Plenary, 03 Sep 2009

Meeting date: Thursday, September 3, 2009

Official Report 734KB pdf

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Scottish Government's Programme

Resumed debate.

The next item of business is continuation of the debate on the Scottish Government's programme.

It gives me pleasure to be the first speaker in the afternoon part of the debate on the Government's legislative programme. The principal themes running through the programme are economic recovery and social and environmental justice. If one portfolio brings together all those objectives, it is the housing portfolio.

I am extremely proud of our record over the past two years, which shows that we have been extremely successful in significantly increasing the investment in affordable housing. At £675 million, the total investment this year is nearly £100 million higher than the previous record investment since the Parliament's establishment. Although it was announced while I was away on holiday, I was delighted by the fact that a record number of new social houses were built in Scotland during the previous financial year. It is a 15-year record—the last time the number was as high, the Tories were in power. That tells us that the Labour Government and the Lib-Lab pact failed utterly to match even the Tory record on the provision of new social housing in Scotland, let alone that of the SNP Government.

I thank the minister for that most generous statement to the chamber. Will he confirm that not only was our record far superior to that of Labour and the Liberal Democrats when they were in government but that it is superior to the aspirations that the SNP Government has set out in its programme?

We are only getting started.

Time to go on holiday again.

Absolutely.

We will not rest on our laurels. I will mention two of the measures that we will take forward in the legislative programme: our new housing bill and our debtor protection bill. The housing bill will bring about further reforms to the right to buy, which has done so much damage to the provision of social housing in Scotland over the past 30 years. We are determined to end the right to buy for new social housing and are consulting on ending the right to buy for new tenancies, suspending it in areas in which the pressure for housing is high and reforming the role of the regulator.

We estimate that, depending on how many of those measures the Government proposes and the Parliament approves, up to 18,000 houses will be retained in the rented sector during the first 10 years of implementation of the legislation. That is equivalent to three years' worth of the average number of new houses that were built in Scotland during the first eight years of this Parliament.

The new housing bill is not just a piece of legislation; it is about ensuring that we have an adequate supply of housing for rent in Scotland to achieve our strategic targets. It is about ensuring that we achieve the homelessness target of 2012 and reduce the housing waiting list throughout Scotland.

On top of that, we will introduce a debtor protection bill, which will make our legislation in Scotland the most advanced in the United Kingdom for dealing humanely with repossessions. I hope that we can reach consensus across the parties on that measure above all measures and that we pass the bill as quickly as possible.

The minister will be well aware that the Labour team offered to come back early from the recess in order to pass legislation that would deal with repossessions. This morning, Iain Gray asked when that legislation would be in place. Can the minister answer that question now?

When the process will be completed will be up to the Parliament. Our ambition, which is, I think, shared by the Local Government and Communities Committee, is to have the legislation passed by early 2010. If we can pass it sooner, we will be happy. I am keen to talk about the bill's provisions to Opposition members and those who shadow me in all the parties. We are happy to consider their comments at this stage because we are keen to get things right from stage 1, and I think that we are united on the need to pass the bill as quickly as possible.

The new figures for repossessions throughout the United Kingdom, which have been published in the past two weeks, show a flattening out of the number of repossessions and are welcome. As a result, the Council of Mortgage Lenders has downsized its forecast for the number of repossessions throughout the UK this year, from 75,000 to 65,000. We are again pressing the Council of Mortgage Lenders to give us the Scottish figures, because it would be much easier for us to manage the considerable resources that we have set aside to deal with the problem if we had exact numbers for Scotland. I hope that the CML will acquiesce in our request. If it does not, I hope that the Financial Services Authority, which has the legislative authority to enforce the matter, will agree to implement a requirement that we get the Scottish figures.

Those are only two issues. If I had more time, I could tell members about the town centre regeneration fund, the other £24 million for council housing to be announced before Christmas, the fantastic success of our housing associations in the current regime, and the importance of independence to economic recovery and social justice. However, time prevents me from doing so—

Unfortunately, you do not have more time, Mr Neil.

I have therefore given members only a taster.

I welcome the opportunity to take part in the debate on the Government's programme.

When a Government brings forward a programme for the year, we consider the needs of the country. It is clear that communities throughout Scotland are crying out for opportunities to boost their local economies and create jobs. Pupils in schools throughout Scotland and their parents are crying out for new investment and places for probationary teachers.

A number of members have said that the referendum bill is the main bill in the SNP's programme. That might be welcomed by the SNP bloggers who stay up all night logging on to the national conversation website, but it will do nothing to tackle the real issues that Scotland faces.

The legislative programme is somewhat light. Indeed, the SNP's record on legislation has not been great. The introduction of a local income tax, which was one of its flagship policies, has been ditched in the past year. There will not be any legislation on that, despite the fact that it was much trumpeted as a flagship policy.

Indeed, I well remember the SNP's record on creative Scotland. The Creative Scotland Bill failed due to the incompetence of the financial memorandum—Alex Neil, at the Finance Committee, said that it was as if someone had stuck a finger in the air to come up with the figures for the financial memorandum. Of course, Mr Neil is now on the front bench and has ministerial responsibilities, so he will not be quite so loose with his words. He is a big loss to "Newsnight Scotland".

As the member knows, one of the Government's flagship policies was the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill. Does the hot air that he is emitting have anything to do with us reducing our carbon footprint?

We are more concerned with examining the programme—or the lack of it—that is before us this afternoon and coming up with solutions to Scotland's issues.

Other members have mentioned the fact that the children's hearings bill has had to be redrafted. That bill has caused a lot of concern among children's panel members throughout Scotland. Last night, I hosted a reception at which a number of them said that they were concerned about the proposal to scrap the 32 local panels and replace them with one central body. The net loss of 31 bodies is part of the drive to achieve the SNP's target of a 25 per cent reduction in the number of public bodies, and an official at the Finance Committee gave the impression that the proposal is still very much on the table for the Government. However, I suggest that we should be onside with local children's panel members, whose views should not be ridden roughshod over in order to meet Government targets.

I want to nail the SNP myth of the £500 million cuts in the budget. I submit that the budget for next year will increase by 0.5 per cent in real terms on the budget for the previous year. I also point out that the SNP had access to a record £1.474 billion in end-year flexibility funding. In addition, over the period of the current Administration, there has been £100 million in underspends. I suggest that the Government might make better use of its funds by scrapping the Scottish Futures Trust, which is funded to the tune of £22.9 million. That money could be put to better use if it were invested in Scotland's communities.

The legislative programme is disappointing also in its lack of attention to skills. We all agree that the economy is the central issue, but Philip Whiteman, the chief executive of Semta, recently noted that there is a skills gap in the Scottish engineering sector that may put at risk 500 Scottish engineering firms and more than 1,800 jobs. The facts that 9 per cent of workers in that sector do not have qualifications and that 42 per cent of them are aged between 42 and 64 indicate that we must do more to get young workers into the sector and trained up.

Does James Kelly not think that it is a disgrace that, under the Labour Government, the level of youth unemployment in the UK is now higher than it was under the Tories?

It is a disgrace that, at a time when we need investment in skills, the SNP is proposing a budget cut of £6 million for Skills Development Scotland next year.

There has been an element of grandstanding in this programme. Scotland needs solutions, and the SNP has been found wanting in trying to bring them forward.

It is always a pleasure to participate in a debate with Alex Neil, and he is certainly on good form today.

When this Government came to power in 2007, it spoke of doing less, better. I took that to mean that the Government would be doing less and doing it better, not doing less better. I would like to reflect on that theme in my contribution—if members are still following this.

It is appropriate to reflect on this Parliament's experience of passing bills, which the First Minister mentioned this morning in relation to the Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005, which came into effect this week. There needs to be much greater awareness of the unintended consequences of the bills that we pass. We also need to be sure that the proposals that are contained in bills address the problems that we face in our communities, that existing laws and guidelines are rigorously enforced and that sufficient time is given to scrutinising legislation.

The proposals for the minimum pricing of alcohol have coincided with the 2005 licensing legislation coming into force, and it is appropriate to consider the intentions of that act and the effects of its implementation. This was the first overhaul in licensing legislation in 30 years, and it has caused serious problems not to binge or underage drinkers but to small businesses and our tourism industry. Licence renewal costs have soared from £130 for three years to more than £7,000, and it is claimed that 800 fewer licences have been applied for in Highland region alone. As Ramsay McGhee, the spokesman for the Scottish Licensed Trade Association, said:

"You can't treat a nightclub that holds 800 people in the centre of Edinburgh the same way as a wee hotel in Wester Ross."

I have information that a specialist fruit wine supplier in Scotland has gone from having 51 customers last year to having 18 this year. Further, the Edinburgh Woollen Mill, which sells whisky miniatures alongside shortbread, is not renewing its licence in nine outlets.

A letter to Mr Salmond from a small shop in Wester Ross states:

"My wife and I make and sell gift products and offer a range of food and basic provisions, including quality wines … our business cannot meet the proposed charges which would add 8% to our overhead costs … these proposals place far too heavy a financial burden on small business … and will hasten the demise of small Highland shops, causing inconvenience to locals and visitors alike."

Problems associated with alcohol are a blight on our communities, but the policy that was designed to rid Scotland of underage and binge drinkers is instead putting small shops out of business—small retailers who never contributed in any way to the binge-drinking culture in Scotland. That is what I mean when I talk about unintended consequences.

On existing powers, there is no doubt that more should be done to ensure that people who are already intoxicated are not served more alcohol. Further, stopping underage people purchasing alcohol would be a start.

The unintended consequences of minimum pricing could lead to more cross-border shopping, as happened in Finland. We have to look at the evidence base for the proposal—or, indeed, the lack of it. The Scottish Parliament information centre briefing on minimum pricing states that, as the policy has not been used to any great extent worldwide, there is little evidence about its effect. The closest example to what the SNP is proposing is in Canada, but there only beer has a price that is linked explicitly to alcohol content.

If minimum pricing was the answer, Nordic countries would have no alcohol problems. Further, it is a fact that in southern EU countries, where drink is cheaper, the problems emanating from alcohol are less.

Will the member take an intervention?

No—I want to cover the last two points.

An increase in price reduces demand only when demand is elastic, and it is well documented that alcohol—and cigarettes—face a relatively inelastic demand. There is also an effect from cross-inelasticity of demand, which happens when the increase in the price of certain goods leads to a higher demand for other goods. The example that has been raised with me in the Highlands—and with other MSPs, I am sure—is that for young people drugs will become relatively cheaper and may become a substitute. I am not saying that that will happen, but it is a cause for concern and we must be aware of it.

We will positively and constructively support any measure that is known to reduce problem alcohol consumption and the undoubted problems that it brings, alongside the wider and undoubtedly more complex social and cultural issues. I note from the Government's programme, which I read this morning, that it recommends a 125ml measure of wine. Will that be for wine with an alcohol content of 4 per cent, 9 per cent, 12 per cent, 16 per cent or 17 per cent? The issue is surely the alcohol content rather than the size of the glass. We need to be much more aware of the wider issues in the debate.

I am delighted that a referendum bill is included in the programme for government. As someone who will in two weeks' time have been a member of the SNP for 30 years—I joined when I was three—I am pleased that we are at last being given an opportunity to put the half-baked shambles of Calman behind us and present Scots with what could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

The referendum bill will provide the framework for the conduct and mechanics of a fair and democratic referendum, which is a concept that seems to fill some Opposition members with dread, given their obvious hostility to giving the Scots a voice on a subject in which they have had no direct say in more than three centuries.

In recent months, a load of nonsense has been talked by opponents of that democratic choice. We are told that it is the wrong time because of the recession, but why should Scots be denied a vote on their constitutional future just because of Labour's chronic mishandling of the UK economy? Those siren voices were hardly demanding a vote during times of growth, and no one seriously believes that there will ever be a right time for those who wish to hold Scotland back. Nevertheless, we will be more than pleased if Opposition members confirm their support for a referendum when Labour's recession ends.

No? I didn't think so. Recession is just another excuse.

Will the member take an intervention?

I am in two minds about whether to accept the member's intervention, given the convoluted diatribe that we heard this morning, but I will give him a chance, as he is the only Liberal who sat through all of this morning's deliberations.

Does the member accept that, in the parliamentary democracy in which we operate, the people of Scotland have a democratic choice in 20 months' time to vote for an independent Scotland if that is what they want? They have consistently rejected independence, and the member cannot expect this Parliament, which was elected against independence, to bring a referendum in favour of it.

People vote for political parties for a whole host of reasons. They do not vote for or against the SNP on that issue alone, as the member knows fine well.

What are our opponents afraid of? They are afraid of defeat, obviously, and that Scots, who are fed up with being thirled to the union for so long, will do what so many other nations have done in recent decades and vote to take their—our—rightful place in the world of independent nations.

Of course, campaigning for independence and a yes vote will not be easy. Opposition parties in Scotland, bankrolled from the south and backed by activists from across the border, will once again tell Scots that they are too poor, too wee and too stupid to do what people in other nations do as a matter of course: run their own country.

Newspaper editors, who are taking orders from their overseas proprietors and mindful of the gongs, baubles and seats in the Lords that tantalisingly await those who devote themselves and their publications to the unionist cause, will trip over themselves to declare that civilisation will end if Scotland votes for independence and equality of status with other European nations.

On polling day 2007, The Sun railed hysterically that Scotland would

"Wake up to a living nightmare"

if the SNP won the Holyrood election. That is pathetic. More recently, The Sun said that anyone who supported independence should be

"locked in a lunatic asylum!"

Ludicrous comments like that will no doubt be considered measured by the standards that we can expect during a referendum campaign.

North and south of the border, business magnates and union barons from those establishment organisations, the Confederation of British Industry and the Trades Union Congress, will tell us of the abyss that awaits a Scotland that is free to steer its own course in the world. Indeed, a truly David-and-Goliath struggle awaits the SNP and those of other parties and none who see independence as the key to unlocking our nation's full economic, social and cultural potential.

While the Opposition parties have only contempt for the Scots and wish to limit our horizons to a Parliament with fewer powers than the Tynwald, we in the SNP believe that our people will indeed vote for independence if they are given a chance. That will be despite the all-too-predictable scare stories, which will range from people losing their pensions to people being unable to visit their granny in Newcastle or watch "Coronation Street"—all those stories undoubtedly lie ahead.

Will the member take an intervention?

I yield to a "Coronation Street" watcher.

I am afraid that I am no "Coronation Street" watcher, but I do have a question. I have been very interested by the member's speech so far but, if for some reason, against my will, the SNP manages to secure its referendum and the Scottish people come out and vote two to one against, which they might and which I hope they would, will the member promise never to bother me with this again?

That will be a matter for future Parliaments and future referendums. My son will be 17 when the referendum is held. Is the member trying to say that, if this fails, never in my son's life will he be given the opportunity? The First Minister has said that the proposal would certainly not be brought back, I think, within a decade, but who knows what will happen in 20 or 30 years' time? However, we are campaigning for victory for independence and not for second best for Scotland—that is, if our people are given the opportunity. It is utterly shameful that Opposition politicians seek to deny that.

As Labour and the Tories take their orders directly from their bosses in London and always put UK interests first, their stance is to be expected. The Liberal Democrats—who should be sued under the Trade Descriptions Act for having that as their party name, having abandoned liberalism yesterday and democracy today—have the most perfidious position of all. They oppose independence on behalf of some hazy form of federalism where Westminster still rules the roost. We accept that that is their view, albeit that we disagree with it, but to deny Scots the chance to have their say after three centuries when every single poll year in, year out makes it clear that there is a clear majority for a referendum regardless of how individuals would vote is, frankly, despicable. It shows Lib Dem principles to be not so much threadbare as absent.

It is time for the Lib Dems and the other parties to reflect on their inflexible and undemocratic position and do what is right. Ministers have made it clear that the referendum question will ultimately be decided by the Parliament and that the proposed question will be fair and easy for voters to understand. The current economic climate only reinforces our conviction that independence provides the flexibility to respond in Scotland's best interests to the challenging economic circumstances.

Following the publication of the Calman commission's final report, the First Minister and the constitution minister Mike Russell stated that the Scottish Government was happy to consider any proposal for an additional question and that that would be discussed as the bill went through Parliament. Opposition parties, sadly, have not responded to that offer. It is time that they did.

Scotland's justice system faces huge challenges. In the past few weeks, it has been in the international spotlight. It is vital that, during the rest of the current session of Parliament, we seek to ensure that any changes that are made to our justice system are focused on guaranteeing access to justice and serving the needs of the victims of crime. Scottish Labour has stated that the Scottish Government's direction of travel is not the right one, and nothing in the First Minister's statement leads me to change my opinion.

Other speakers mentioned that what is important about the statement is not what is in it but what is missing. That certainly applies in the area of justice. I will comment briefly on the parts of the statement that relate to justice, but it is certainly legislation light in that portfolio. Perhaps there is a feeling that the justice secretary has done enough.

The legal services reform bill has been much anticipated and delayed. It featured in last year's legislative programme announcement, and it is an important debate that has now been going on for some years. It is right for us to be open to new ideas for the framework of legal services in Scotland, and I welcome the fact that we will have an opportunity to discuss new legislation in the area. As the First Minister's statement mentioned, the legal profession is a key contributor to our economy, and given the challenging global economic circumstances, which have impacted on that sector as well as on others, it is right to look to its future success. As changes are made that affect the provision of legal services, Labour will seek to ensure that the key principle of preserving access to justice is maintained.

At the current time and in the current financial climate, further proposals that help struggling families to stay in their homes will be important. My colleague Cathy Jamieson has worked hard with other parties to ensure further action on that, although I fear that the Government's proposals have appeared much later than they should have done. Further provisions on bankruptcy will, I hope, build sensibly on the major reforms that the Parliament has legislated for previously.

The children's hearings system is a key part of our justice and welfare systems, and, given that the system works and is valued, any reforms must be based on its founding principles. It was right to withdraw the original bill because any changes must improve the system, not be detrimental to it.

Another key area of debate will be further action on tackling alcohol misuse. Given that we called for the move back in March, I welcome the fact that proposals on pricing and other measures on alcohol consumption will be set out in a separate bill. After all, such measures are too important either to be discussed in the context of the far wider Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill or, as the Scottish Government originally suggested, to be decided merely in regulations. We all acknowledge the toll that alcohol misuse is taking on Scotland—indeed, the issue causes genuine fear and concern in the chamber—and we know its impact on the nation's health and on crime and disorder. However, new legislation must go hand in hand with more effective enforcement of the current laws, and too often in too many communities in Scotland that is simply missing.

Also missing from the programme is any proposal for a victims commissioner to ensure that our justice system takes a victim-centred approach. That said, I am pleased that my colleague David Stewart is about to introduce a bill on this matter. The Scottish Law Commission has also suggested a number of modest and, I am sure, consensual legislative proposals on time bars in personal injuries claims, and my colleague Bill Butler is introducing a bill on damages for wrongful death. Although such changes would be relatively minor, they would make a big difference to people who are rightly pursuing damages for injuries that they have suffered unjustly, and I am disappointed that they have not been included in the legislative programme. I ask the Cabinet Secretary for Justice to keep an open mind on these proposals, and I hope that the Scottish Government will see sense, support Bill Butler's bill proposal and ensure that it has a speedy passage through Parliament. I am sure that it will do so with cross-party consensus.

Finally, the programme for government contains no real action on knife crime. Along with others in the chamber, we will continue to call for minimum sentences for such crime.

The arguments with regard to mandatory minimum sentences for knife crime are familiar and, indeed, were exercised in the previous parliamentary session. Such a move simply takes away from judges the power to discriminate between someone who is a genuine danger to the public and a young man who has simply fallen into bad company and done something stupid. Sending those people to prison risks making the problem worse, not better. If Labour has rejected or does not understand that argument, why did it vote against proposals on mandatory minimum sentences in the previous session?

I do not agree with Patrick Harvie's analysis. We have to accept that in our country the chronic problem of knife crime is not getting any better. Given that such crime is still claiming a great number of lives every year, that the number of people being charged and convicted for knife carrying is still very high and that communities are still understandably concerned about the issue, we have to consider new measures that we can only hope will deal effectively with knife crime and deter people from carrying knives. It is time for people to know that if they go out with a knife they can expect to get a custodial sentence. Such measures are necessary. Mr Harvie might disagree with this campaign, but it is resonating in and being embraced by communities throughout Scotland that are suffering from the effects of knife crime.

The programme for government does not contain the further action on antisocial behaviour that is needed and that we will continue to push for. We need to give more rights to communities to take action against the minority who cause misery for others. Moreover, there is no mention of the Government's flawed proposals to scrap custodial sentences for people who have been convicted of very serious crimes while it fails to provide a robust system of community sentencing in which Scotland's communities can have confidence.

The programme is light on legislation for justice. The fact is that this Government's overall approach to crime and justice is wrong and will, I fear, greatly damage our communities. Our country needs safer communities, not an independence referendum, but this Government has simply got the wrong priorities.

I read in one of the newspaper previews of today's statement and debate that the SNP Government is again boasting of having delivered more than half of its headline commitments. Frankly, I was surprised it was so few, because the one thing that the minority SNP Government is good at is delivering headlines. Sadly, that is often as far as it goes, as the body of the article rarely lives up to the headline. With the Government, the delivery rarely matches the spin.

Let us look at an example from last year's legislative programme statement, which the First Minister delivered in the chamber on 3 September 2008. He talked about the tour that the Scottish Cabinet had undertaken in the summer, the Government's overarching purpose of increasing sustainable growth and the new bills that would support the Government's strategic objectives. That will sound very familiar to those who listened to this morning's statement; indeed, some of the bills are the same. Of the 15 bills that were mentioned last year, only four—the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Bill, the Scottish Local Government (Elections) Bill, the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Bill and the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill—have been passed. The Budget (Scotland) Bill had to be reintroduced after it fell and the Arbitration (Scotland) Bill has limped to stage 2. The promised presumption against rural school closures was dumped from the Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Bill, the general principles of which were agreed to yesterday.

Five bills are still at stage 1, including the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Bill, which the Government now confidently predicts will complete its parliamentary progress by June 2010. That will mean that creative Scotland will be a full two years behind schedule, thanks to the Government's incompetent handling of the issue. The proposed children's hearings bill has been deferred until next year. The proposed legal profession bill has reappeared in this year's statement, no further forward. Of course, the council tax abolition bill was abandoned. That is not a great record. One might ask whether it would have been wise for the Government to have finished last year's programme before embarking on a new one.

The SNP Government has a bad track record when it comes to implementing its legislative programme, and I fear that this year's programme will fare no better. For example, it might have helped if the Government had given an indication of when it expects to introduce the various bills in its programme during the year, to give us an idea as to the state of readiness of those bills. How can we have confidence that the Government will deliver the housing bill when the programme documents that were published today and the First Minister's statement indicate that the Government has yet to decide what will be included in it? The promised debt and family homes bill is still to be put out to consultation to find the best way forward. Frankly, that means that it is unlikely to see the light of day in the next 12 months.

What concerns me most about the Government's programme is the lack of focus on economic recovery, which the First Minister said is central to the programme for the coming year. If so, why are there no details of how the Government plans to make progress on the Scottish investment bank, which was launched with a headline in April? Delay on that is costing Scottish business. For example, the Scottish economy is not getting access to funds that other devolved Administrations are taking advantage of, such as funds from the joint European resources for micro to medium enterprises and the joint European support for sustainable investment in city areas programmes, or European investment funds. Rather than focus on Scotland's economic needs, the Government remains obsessed with steering Scotland into the sterile backwater where its flagship referendum policy is sinking. Scotland does not need at this stage a damaging debate on independence and referendums. We certainly need a stable environment to encourage investment; we do not need uncertainty about whether there will be a referendum and whether we will separate from our main trading partner, the rest of the United Kingdom. That would discourage investment.

Members have already referred to the proposal for a council tax abolition bill, but the point bears repeating. In the corresponding debate last year, Nicola Sturgeon said:

"Today, we have confirmed our commitment to introduce a bill to abolish the council tax and introduce a fairer local income tax that is based on the ability to pay."

She went on to say:

"We believe that it is the duty of everyone who believes in fair, progressive taxation to back that bill when it comes before the Parliament."—[Official Report, 3 September 2008; c 10330.]

We know that the only members of the Parliament who got the chance to back it were those sitting around Alex Salmond's Cabinet table, and they dumped it.

In February, John Swinney told the Parliament:

"In short, we cannot put together a stable majority to enable us successfully to steer detailed local income tax legislation through this Parliament. … The Cabinet has therefore decided not to introduce legislation to abolish the unfair council tax and replace it with a local income tax".—[Official Report, 11 February 2009; c 14896.]

There was more support in the Parliament for a local income tax and abolishing the council tax than there is for a referendum. Parliament has already expressed its opposition to a referendum, so the Government should stop wasting its time and the time of its officials, the Parliament and its committees and civic Scotland and ditch now a bill that has no chance of being passed. Instead, it should concentrate on jobs and the economy.

Despite tales of gloom from members on the Opposition benches in the wake of the world recession in which the UK Government has played a less than glorious part, it is time to look at some pointers towards a more confident mood in Scotland at present. For example, an article entitled "Mood of Optimism Hitting the Beef Sector" in The Scotsman today quotes Iain Clark of the Clydesdale Bank:

"He … believed that the drift out of cattle may be slowed down because of the current low prices being received for cereals, with little financial incentive for cattle men to move into grain production."

Sales of beef in the shops have fallen by 5 per cent, but people have not gone for cheaper cuts and spend on beef has risen. People are sticking with Scottish beef, which is a good sign. I attended the Lairg sheep sales in the middle of August where the record prices that were paid put smiles on crofters' and farmers' faces.

The Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment has ensured that by 2010 there will be a 38 per cent increase in less favoured area support scheme payments to fragile and very fragile areas, with a promise to review the whole system.

Has the member discussed with the Minister for Environment her comments that she is losing patience with crofters, and will he urge her to take a more co-operative approach to crofters at this time to ensure that there are solutions that meet their demands?

In a minute or two, I will come to precisely the question of what the crofting issue is, and I think that I will have an answer for the member then.

I have another good-news story: in my region, the population is still increasing, especially in the inner Moray Firth. As a recently published Highlands and Islands Enterprise survey shows, although young people have a deep pride in the region and get a feeling of security from it, they feel that they have to pursue educational and career ambitions elsewhere. However, demographic studies show that a high number of people return to the region when they propose to have a family or later in life. In comparison with the Scottish average, we have 25 per cent fewer people aged 15 to 30. That might be one reason why crofting is not working and why the Government minister is impatient.

In relation to education, young highlanders see gaining university status for the UHI Millennium Institute, for example, as a key aim. Other key aims are: improving access to affordable housing; enhancing public transport; and promoting unique cultural and natural assets and the city of Inverness. We look to the minister to deliver housing and, for the first time, there might be a lot more of it in the Highlands. Above all, those young people want improved perceptions of local employment, promotion of self-employment, and heightened awareness of prospects in traditional and emerging sectors.

I turn to one of the traditional sectors and to the state of crofting. I have here comments from two crofters from Camuscross on Skye that were submitted to the continuing consultation. I ask members to forgive me for quoting them, but they present a picture of the state of crofting on the west coast. The crofters say:

"in the 39-croft township:

the owners or tenants of almost one third of the township's crofts are absentees

three-fifths of the township's crofts show signs of agricultural neglect

slovenly decrofting procedures have left one family without direct vehicular access to their croft

one croft has been absentee occupied for three generations

the Crofters Commission has replaced one absentee tenant in the township with another, despite local interest in the croft

houses built on apportionments in the township are being used as holiday homes

one absentee, who has never lived in the village and has no family connection to it, has been using their croft as a holiday home business for the past 20 years—taking around £50,000 gross annually on it. This croft and two holiday letting houses is now on the market for offers over £590,000".

That is why the forthcoming crofting reform (Scotland) bill needs to look at the governance of crofting; turn the Crofters Commission into a commission that supports crofting and the people who want to be active crofters; provide a new register of crofts; reform support for crofter housing; impose an occupancy condition on houses that are built on decrofted land; and make other regulatory changes to tackle absenteeism and neglect, which should be an important and major part of the bill.

Let us remember that in the previous parliamentary sessions from 1909, or rather 1999, to 2007—

It just seemed like that.

Yes, indeed—it felt that long.

The former Labour and Liberal Administration spent its time stumbling over the crofting problem. When it was forced to set up the Shucksmith committee, all we heard were complaints that it was not addressing the issues.

The opportunities for consultation are there. Ministers can also discuss the issues with all members. We have to solve the problem. If we do not, no Government of any persuasion will return to the issue. When he was in government, Ross Finnie struggled to find a solution. This Government hopes to find one. During the previous session, a huge amount of time was wasted—time during which crofting declined and deteriorated, as the example that I cited shows.

Much more needs to be said about the way forward, including on wildlife crime, in relation to which there will be major change to deer law. The Scottish Government's programme is exciting for my part of the world. I look forward to cross-party support for the delivery of crofting reform.

This session of Parliament is important not only because of the new legislation that we are debating today but because of the legislation that we have passed that needs to be implemented effectively. Both the crofting reform and wildlife and natural environment bills represent unfinished business.

In the previous parliamentary session, we spent a great deal of time listening to crofters and working with them to identify the action that was needed to support them. I will not take a rewriting of the previous session from Rob Gibson. We introduced legislation for new crofts—legislation that was warmly welcomed. However, that work took time. Indeed, we made it clear that there was more work to be done. My point is that we listened to crofters.

There are different crofting experiences across Scotland. It is vital that we get the legislation right. I say to crofters that there is absolutely no danger that the Labour Party will run out of patience with crofting communities. We understand the need to get the detail right—that is absolutely vital in the consideration of any new legislation. It is not simply a question of the Government of the day ticking the box and moving on to the next heading. Crofting law is complex. The Labour Party will give no lectures to crofters on the solutions; we want to listen to them.

This summer, I met crofters in Camuscross—I visited the crofting area to which Rob Gibson referred. Legislation is crucial—it is part of the process—but so is the implementation of planning. The links between planning and crofting need to be made more explicit. The crofters who I met in Camuscross and Lochcarron are not opposed to the Government's proposals for the sake of it; they are opposed to the proposals because of their experiences. They do not want more bureaucracy; they want effective support for their way of life so that they can get through the recession and beyond. They bitterly resent being asked to pay through the nose for a register of crofts that, as we reported in the previous parliamentary session, the Crofters Commission should have implemented. That proposal is hardly a help to crofters in a time of recession.

The unprecedented alliance against some of the SNP's key proposals that was reported in The Herald last month is the result of careful consideration and debate by crofters.

Will the member give way?

No. The member has just spoken. I am replying to him.

I was at a meeting in Lochcarron at which crofters teased out the proposals in detail. It is absolutely right that we should have such debates in the Parliament. The crofters reported the desperate need for support for young crofters to get them started. We still need to find them land to croft and somewhere to live. That is why we supported the re-introduction of croft house loans—a move that members of the Rural Affairs and Environment Committee unanimously supported.

In addition, we need to pick up the Shucksmith proposals. The Labour Party has not rejected them out of hand, as Rob Gibson implied. There are particular economic support measures that need to be implemented—now. Other measures need to be implemented: a new land fund to enable communities to unlock the potential of land in our Highlands and Islands communities; and the restoration of money following the cuts that were made to Highlands and Islands Enterprise, which are beginning to damage communities in some of our most fragile areas.

We also need to tackle dereliction and to get the link between planning and crofting right. Rob Gibson mentioned those issues, and they need to be tackled, some through legislation and some through action by the Crofters Commission. It is not only the Labour Party that is saying that. Even the SNP's Angus MacNeil MP tore to shreds the proposals in his response to the consultation, arguing that they were unworkable and likely to result in crofters losing their livelihoods.

We need to work together in the chamber to get the right proposals. The detail has to be right. We will play our part in supporting crofting communities and working constructively across the chamber to try to ensure that we get legislation that is fit for purpose.

We also commit to doing that on the wildlife and natural environment bill. A lot of work remains to be done on the detail of that bill, too, if it is to have a clear focus and purpose. Groups that I spoke to over the recess expressed a range of concerns on the matter. A key question that we have is: exactly what will the SNP Government do on snaring? We know from all the consultation that there is strong support for action, and we are still waiting for the concerted action that the previous Minister for the Environment promised on implementation of the Tomkins report on wildlife crime. We still do not have full-time, dedicated police officers in every force in Scotland.

There is good practice in our communities on wildlife management, so why cannot ministers name and shame those estates that fall short of that good practice? We know that, scandalously, birds are still being poisoned.

I started out by saying that government must not just be about getting a bill through Parliament, ticking the box and then moving on to the next headline. We passed a powerful climate change bill just two months ago, and it is clear from the First Minister's speech today that he thinks that he has ticked the climate change box. He even complained that he did not have a seat at the top table in Brussels, which completely ignores the good progress that is being made throughout Europe to rationalise and regionalise fisheries management.

No doubt the First Minister wants to get to the top table to tell people how brilliant the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 is, but there was nothing in his speech today about what he will do to implement it. We have a big consensus on renewables, but nothing from the First Minister on the big change that he and his Government could bring about to link up those renewables projects and to get the Beauly to Denny transmission line right across Scotland to the rest of the country.

It is not enough just to grab the headlines—hard graft needs to be done to justify those headlines. We passed legislation to enable local authorities to give people reductions in their council tax and business rates if they put in energy-efficiency measures. We need a dramatic expansion of action on energy and work on small-scale and household renewables. In June, we promised that there would be council tax discounts—we need action now. I call on ministers to tell us what action they will take. We need practical measures to boost jobs, save people money and save the planet. I will make a crucial point as the minister is listening: we need to make the most of the opportunity to link the measures in the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 to the forthcoming insulation programme.

There is a real win-win here, but we must work together—we need to take concerted action. I suggest a working party to involve all stakeholders. That was suggested to us by the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change's civil servants before stage 3 of the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill, but in Parliament today, the minister was not yet prepared to commit to it. I would like everyone to be involved. We built up a lot of cross-party support for elements of the bill. We must ensure that we work together to implement those elements and make a difference to households in Scotland.

There is a clear appetite from the construction industry, which wants to get on and tackle the climate change agenda. It is asking for leadership from the Scottish Government. We need to ensure that the hard graft happens, and not just the grandstanding and rhetoric. Let the work get on, and let us involve all the parties in the Parliament to bring about the success that we desperately need on the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009.

After a strange, unusual couple of weeks at the end of the parliamentary recess, it seems that we are largely back to normal, with lots of glowing speeches from SNP members about the optimism, the good-news stories and the ambition to create a better, brighter, shinier, lovelier Scotland, and lots of scathing speeches from other parties, using terms such as "missed opportunities", "disappointment", "unacceptable" and even "incompetent". Obviously, the truth must be one of those two extremes—there is no chance that it could be somewhere in between.

Margo MacDonald's speech was the clearest exception in a debate of polar opposites. Her demolition jobs are always carried out in such a kind tone of voice, and I appreciated her contribution.

The economic situation has dominated a number of speeches. Iain Gray endorsed the CBI's suggestion of a single benchmark for every measure that is introduced by the Government. I raised my eyebrow at that because it is usually the Green party that is accused of being a single-issue party. Even if we accept that the economic situation is a crucial challenge that we face, the idea of having a single benchmark of economic growth to test each policy against is absurd. How about a more holistic approach to the question whether our policies are good for the economic situation? How about measuring equity in the economy? What could Scotland do with maximum wage ratios or other proposals that could come from a high pay commission? I would like to hear what Labour members and others—including some on the SNP back benches—would say about that. I can guarantee that such a proposal would not get the CBI's support, but it might get a great deal of support from many care workers, cleaners, young workers, casual workers and temporary workers. Perhaps we should think about taking a more holistic approach to determining whether our policies are good for the economy.

The Government's programme is, like most Government programmes, a mixture of some sensible moves, which should gain majority support, a little bit of posturing, and—from a green perspective—not much in the way of change.

I will run through a few policies. Some members opposed to independence and to a referendum have accused the Government of creating a distraction or wasting parliamentary time. If their parties are determined to scupper a referendum bill, it will take up only as much parliamentary time as the committees choose to devote to it. If those other parties choose to reject the bill, it will die at the first hurdle. Personally, I would like there to be a referendum, and I would vote yes in it, but beyond that political dividing line, the parties that have other visions and suggestions for how devolution should progress and for how the powers of the Parliament should change will, at some point, have to answer the question: when should those be put to the people as a single issue in a referendum? That was how the Parliament was established, and that is how the Parliament should be allowed to develop.

On the proposed alcohol measures, the argument for minimum pricing has gained broad support, albeit with the exception of the Conservatives. The Greens will certainly be willing to support it if the detail is right and if the policy is introduced alongside other measures. I am glad that the Government has stepped back from its earlier proposals on 18 to 21-year-olds and off-licences. Just localising the decision is not enough, however. We should not end up with a patchwork, with 18 to 21-year-olds demonised in some parts of Scotland but not in others. If there is evidence that 18 to 21-year-olds are causing a social problem that people in other age groups are not, we can perhaps allow the power to be used as a temporary measure. However, the measure must be justified by the evidence and used alongside other measures that will resolve the problem—we cannot suppose that a ban on 18 to 21-year-olds in off-licences for a period will in itself solve anything.

Alex Neil, who is sitting on the front bench, will be working on the proposed housing measures, and I welcome many of the measures that are being discussed. In particular, I welcome the restrictions on the right to buy, which, as he knows, I have long supported. At the beginning of his statement this morning, the First Minister placed much emphasis on people getting on to the housing ladder—as if none of us has recognised over the past year or two the effects of the obsession with property ownership and the housing ladder to the exclusion of all else, with the implication that social or rented housing is an option of last resort. I welcome some of the measures that are to be included in the proposed housing bill.

What of the private rented sector? The issues that are mentioned in the programme document are limited to possible changes to landlord registration and regulations on houses in multiple occupation. Some changes to make those systems work better might be worth while, but I urge the Government to go further and consider the issue of management standards. Enforceable management standards for the private rented sector would be welcomed by the best landlords, and they would certainly be welcomed by the tenants who have been so poorly served by a minority of landlords. I urge the Government to consider that proposal.

On climate change, the image inside the front page of the "Greener Scotland" section of the programme says it all. Far too often, the Scottish Government, like other Governments, thinks that the climate change agenda can be addressed by telling people about some small measure, such as changing their light bulbs or turning their taps off when they brush their teeth, without recognising that what is required is more structural. Of course, there is a great big elephant in the room—a giant, multimillion-pound white elephant, ready to be built across the Forth.

The Government is doing some of the right things, just as the previous Government did some of the right things. I welcome the climate challenge fund, but it amounts to the value of only about a quarter of a mile of the M74 extension. It is not enough to do the right thing while at the same time continuing to do the wrong thing. What is required is radical, transformational change in our economy, our society and our politics. History demonstrates that such progressive change rarely happens because Governments offer it; it happens because people demand it. I urge the thousands of people who campaigned for a strong Climate Change (Scotland) Bill not to stop campaigning and to continue to demand progressive change.

The debate has been interesting and has got more interesting during the afternoon. I have been making notes and if I were summing up I would have quite a lot to say—I am not doing so, of course, and I will stick with my original script.

I will consider issues to do with a couple of pieces of proposed legislation, which I think that members will agree are needed. The proposed legal services bill has arisen probably largely as a result of a complaint by Which? to the Office of Fair Trading in May 2007, as I am sure that members are aware. I reread the OFT's response in part yesterday, which was interesting, because although I think that the OFT had an understanding of how solicitors work in Scotland I have a sneaking suspicion that it knew little about how advocates operate. For that reason, I think that the OFT's recommendations might not have been terribly well thought out.

The OFT suggested that we must find alternative business structures. In essence, that means ending the situation whereby solicitors can be in business only with other solicitors and, in recognition of the need to be competitive, enabling lawyers to form business alliances with, for example, surveyors and accountants. I suspect that in some specialist areas lawyers will want to join up with, for example, engineers and quantity surveyors. What has emerged is that such structures should be allowed.

The central issue is how the new entities would be regulated, because it is clear that the Scottish public must be protected from people who would use those structures unscrupulously. The difficulty will lie in how we regulate lawyers when they are working in partnership or in some other commercial relationship with surveyors. A mechanism appears to have been devised—a fix whereby lawyers would still be regulated by the legal fraternity and quantity surveyors by their body, and another regulator or group of regulators would regulate the entity. Difficulties will arise when there is a conflict between the people who regulate the entity and the people who regulate the individuals. We will need to work through a bit of detail on that.

It is clear that such regulation cannot be done by the Government. Quite a lot of people will want to sue the Government, one way or another, so we cannot have Government ministers regulating the new structures. Therefore the regulation must be done in the name of and with the approval of the Lord President. I look forward to seeing the details on a matter that will be tricky to get right.

The proposed children's hearings bill has been mentioned—I am sorry that James Kelly has left the chamber. I enjoyed yesterday evening's reception and I enjoyed talking to the chairmen of some of my local children's panels. I acknowledge that they have concerns about the original draft bill, which the Government has said that it will re-examine. It seems that what has happened means that we have a better opportunity. If people had thought that the draft bill had got things about right, not many people would have engaged with it. When people think that something is not right, they are much more likely to engage in the process, so we will probably have a much better and wider-ranging debate. This morning I was heartened to hear Adam Ingram, the Minister for Children and Early Years, say that the bill must be "right, not rushed." That is absolutely correct. In many ways the children's hearings system is the most significant part of Scotland's legal heritage. It is renowned the world over and we need to preserve it and get it right.

Many issues to do with the proposed referendum bill have been mentioned. I continue to be surprised that members cannot see that it is totally obvious—it is to me—that the long-term economic opportunities for Scotland depend on our having the normal economic powers of an independent country. There may be a hiatus on the way from where we are to where we are going but surely it would be better if that is where we got to.

Richard Baker—who, sadly, is no longer in the chamber—commented on the body of work that the Scottish Law Commission has done. It has produced a number of draft bills that, by and large, could be introduced by consensus. I have been concerned, as he has been, to bring that to the attention of Government ministers. We need to try to find ways of getting that work through the system—it covers important areas that could be addressed, and they are not political—and it would be extremely good if we managed to do that.

I point out to members that, if the legislative programme is light, it is because the Government is fundamentally about using legislation to change structures. As far as I can see, government is mostly about using existing powers to do things better, and many of the complaints that I have heard about the lack of legislation have ignored the fact that the Government can and will do that. Today's debate is about the legislative programme.

I welcome this opportunity for debate, because it is important that we closely scrutinise Government proposals. I will focus on a number of key areas in the short time that is available to me.

I will say a few words on the proposal for a patients' rights bill. I am all for the principle of encouraging a greater culture of rights and responsibilities in the national health service and in society at large—most people would feel that that is to be commended—but, as we all know, setting out rights and responsibilities in legislation is a far harder task. There is a long way to go to deliver a workable bill that will improve the lot of patients rather than create a culture of litigation. That follows interestingly on from Nigel Don's comments on changes to the legal system.

The British Medical Association has argued that

"adequate time, support and resources for front line staff",

rather than the patients' rights bill, however commendable its aims, would

"deliver real improvements in services".

When the consultation document was first produced, the Royal College of Nursing described it as "confused" and called for "greater clarity", especially on redress. Some of those criticisms must be examined during the bill's process. The RCN also called for "genuine action" rather than "aspirational statements" that would be more suited to

"a poster on a wall, or a pamphlet in a local surgery."

Today, the RCN has again stated its concern that the bill could lead to the most articulate members of society somehow gaining access to services ahead of disadvantaged groups. If we are serious about equality—it has not really been considered during the debate—we will want to keep an eye on that.

We are all proud of our NHS. I believe that the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing is genuine in her personal concern for improvement of our health services, but I also happen to believe—no surprises, members will say—that the SNP has its priorities wrong. I would prefer that instead of focusing on a referendum in 2010, the cabinet secretary would focus her attention on how to improve the aspects of the NHS on which we still have work to do, such as health care associated infections, access to cancer drugs and improvement of breast cancer screening.

I spend every day of my working life focusing on the priorities about which Cathy Jamieson rightly talks: tackling infection, getting hospital waiting times down and improving care in the health service. Will she explain to Parliament why it is not possible to do that and give the people of Scotland the chance to choose whether they want powers over other areas, just as they have over the health service? Surely her position is entirely inconsistent.

It is not inconsistent to suggest that the SNP has its priorities wrong. People are concerned about their jobs, their homes and the future of the NHS. They want the Scottish Government, whatever shape it is, to focus on their priorities.

I suggest—I hope that the cabinet secretary will take this in the spirit in which it is said—that her time would be better focused on, for example, dealing with the situation in Scotland, where the number of deaths in which C difficile was on the death certificate reported as the underlying or a contributory factor has risen by some 28 per cent, while it was revealed in England this week that the number there had fallen by 29 per cent.

In Scotland, patients with cancer will continue to be charged for prescriptions until 2011, whereas such prescriptions have been free in England since April. In England, breast cancer screening is being extended because, as we know, detecting the disease early increases the survival rate. However, there are, as yet, no such plans here.

Screening for medium-chain acyl coenzyme A dehydrogenase—MCAD—deficiency in babies, which is linked to sudden infant death syndrome, will not start here until 2011, although it is already happening in England. I believe that those are just some of the priorities that people in Scotland want to see for the NHS.

I will say something on housing and repossessions. As Alex Neil acknowledged, legislative solutions are required to ensure that we keep people in their homes when they are under threat of repossession. We have argued that for a number of months. It is better that we have something, albeit later than we would have perhaps initially hoped. I heard what Alex Neil said about the debtor protection bill being passed in early 2010 and I say to him that Labour members will continue to support that bill, with the proper scrutiny. However, if there is a way of the bill passing earlier than that 2010 date, I hope that the Government will seriously consider it, because with every day that goes past, families suffer pain and misery from the danger of repossession.

Although I welcomed that part of the announcement from Alex Neil, I was concerned that he was about to disappear in some kind of tornado of spin when it came to the rest of the discussion on housing. I do not have time to quote all the figures, but I say to Alex Neil that the building industry, the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations and a range of other people do not share his optimism. They have a number of serious concerns about what is happening, particularly in relation to housing associations.

I have only a couple of minutes in which to finish, but I want to say something about alcohol. Iain Gray said this morning that we would be prepared to build consensus where that is the right thing to do. I think that we all agree that something needs to be done on alcohol. We share concerns about the number of people who drink too much and its impact on our health services and the economy. However, we also believe that a single legislative approach will not deal with what is a complex problem. We need quicker access to treatment and rehabilitation, and we need more support for the voluntary sector. We also need to deal with the antisocial behaviour that is caused by alcohol misuse, and communities need to be involved in that. We therefore need to consider the use of alcohol treatment and testing orders as part of the solution. Iain Gray also highlighted that more must be done to identify and protect children who are living in households in which drug and alcohol misuse puts them at serious risk.

All those measures must be considered as part of the solution. As a former minister who did rather a lot of legislation, I am well aware that, on many occasions, the parliamentary process can improve initial legislative proposals. I hope that the Government has not closed its mind to improving the legislative proposals that it intends to bring forward, particularly on alcohol misuse but also on those other important issues that make a real difference to communities right across Scotland.

I ask members to check that their mobile phones and BlackBerrys are off, because they are disturbing the sound system.

I intend to confine my main contribution to the patients' rights legislation that is proposed for the coming year, although I would like first to respond to a point that Mary Scanlon made in her speech. It is widely considered that alcohol is a greater problem in the Nordic states, where the price of alcohol is high, than it is in southern Europe, where the price is low. Mary Scanlon used that to claim that minimum pricing for alcohol would be useless. However, she may remember that it was shown in a Scottish Parliament information centre paper that was prepared for the Health and Sport Committee, on which we both serve, that southern Europe has a higher overall level of alcohol consumption and a greater incidence of liver disease than the Nordic countries. A minimum pricing policy for alcohol therefore certainly makes sense.

When I spoke in a debate on patients' rights last November, members who are present and alert might recall that I complained about the adequacy of the patient satisfaction survey that I was asked to complete after my admission to a maternity hospital many years ago, because many of the questions did not seem to apply to my condition. Although I agree that it was possibly unfair to expect any better—after all, the admission of a male patient, for whom breastfeeding is not high up the list of priorities, must be a bit of a rarity—it is important that the health service deals with people not as a queue of conditions needing treatment, but as individuals who have individual needs and special circumstances. With that in mind, I welcome the Government's commitment to introducing a patients' rights bill.

Over recent years, patients have been regarded in increasingly different lights north and south of the border. In England, both Conservative and Labour Governments have come to regard patients as being mainly customers of the health service. According to that philosophy, health care providers should compete for custom in a system that encourages patient choice. The discipline of the marketplace will then eliminate waste and drive up standards, according to that theory. Here in Scotland, both the previous Labour-Lib Dem Government and the current SNP Government have preferred to regard patients as joint owners of the health care system, having both the rights and the responsibilities of owners. Instead of encouraging people to compare providers in order that they can choose the most suitable one for their needs—an almost impossible task, by the way, in practice—our philosophy aims to involve people in making the most efficient use of local resources. The bill that the Government intends to introduce will go a step further by enshrining those rights and responsibilities so that we can progress further along the road to a truly mutual health service.

However, let me issue some warnings. In her opening speech in last November's debate, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing emphasised that Scotland is a socially and culturally diverse society, that patient rights extend across that diversity, and that health services must be tailored

"to provide accessible and appropriate services that are responsive to the individual needs, background and circumstances of people's lives."—[Official Report, 6 November 2008; c 12093.]

She was absolutely right. However, achieving that responsiveness will not be easy. That is the task that is before us.

We talk, for example, about the patient's responsibility for keeping appointments. It is still common for a patient who does not keep a hospital out-patient appointment to be put to the back of the queue or even, without any investigation, not to be sent another appointment. "If they can't be bothered to turn up, there can't be much wrong with them" is a common refrain. How often does anyone investigate the reason for the absence? If the complaint has cured itself and the person has simply forgotten to cancel the appointment, there is no excuse. However, sometimes the reason is transport problems or child care problems or it is that the person simply cannot use a calendar or cannot read. Patients come in all shapes, sizes and degrees of intelligence or learning. We are not truly providing a service that recognises diversity if we do not recognise and then overcome such problems. It is simply not true that people who do not turn up for appointments are always less in medical need than those who do. There are ways of providing an efficient service in such circumstances, but we do not always use them.

Another issue is the right of a patient to be involved in the management of his or her medical condition. Quite rightly, it is no longer good enough simply to assert that "Doctor knows best" and that the patient should get on with the course of treatment, of which the patient understands neither the benefits nor the risks. At the risk of being accused of exhibiting a degree of residual paternalism, I suggest that it is equally wrong to shove all treatment decisions on to the shoulders of someone who is patently unable to cope with them, especially if one motive is to escape some professional responsibility if things go wrong. One right for patients should be the right to benefit from the experience and judgment of the professionals who are looking after them. It is counterproductive to remove that right in the name of patient choice. Again, the service must be tailored to the needs of each individual.

So, should patients' rights be codified in legislation? Is not a patient charter an adequate enough safeguard of patients' rights? Initially, one might have some sympathy with such doubts, but I come down in favour of putting them on a legal basis for several reasons, including the following. In a large institution, such as a hospital or doctor's surgery—even a Parliament, for that matter—there is often a tendency for an us-and-them attitude to develop. The comradeship that is engendered by working together over many months and years almost inevitably tends to separate those who work in a place from those who use its services. In the national health service, it is extremely difficult to prevent that attitude from developing in a way that stops the professionals viewing patients as partners in a mutual concern. Codification in law of the rights of patients will remind health workers of those rights and will go some way towards restoring the balance that is necessary if true mutuality in the health service is to become a reality rather than an aspiration.

Many of my shadow cabinet colleagues have criticised Alex Salmond's legislative programme for being policy light. It is not just education light; it is education absent. It contains not one piece of education legislation. What does that tell us about the SNP's priorities?

I note that the Government is to introduce a new children's hearings bill to replace the one that it rightly ditched last week, which would have severely undermined our highly respected children's hearings system. Although it is clearly an embarrassment to the SNP that it has been unable to put together a credible bill, I welcome the fact that it has been forced to see reason and has—for now—averted the possibility of mass resignations from children's panels across Scotland. In her summing up, will the minister tell us whether the bill in its current form has been completely abandoned? Will she give a commitment that there will be genuine consultation of stakeholders on the new bill, and that the Government will this time listen to the views of those who are involved in the children's hearings system?

The legislative programme that has been announced today demonstrates that the SNP Administration is running short of ideas and has no answers to the big issues that face Scotland today. The statement contained nothing that will help to kick-start the stalled school building programme. Last year, Audit Scotland said that the Government should set specific, measurable and meaningful targets to ensure that progress on the school estate strategy could be properly assessed. We are no further forward on that, even though SNP ministers pose for photographs as they open schools that were commissioned and funded by the previous Labour-led Executive.

The Scottish Government is running scared of targets because they would expose the SNP's total failure to build new schools. How long will parents, teachers, pupils and the hard-pressed building industry have to wait until the SNP matches Labour's school building programme brick for brick? When will the Scottish Government provide what Audit Scotland asked for a year ago—namely, specific, measurable and meaningful targets?

Turning to class sizes, two years ago, during questions on the Scottish Government's legislative programme on 6 September 2007, the First Minister confidently and unequivocally told my colleague Hugh Henry that class sizes of 18 or fewer for primary 1 to primary 3 would be delivered by 2011. Given the First Minister's absolute conviction in that regard, I am surprised that no legislation has been proposed to place that commitment on a statutory footing.

Local authorities and teachers need clarity around the legislation on parental choice and the various sets of guidance on class sizes. We know that 24 of the 32 single outcome agreements that were signed by local authorities and ministers make no mention of the promise on class sizes, and it is clear that councils have simply not been given the funding to deliver smaller classes. If the SNP has confidence in the First Minister's commitment, why does it not introduce legislation that would enshrine smaller class sizes in law? The truth is that it has no intention of doing so.

Of course, smaller classes would be easier to deliver if the SNP had not cut 1,000 teachers and reduced the number of teacher training places. The recent Times Educational Supplement Scotland survey that showed that only one in seven newly qualified teachers has found a full-time teaching job should shame the SNP. There is nothing in today's statement to address that, and the ministers who are present are not even listening.

The statement contains nothing on tackling Scotland's literacy levels. The independent literacy commission will report shortly, and I hope that its recommendations will be considered carefully by the Government—although that might be too much to hope for—and by all members. It is clear that we must do much more than implement the literacy learning outcomes in the curriculum for excellence, which were rightly described by a member of the curriculum review group as "complete nonsense". Under the curriculum for excellence, we will still not have accurate information on how many children leave primary school with basic literacy skills. That is simply not good enough.

In addition, there is nothing in the legislative programme that will enable the SNP to keep its promise to dump student debt—there's a surprise. Nor has any action been outlined by the Scottish Government to close the gap of almost £2,000 between student support in Scotland and student support in the rest of the UK, which is driving students from poorer backgrounds into greater debt with commercial lenders.

I am disappointed by the absence of any action to improve Scotland's child protection system. The report on the tragic death of Brandon Muir has once again highlighted the failure to share information among professionals. How often must such tragedies occur before the Government legislates to put in place a duty to share information? Inspections have identified that there are problems throughout the country, and many professionals and organisations such as Barnardo's now believe that we need to change the balance between leaving vulnerable children with their family and keeping them safe. Between 10,000 and 20,000 children in Scotland live with drug-addicted parents, and as many as 100,000 live with parents who are addicted to alcohol. We need to find and protect those children. If legislation is required to do that, Labour members pledge to work constructively with the Government on that to safeguard Scotland's children. The Government claims to be taking tough action on drugs and alcohol, so why is it failing to protect vulnerable children? Why is it failing to protect the powerless victims of drug-abusing and alcohol-abusing parents?

It would be gratifying if the ministers stopped talking and listened to members' speeches, but perhaps that is too much to hope for.

Overall, the legislative programme ably demonstrates that the SNP Administration continues to prioritise its obsession with separation over everything else. It would rather build a border at Berwick than a build a new high school for Barrhead or Newbattle, and it would rather employ staff at new embassies around the globe or talk to royal families in places such as Qatar than employ teachers in our schools. The programme is a damp squib from a tired Administration that would rather wave saltires than keep our children safe or ensure that they can read.

We are living in challenging times. With the legislative programme that has been announced today, the SNP has once again failed to step up to the plate.

I do not know what to say after that speech, although I am sure that I will have plenty to say. I came into the chamber for the beginning of the debate at 5 minutes to 3 and listened to Alex Neil's speech on the legislative programme, which was good. It was not just fun; it was positive. The speeches that Mary Scanlon, Patrick Harvie and a few other members made were in exactly the same vein. Sitting and listening to the diatribe from the Labour Party was disheartening, not only for me and other members, but people in the gallery.

Does the member accept that it must be depressing to be a member of the Labour Party these days?

I do; but I am certainly not depressed and I do not want to listen to the depression that is coming from the Labour Party. I have never heard such a diatribe. It was depressing. We tell the Scottish people that they should look forward. If people listen to the Labour Party, they will not know what to do.

Rhona Brankin mentioned building a school in Barrhead and not going to Bahrain. Future generations of children will be able to get social housing because we have abolished the right to buy it. She wants future generations of children to pay for schools for ever and to be in debt for ever. I ask her to consider that and to consider for once, please, what is happening not just as a result of our legislation but even what is happening as a result of legislation that the Labour Party passed and that we supported.

Will the member take an intervention?

I will let Cathie Craigie in in a couple of minutes.

I thought that I would be able to come into the chamber and take part in a decent debate that people would listen to, but the diatribe from the Labour Party would make people even more depressed than being a member of it would.

Will the member take an intervention?

No, thank you. I will let the member in in a couple of minutes. I am already nearly two minutes into my time.

I wanted to start off in a positive vein. I congratulate the Government on introducing the legislative programme, particularly its proposal to end the right to buy new-build social housing, which I have mentioned, greater protection for those who face repossession, and ending people being made homeless as a result of small amounts of debt. That is important. Those issues might not be sexy and they might not grab newspaper headlines, but they are important. Cathy Jamieson mentioned that such things are important to the public—to the ordinary people of Scotland. People face problems with debts and repossessions every other day. I am thankful that the Government is looking for solutions.

This is a positive point. I wonder whether the member could press the Minister for Housing and Communities to use the powers that he has to address the issues of HMOs and the tenancy deposit scheme. I think that she would agree that that would be a positive way in which to support people in that sector.

I agree with Johann Lamont and have already spoken to the Minister for Housing and Communities about those issues. I have met housing associations, particularly from the Glasgow area, to discuss the possibility of putting a cap on HMOs. I take Johann Lamont's point entirely, and I am sure that the Minister for Housing and Communities is aware of those issues.

Earlier, Cathy Jamieson mentioned repossession. She will be aware that the Government has already taken action to reduce the risk of repossession through the home owners support fund, which helps those people who are at risk. Today's announcement will see home owners given even greater protection. As Alex Neil said, the proposed bill will go a long way towards preventing repossessions. Concerns on the issue have been expressed by many groups, such as Citizens Advice Scotland, as well as politicians.

I welcome the proposal for a debtor protection bill that will improve access to debt relief and protection for debtors in family homes. I thank the debt action forum for all its work in that area and its recommendations, such as those for the production of Scottish data on repossessions—we do not have such data yet—and the provision of more independent advice to people. I also welcome and support another of the forum's recommendations, which is that court procedures should be simplified in order to make the process clearer and less intimidating. I have accompanied people who have been taken to court, unfortunately, by the Glasgow Housing Association. It is a very stressful experience.

In addition, the proposed debt and family homes bill will amend the Bankruptcy and Diligence etc (Scotland) Act 2007 and provide alternative provisions to replace the outdated diligence of adjudication for debt. That will ensure that the family home cannot be taken from people who are in debt, which is a big problem at the moment. I am pleased that Cathy Jamieson and others have said that they will support that bill.

I do not want to linger, but there is one last point that I would like to raise with Iain Smith. He mentioned the consultation process on the debt and family homes bill. It is rather disingenuous of him to say that he is not happy with the consultation process. I thought that the Liberal Democrats always liked consultation. He said that the consultation process is taking far too long, but I think that it is better to have a long consultation than no consultation at all.

That is not what I said.

When he reads the Official Report, he will see what I mean.

It is important that people who lose their jobs and who get into debt because of the present situation do not also lose their family homes through no fault of their own. Creditors deserve to get their moneys back in a fair way, but it cannot be fair that people lose their homes just because they have lost their jobs. We cannot support that, which is why I am pleased with the bills that the Government is producing to prevent the repossession of people's homes.

We have also heard the announcement of £1.5 billion to provide social housing and the proposal to end the right to buy for new build. Those measures will provide much-needed social housing and will protect social housing for future generations—something that is long overdue, as I have said before.

Despite what other members say, I am proud of the Government's achievements. I look forward to the legislation, which will not only stand the Parliament and the Government in good stead, but will stand the Scottish people in good stead as well.

The whole debate, but particularly the debate this afternoon, has been marked by three contrasting approaches from SNP members. Alex Neil demonstrated, for the umpteenth time, his failure to understand the purpose of a microphone. There is clearly a case for those who sit close to Alex Neil to be provided with muffins—[Laughter.] I mean mufflers, although they might need both. Then, and much more important, there were the typically considered and reflective speeches from Nigel Don and Ian McKee. We then had Kenny Gibson. His speech was clearly aimed at the doubtful voter in the hope of gaining large and late contributions to the numbers of those supporting independence. Although I have an extremely open mind on these matters, I have to tell Kenny Gibson that he failed lamentably in his purpose.

If one believed the language of the Government, one would expect that we would all wake up tomorrow and find that everything that was announced in the Government's programme today had been delivered. As the First Minister put it on 15 January:

"Once the ministerial assurance is given, the issue is resolved."—[Official Report, 15 January 2009; c 14063.]

For example, although you might not spot it on your way home, economic recovery has been delivered, alcohol misuse has been tackled and, if my colleague Margaret Smith cares to look out of her constituency office tomorrow morning, she will find the replacement Forth crossing built and fully operational.

However, as with so much to do with this Government, the political rhetoric is far removed from reality. The policy proposals are no more than a gleam in the First Minister's eye—and even that might exaggerate their substance—and not one of the legislative proposals is close to gracing the statute book.

On the economy, the Government continues to peddle the line that, without the constraints of Westminster, the Scottish Government could continue to deliver unfettered growth, but it does not in any way explain how a Scottish Government would have bailed out the Royal Bank of Scotland or HBOS or the impact that doing so would have had on the Scottish economy.

If we are going to hypothesise about what might have happened if Scotland had a Government that could pull the Royal Bank of Scotland and so on out of danger, surely we can also assume that, if we had had a decent Government, those institutions might never have been in that mess in the first place.

I do not normally disagree with Margo MacDonald, but I will do so on this occasion. If a Government minister is telling a Parliament what the Government is going to do, they have to tell us the basis on which it will do it. I do not think that the Government can go back in history and say, "Ah, the basis on which we are doing that depends on different decisions having been taken 25 years ago." I think that we have to deal with the economy as it is here and now.

One thing that is clear is that, if the recent financial crisis has taught us anything, it is the critical interdependence of financial markets on a global scale, as opposed to the delusional belief that independent action is possible and that we can insulate ourselves from those international events.

Will the member give way?

No, I want to make progress.

A number of bills are being introduced, and they need to be examined—notwithstanding the First Minister's position. We can give broad support in principle to a number of them, although there are some issues that must be dealt with.

The legal services bill could improve the situation with regard to competition. However, I say to the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, who is now present, that I was not overly impressed by Which? magazine's understanding of the issue of conflict of interest. I am not sure that the publication had looked into the matter terribly closely.

The housing bill, with its proposed improvements and programmes for affordable housing, is welcome. However, I look forward to the definitions section of the bill, in which Mr Neil will no doubt explain to us that a house that is built with public money and constructed by a local authority is to be called a local authority house and that a house that is built with public money and built by a housing association is to be ignored completely.

The debtor protection bill is particularly welcome. As Cathy Jamieson made clear, there are a number of issues that need to be addressed. Welcome as the measure is, it is also an admission by the Government that those of us on Opposition benches who were clamouring for improvements in that provision were right.

The wildlife and natural environment bill and the historic environment bill are welcome, especially the provisions that will give heritage additional protection.

We will scrutinise closely the alcohol bill. We welcome the general statement that there are to be a wide range of measures, but we wish to see the detail of that. We also want to see much more detail on the various impacts that pricing might have. The jury is more than just out on the evidence base to support those proposals, and the polarised way in which some of the information is currently being presented to members does not help matters. Perhaps there will be an opportunity to consider such issues when the bill is introduced.

We will consider the patients' rights bill, about which Ian McKee made a number of interesting points. In particular, given that the medical and allied professions have gone so far in recent years to regulate themselves and to provide degrees of protection and rights for patients, we wish to consider how best to ensure that we do not confuse the current hugely improved set of regulations with further possibilities.

We wish to examine closely the children's hearings bill; many members have mentioned the disastrous start to that. We are glad that the Government will think again—the proposal needs serious re-examination and the issues that have been raised by the chairs of children's hearings panels must be taken seriously. We welcome the proposal for a crofting reform bill but, as Tavish Scott said, the minister's hectoring on the matter did not make for a particularly propitious start.

There are a range of issues to consider, but the final one is the question of independence and a referendum bill. We accept that it is perfectly legitimate for the First Minister of a minority Government to express the view that that minority Government would like a referendum on independence. However, for the First Minister of a minority Government to go on to declare that the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties that represent a majority in the Parliament are somehow depriving people of their democratic rights because they collectively, as the majority, refuse to accede to the will of the minority is an interesting but wholly unpersuasive definition of the operation of majority rule.

Liberal Democrats are quite clear about the difference between the nation, nationalism and the nation state. We are full of ambition for Scotland as a nation, and we have no glass ceiling. We are clear that in the 21st century the case for economic independence is not supported by the evidence round about us. We are clear that we have benefited in Europe and that we can benefit internationally. There are measures in the programme that we will support, but we are clear that, although Scotland as a nation has enormous potential, it does not need to become a nation state to realise that ambition.

At the heart of the Government's programme lies a massive irrelevance. The biggest challenge that Scotland faces in the next few years is undoubtedly to tackle the recession rather than hold a referendum. The blinkered vision of the Scottish National Party does Scotland a great disservice in that respect.

Mr Salmond told us earlier in his statement that we were a Parliament of minorities. However, he then claimed that his Government was elected with a popular mandate to put the question of Scotland's future to the vote in a referendum. It was not: Mr Salmond is in a minority, as Mike Rumbles and many other members have pointed out.

The referendum issue was a central feature of the last Scottish Parliament election campaign, and the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties made it clear that they would not support such a referendum. It is we who have the popular mandate on this issue, not the SNP. Ross Finnie's simple arithmetic was spot on in that respect. Frankly, the sooner the referendum bill suffers the same fate as the local income tax bill, the better off we will be.

Linked to the issue of economic recovery is that of public spending and the state of the public finances. It is there that we see the sharpest difference between an irresponsible spendthrift SNP approach and the Conservative approach that Annabel Goldie indicated. Mr Salmond's solution is always to spend, spend, spend. There is never a thought given to how the escalating burden of debt—much of it incurred to rescue banks that he claimed were fundamentally sound—is to be serviced, never mind reduced.

There is never a thought about how we are to bring some order back to the public finances. In his statement, the First Minister triumphantly said that Labour's spending cuts in the Scottish budget have now been precisely quantified at £496.7 million. However, no sooner had Iain Gray started on his speech than John Swinney popped up to claim that the cuts were £521 million, but then what is £24 million when the SNP is doing the sums? That is small change indeed to a party with a cavalier approach to the public finances, which is far from encouraging.

However, worse than the arithmetic is the attitude. The Scottish National Party Government is limbering up for a confrontation, whereas what we need is co-operation between the Governments at Westminster and Holyrood and a mature approach to answering how we can sustain our essential public services on reduced budgets as we try once again to balance the national books, which are presently running with Labour red.

Will Mr McLetchie tell us how much the Conservatives think should be cut from total public spending in the UK, what share of that should be allocated to Scotland, and on what items he wants the cuts to be made?

Mr Neil is in the governing party—[Interruption.] Excuse me; I will just make this point. Mr Neil is in the governing party that is about to present a budget. Miss Goldie, as she said several times in her speech, has asked the First Minister the self-same questions for weeks, but the Government has failed to answer them. We will give the Government our answer when it presents its budget to the Parliament and we can examine it.

When Mr Osborne is the Chancellor of the Exchequer next May, we will be delighted to have a further discussion on the matter. As we have pledged, he will come to the Scottish Parliament with the next Prime Minister, Mr Cameron, to engage in a mature, meaningful and fruitful discussion between the Governments at Westminster and Holyrood and deal with the serious issues of the public finances that need to be tackled. That is what we will do, and that is when Mr Neil will have his full answer.

Will the member take an intervention?

No, thank you. I am moving on to another theme.

I regret that the Government seems to be fixated with minimum pricing as the cornerstone of its alcohol strategy. That indiscriminate approach will not tackle the problem. We should focus on problem drinks and problem drinkers and do far more to enforce the existing law rather than treating the responsible majority and the irresponsible minority alike. Given the state of the public finances, a higher price that results from a higher tax would seem to be preferable to a higher price that results from setting a legal minimum. I would have thought that it makes more sense to line the empty coffers of the Treasury to pay for our health service than to line the pockets of the drink companies, but obviously the Scottish National Party disagrees.

I promise the Government vigorous opposition in this part of the chamber to its plans to end the right to buy for new social housing. The right to buy is one of the great achievements of the Conservative Government and one that transformed housing in Scotland for the better. We did more to make housing affordable to working people in this country with that single measure than any other act before or since has done. As Alex Neil most generously conceded, our record on building council houses and other social housing in the years of Conservative Government far surpasses the record of the Labour Government, but it also surpasses the aspirations of his Government. It was achieved partly through recycling the proceeds of the sale of houses into new stock. The policy did not damage social housing but improved it.

Unlike some members, I do not object in principle to a light legislative programme, which can be a virtue, but we are entitled to ask whether the Government's programme as a whole hits the mark. From the evidence that was presented today, it is very wide of the target.

I am happy and proud to contribute to this debate as a Labour representative. I think that I have won the good attendance award for sitting through every speech, although members must accept that that endeavour might have challenged my happy disposition a little. I shall attempt to be as constructive as possible, but I point out to Sandra White that robust debate is to be celebrated, not feared. We need to draw a distinction here. It is one thing to disagree with and have a debate about something; it is another to be accused of being negative for having the audacity to say that we have a problem with some of the proposals.

I am concerned that, unlike what happened in the first eight years of the Parliament, there has been not one dissenting voice on the Government back benches in this debate. If members take the Parliament seriously, they should seek to be free to criticise not just the Opposition but their own front bench. I will give them some advice on that if they require it.

Obviously, it is not sufficient in itself but, in the absence of a Government that takes the Parliament's votes seriously, the legislative programme is one of the few areas in which there is any parliamentary control over the administrative devolution that has been given to ministers. The fact that Government ministers are making decisions on the basis of what they can do away from this place instead of working in conjunction with it is a very serious matter, and I ask them to reflect on that point.

In these serious times, we need to focus on the concerns and experiences of people throughout Scotland. I have to say that I found the First Minister's statement insubstantial and his presentation dispiriting. It seemed the statement of a First Minister who does not take his job seriously and, as we saw at First Minister's question time, a man who is complacent about certain very big issues of the day, such as child protection and crime, to which there are no obvious right or wrong answers. This is a First Minister who imagines that a statement full of assertion rather than action that is focused on his party's self-serving and indulgent constitutional priorities instead of the real problems of real people in real communities adds up to a programme for government. It does not. The gulf between the priorities that he set out in his statement and the problems that people in my constituency bring to me could not be more marked.

In the past, we have criticised the Scottish Government's remarkable capacity for telling us how much it cares about those who face disadvantage and inequality while doing not a thing to match its rhetoric with commitments, resources and budgets that have been properly and transparently tested against assessments of equality and fairness. However, in this morning's statement, the Scottish Government went a step further: it talked about the people of Scotland without at any time acknowledging the diversity of experience, the lack of opportunity for some Scots or the discrimination against and loss of potential of too many with disabilities.

Alex Neil said that the statement was about economic growth and social justice. No, it was not—and it will not become one simply because he says so. It contained not one word on equality or poverty and not one phrase that reflected an understanding of how this economic recession is impacting disproportionately on some people. It is perhaps not surprising that a First Minister who commends Thatcherite economics should not trouble himself to comment on such matters, but we might have expected him to nod in the direction of his back-bench colleagues who do have such a commitment. He must indeed think that the party's discipline is strong.

As far as jobs and training are concerned, there is nothing in the statement to address the fact that, although unemployment hangs as a worry over more people and families than it should, in our poorest communities 25 per cent of young people are not in education, employment or training, compared with 11 per cent across the whole of Scotland. There is nothing to address the fact that only 18 per cent of people with learning disabilities are in work or that less than that work for more than 16 hours a week. In the face of all that, there is nothing on skills; cuts are being made in Skills Development Scotland; and the education maintenance allowance, which has allowed some of our poorest and brightest access to education at the time that it matters—that is, at school—is being reduced.

The economic strategy does not recognise that there should be shared prosperity, not just sustained economic growth. Furthermore, there is nothing in the statement on child care; and nothing on how the Government will make real its guarantee to those on apprenticeships that they will be allowed to finish them. It is a cruel deception to call something a guarantee if it is not going to be honoured.

At the same time, Scottish Enterprise no longer has any responsibility for people and place. There is nothing on regeneration and employability, and there is an end to Communities Scotland, which had a focus on the detail and the delivery and the hard work of government. In the Highlands, there is the destruction of Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

Where the Government is taking action, it is inadequate. Housing is a classic example of the SNP's approach. We have cheap headlines on the right to buy, despite the fact that the SNP is in favour of the use of public moneys for home ownership through low-cost home ownership. It will not cost a coin.

Will the member take an intervention?

For all the noise and bluster on the right to buy, the reality is that another proposal is being brought in through the back door.

Will the member take an intervention?

Mr Neil, sit down, please.

I advise SNP back benchers to consider that proposal closely. The aim is to bring in private, profit-making housing organisations to be registered as social landlords and to destroy the community-controlled housing association and co-operative movement.

I will take an intervention.

I thank the member—

I was talking about Sandra White.

Oh!

On you go.

I thank the member for agreeing at one remove to take the intervention.

On Labour Party policy, will that party support our proposals to end the right to buy for new council housing?

As the party that modernised the right to buy, which made a huge difference, we do not have a problem with looking at the policy. However, we have a problem with the housing policy with which it is to be substituted. What hypocrisy from a man who spends money on low-cost home ownership and will not tell us the figures on the number of houses that are built for social rented housing rather than ownership. To pretend that the policy is radical is bizarre.

There is to be no action to address the weaknesses in the child protection procedures but, on crofting, the silence is even more remarkable. As has been said, the SNP is to be congratulated on its crofting proposals, as it has managed to unite every authoritative and respected crofting commentator and representative in opposition to its proposals. However, the SNP has the audacity to lecture those who protect those communities and the way of life that has sustained them because they do not agree. There is no radicalism on land reform—in fact, there is a dismantling of that, too.

When there is a huge yawning silence on those matters, in steps the First Minister to compound the offence. He used the language of equality and talked of a glass ceiling. That is the language that captures the idea of a denial of opportunity, but the First Minister used it to describe his notion of Scotland and all us oppressed Scots together, who need to be separated from the rest of the United Kingdom. In that one phrase, we have Alex Salmond's refutation of the need for social justice in Scotland. It seems that he really believes that that is the one defining trait and the factor that determines all our life chances. The issue is not about people being left neglected in chaotic homes, disability, women facing domestic abuse or people facing the consequence of being unable to access education. Instead, it is about being Scottish—being a clan chief, a landowner, a crofter or someone from Glasgow. All together, we need to be liberated. What nonsense. That explains why Alex Salmond thinks that the referendum matters and that is why we disagree. We will ensure that the Parliament takes its responsibility seriously to produce a programme that will make a difference to the people of this country.

It is customary at the start of summing-up speeches to say that the debate has been good. In truth, there have been some excellent contributions from members such as Linda Fabiani, Stewart Maxwell and Alex Johnstone—I did not agree with a single word that he said, but he said it very well indeed. I also mention Alex Neil, with or without microphone, Kenny Gibson, who as always was calm, reasonable and understated, and Ian McKee. Ross Finnie I think has missed his vocation as a stand-up turn at the fringe, but we are nevertheless glad to have him here. However, despite the sterling efforts of those members and others, I must agree with Sandra White that the debate has been characterised more than anything by the sense of gloom that emanated from the Opposition benches in general, and what can only be described as the bitterness from the Labour benches in particular.

Will the minister give way?

Not just now—maybe later.

Johann Lamont said that there were no words about equality in Alex Salmond's statement. The problem with Labour is that, on equality, words were all that it ever had, whereas this Government prefers action. Johann Lamont still will not say whether Labour will vote to end the right to buy. This Government acts and does not just talk—that is why we are popular, which is why Labour is so deeply bitter. I offer Johann Lamont a little fact to chew over: Alex Salmond did not praise Margaret Thatcher, but Gordon Brown entertained her in Downing Street. I wonder what that says about Labour and the SNP.

Iain Gray started his speech today with the weary observation that it feels as if

"one parliamentary term"

is

"blurring into another"

and

"we have never really been away."

I hate to be disloyal to the First Minister, but I have to say that, in his contribution, Iain Gray did a better impression of the Rev I M Jolly than Alex Salmond has ever managed. Listening to Iain Gray's contribution was like groundhog day—the same old downbeat, depressing, glass-half-empty carping that we have come to expect from a Labour Party that has lost not just its way but any idea of what it is for.

Will the minister give way?

Not just now.

What is most interesting about Labour's contribution is its year-zero approach—it never lets the facts get in the way of a political attack. I offer just two examples. Iain Gray criticises the Government on knife crime sentencing but forgets to point out that, under Labour, the average sentence was 116 days, whereas it is now 217 days. Then Cathy Jamieson selectively picks areas in which she alleges that the NHS in England is ahead of the NHS in Scotland. What she does not tell us is that it was Labour that failed to introduce C diff surveillance when England did and that it was Labour that failed to set an 18-week target when England did. Labour glosses over the fact that it is this Government that has cases of hospital infection coming down and waiting times at an all-time low. No wonder Labour has no credibility and Iain Gray struggles to get into double figures the number of people who think that he would make a good First Minister.

As I said in my speech, no education legislation was mentioned in the programme for government today. Will the minister reiterate Alex Salmond's promise to deliver primary class sizes of 18 or fewer by 2011? Why has no legislation to guarantee minimum class sizes been included in his programme for government?

As Rhona Brankin knows, class sizes under this Government are lower than they ever were under the previous Government. That is another fact that Labour chooses to ignore.

I move on to the Tories. Annabel Goldie was a wee bit cheerier and I give her 10 out of 10 for bravery, although many people might think that a Tory leading on the council tax is more foolish than brave given that it was the Tories, ably assisted by Labour, who were responsible for the 100 per cent increase in the council tax and that it is this Government that has frozen it, not once but twice. People are under no illusion about the unholy Labour-Tory alliance that blocked fair taxation based on the ability to pay.

Will the minister take an intervention?

Not just now.

The main body of Annabel Goldie's speech, repeated by David McLetchie, was an impassioned plea for public sector cuts and reform, which we all know is a Tory euphemism for privatisation. I make it clear to Annabel Goldie and the Tories that the Scottish Government has no choice but to deal with Labour's £500 million of cuts. As we do so, however, the Government will work to protect the services on which the public rely and we will keep them in the public sector. We will not hive them off for profit as the Tories would do.

Tavish Scott's contribution was possibly the most disappointing of all today, perhaps because, naively, I expect so much better from him. What the Liberals forget is that if they could lift their eyes from party politicking for just a moment, they would find so much in the Government's programme with which to agree. Liberals are not known for their consistency, but there was a fantastic example of their inconsistency today. No sooner had Tavish Scott left the chamber after criticising the Government for not cutting quangos than Margaret Smith got to her feet to attack the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Bill, which is all about cutting quangos. That is another example of Lib-Dem flip-flopping. [Interruption.]

Order.

Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention?

The minister has no time to take an intervention.

The collective bad mood of the Opposition parties was not the only thing that united them today. They also—shamefully and unbelievably—united in opposition to democracy itself, with all of them threatening to block a referendum bill. One thing confuses me: if, as we heard from more than one MSP, a referendum is "doomed", and if Pauline McNeill is right in saying that there is a consensus against independence, why will the Opposition parties not put that to the test? Why are they so terrified of the prospect? We all have different views on the future of Scotland. Patrick Harvie got it absolutely right when he said that it is up to the people of Scotland to choose. If the Opposition parties oppose a referendum, how do they intend to demonstrate support for their proposals? The Scottish Parliament was established by referendum and any advance on that has to be put to the people in a referendum.

You should be winding up, cabinet secretary.

That is the case that we will make. As we make it, we will be proud to enter our third year of government, during which time we will continue to deliver for the people of Scotland.