenges that our constituents are seeing right now: the challenges of inequality, the scars of 10 years of austerity, the cost of living crisis, which is making life so very difficult for so many people right now, soaring inflation and energy prices that are spiralling out of control.
Contrast that with the opportunity presented by Kate Forbes in the Scottish Parliament last week. With the limited powers that we have over the Scottish Budget, that Budget offers great hope to the people of Scotland. We look enviously at the powers that we could have as a full, independent, normal nation with the full levers to make the real inroads into inequality, to make life fairer, better and more just for the people of Scotland. So we cannot support this Budget and we wish that very soon we will have that full range of powers to make things better for our own citizens.
Question put, That the Bill be read the Third time.