Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay delivers his first keynote speech in Edinburgh

Transcript

00:00Hello, I'm Alistair Grant, the Political Editor of The Scotsman, and I'm here in Edinburgh

00:03where Russell Finlay, the new Scottish Conservative leader, has been making his first keynote

00:08speech to party members, party activists and fellow MSPs, really setting out what he's

00:14going to stand for as leader. As you might be able to see behind me, there's a slogan

00:19there, Common Sense for a Change. He's very much setting out a pitch that he and his party

00:24represent common sense in Scottish politics, that they represent the mainstream views of

00:29the Scottish people, and that Holyrood, the Scottish Parliament, has become disconnected.

00:33He criticised what he called the kind of gimmicky student politics of Holyrood, focusing on

00:38issues he doesn't think voters care about. He wants to reduce the tax burden on Scots,

00:45reduce the size of the state. He said that the patience of Scottish taxpayers has been

00:50stretched to the limit. He said that there's a moral case for reducing the tax burden,

00:54and he wants to see that tax gap between Scotland and England that we've seen growing in recent

00:59years reduced. Specifically, he wants to remove the 21p tax rate for what he called

01:06middle earners in Scotland. He also called for an overhaul of what he said was the wider

01:12architecture of government, and really targeting that kind of quote-unquote freebie culture

01:17in Scotland, singling out things like free prescriptions, asking whether it's right that

01:22the wealthy people in Scotland get their prescriptions for free when they could perhaps afford to

01:27pay for them. He set out a case for reforming the NHS, targeting middle managers, a case

01:35for further devolution to councils, handing them more powers, a case for a crackdown in

01:41what he called the bloated quango sector. So really a kind of overarching theme of reducing

01:46the size of the state, reducing the tax burden on Scottish people, while also kind of moving

01:51away from what he says are the kind of student politics concerns of the Scottish Parliament.

01:57And all of this, he says, is a case to try and rebuild trust between Scottish people

02:03and the politicians who represent them.

02:06Proper funding of public services is crucial, but it's only part of the solution. Public

02:11services must become more effective by being more efficient. Taxpayers deserve it, and

02:17they rightly demand it. It's time to end the student politics of gimmicks and cheap headlines

02:24that come with costly price tags, like baby boxes. These have cost £50 million without

02:31any hard evidence of their effectiveness. Or the fact the SNP spends £9 million a year

02:37on foreign embassies, despite international affairs being reserved. And I think that it's

02:44agreed by almost everyone, but especially the wealthiest can afford a £39 packet of

02:50paracetamol instead of getting it free on prescription. Examples of unnecessary and

02:57wasteful spending could probably fill a book. In fact, there's a suggestion for Nicola Sturgeon.

03:03She could have a chapter in between deleting COVID messages and camper van holidays. But

03:09I think we need to think bigger to drive the efficiencies that would realise substantial

03:15savings for the taxpayer. After 25 years of devolution, we need a complete overhaul

03:22of the architecture of government.