Engagements
To ask the First Minister what engagements he has planned for the rest of the day. (S3F-113)
I welcome Cathy Jamieson to her place. Later today, I will meet officials of the National Farmers Union and other representatives of rural Scotland to discuss pressures on the Scottish livestock industry as a result of rising cereal prices. I will also make a speech to the Scottish Confederation of British Industry in the great city of Glasgow.
Oh no.
I wish the First Minister well in those discussions.
The SNP is going to work through all of its manifesto commitments over the four-year term of this Administration.
There might have been some selective quoting of yesterday's debate. I said, on record, that there were things in the programme that we welcome and on which we would work with the Government—indeed, a significant number of things came from work that was commissioned by the previous Executive.
We will be addressing the housing crisis in Scotland. [Interruption.]
Order.
This autumn, we will publish our proposals. That crisis was left to us after eight years of the Labour and Liberal Democrat Administration.
I am sorry that the First Minister was not able to answer that fairly straightforward question.
We will bring forward a range of options that will, as I said during the SNP election campaign, crowd out PPP by offering better mechanisms to fund the capital stock of Scotland.
Three-nil to Cathy.
Order, please.
Prime Minister (Meetings)
To ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Prime Minister. (S3F-114)
I will meet the Prime Minister as soon as possible, although I am tempted to call him the First Lord of the Treasury after what I read about what he might call the Scottish Government.
That is the least of the First Minister's worries.
Annabel Goldie must be aware that within the first 100 days of this Administration, we made decisions about the prisons estate that had been awaited for as many years as I can remember. We decided to back away from the Labour Party's privatisation plans, which would have left us with a higher proportion of prisoners in the private sector than occurs in the state of California. We also made the welcome decision to build a state-of-the-art prison in the north-east of Scotland to replace the Victorian facilities in Aberdeen and Peterhead. I would have thought that Annabel Goldie would find much to welcome in our rapid and decisive action on the prisons estate.
The Cabinet Secretary for Justice recently cast a slur on the prison staff at HMP Kilmarnock—a prison that is recognised for dealing with offending behaviour and combating addiction—by suggesting that officers are vulnerable to bribery and corruption. Given the First Minister's comments yesterday about that prison, it is disturbing to think that he backs Mr MacAskill. The truth is that the First Minister and his party are openly dogged and dogmatic in their prejudice against the private sector, whether it be in prisons, the health service, or any of our other public services. Will the First Minister reconsider his attitude to the private sector and apologise for his cabinet secretary's unfortunate comments?
The Cabinet Secretary for Justice was pointing out that prison officers in the private sector are unfortunately very low paid, in many cases. I am sure that they would agree because they have made that point to me on a number of occasions.
Cabinet (Meetings)
To ask the First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the Cabinet. (S3F-121)
The Cabinet will discuss a wide range of issues of importance to the Scottish people.
Yesterday the First Minister announced a proposal to give every patient in Scotland an individual waiting-time guarantee. Will that guarantee be legally enforceable?
We will consult on the nature of the legislation, as the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing said yesterday.
Why is the position not clear cut? Why is the SNP so confused on the issue? The First Minister's manifesto said that the waiting-time guarantee was to be legally binding. Yesterday the Deputy First Minister said that that was just a detail and that she would have to think about it. Today the First Minister says that he will consult. Is not it the truth that the SNP made the promise because it sounded good—it was a great soundbite?
Nicol Stephen could not be accused of self-interest in his attacks on Scotland's lawyers.
Order.
I ask the First Minister for a reply to the questions that I posed to his deputy yesterday, but which she forgot—by accident, I am sure—to answer.
The distribution formula for local authorities is always kept under review to ensure fairness and parity.
Does the First Minister agree that Edinburgh and every other part of Scotland would benefit from the transfer of powers over Scotland's oil and gas resources to the Scottish Parliament? Will he continue to pursue his worthy campaign for the transfer of those powers?
For the second time in two days, I agree with Alex Neil. In David Cairns's picking a fight with me at the "Offshore Europe" conference, I detected that there is some upset at the suggestion that the people of Scotland should share in our own resources. To David Cairns and others, I say that it is not just in the health service that Norway has much to teach Scotland. We look across the water to Norway and see a capital investment fund of £165 billion, which has been accumulated over the past 10 years. The obvious point is this: when somebody asks Norwegians how long their oil and gas is going to last, they say forever. That fund is available to power forward the Norwegian economy and Norwegian society. O, that we had the same situation in Scotland.
Stockline Factory (Judicial Public Inquiry)
To ask the First Minister whether he will ensure that there is appropriate co-operation between the Scottish Executive, the Crown Office and the UK Government in any consideration of a judicial public inquiry into the explosion at the Stockline factory on 11 May 2004. (S3F-116)
The decision on the type of inquiry to be held into the circumstances surrounding the explosion and resultant deaths will be made by the Lord Advocate, as she has sole responsibility for the investigation of deaths in Scotland.
I thank the First Minister for his response, and I put on record my thanks to the Lord Advocate for the meetings that she held with me and the families yesterday.
If there was an inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005, it would be ordered jointly by Scottish and United Kingdom ministers. Patricia Ferguson makes some strong points about the range that such an inquiry should have, but I think that it would be best to allow the Lord Advocate to complete her discussions and consultations and, after consultation of all concerned, to come to a decision by the end of the month. In addition to what Patricia Ferguson said, I have offered to meet the families and their representatives. I think that all members will join me in welcoming the fact that the Lord Advocate has undertaken to move the process forward and to make a decision in early course.
Does the First Minister agree that the recent Stockline report is one of the most hair-raising reports that members have ever had the misfortune to see? In the further discussions that are taken forward either by the First Minister directly or by the Lord Advocate, will priority be given to dealing with the issue of hazardous processes and plants that is identified in the report?
A range of issues are mentioned in the report, some of which—as Patricia Ferguson rightly said—touch on devolved responsibilities and some of which touch on reserved matters. Given that the nature of the criminal proceedings meant that, although there was a successful prosecution, some of the evidence was not required to surface in the course of the proceedings, I think that all are agreed that an inquiry in public is necessary. The points that have been raised by Robert Brown and Patricia Ferguson indicate that there is a wide spread of support for ensuring that any such inquiry should be the fullest inquiry possible so that it can look at the full scope of all the issues involved.
School Accommodation
To ask the First Minister how he will ensure that there is sufficient school accommodation of the correct type for him to meet the promises on class sizes and early intervention and the expectations of parents. (S3F-125)
Within the 100-day programme, we have already taken the necessary first steps to start driving down class sizes in primary 1 to primary 3 and to provide access to a nursery teacher for all children, but we are targeting the most deprived areas first. As well as announcing funding for an extra 300 teachers and for 250 more teacher-training places from August, we have allocated an additional £40 million in capital funding for school buildings to enable councils to plan investment. After 113 days of administration, that is a pretty good record on fulfilling our aims and ambitions for Scotland's school children.
In Perth and Kinross, the deputy director of education has estimated that 12 schools will not, with existing resources, be able to meet the targets. He said that he would need 19 additional classrooms, the additional teachers for which alone would mean a bill of somewhere in the region of £735,000 on top of his budget of £2.1 million for this year. His fear is that the additional financial burdens are so great that classrooms that are currently used for art, music and drama might have to be sacrificed, with consequent damaging effects on children's education. What will the First Minister do to ensure that that does not happen?
The pace and scale of delivery are, of course, dependent on discussions with local authorities and with the universities that will deliver the additional teachers that we need. However, I believe that there is overwhelming support among both the profession and the people of Scotland for recognising that the policy of early intervention and the measures that we have already taken on funding for extra teachers are the best way forward. The substantial support in local authorities and teaching organisations suggests that our approach to consulting on teacher numbers is the right way forward for delivering on one of the Administration's most important commitments.
Will the First Minister tell us why his SNP colleagues on the City of Edinburgh Council were so ignorant of their party's policy on class sizes that they thought it right to close 22 schools and make the implementation of that policy impossible? While welcoming their U-turn—the fastest U-turn in political history—will the First Minister ensure that in the future his SNP councillors have some minimal acquaintance with party policy, or do his councillors believe that the class-size policy, like many other SNP election promises, will never be implemented?
I thought that Malcolm Chisholm would have stayed away from the schools in Edinburgh issue since it is widely known that the so-called hit list was devised under a Labour Administration. As we have already discussed, the budgetary condition of Edinburgh must by definition be the responsibility of the previous Labour Administration or be shared by its Liberal allies in the previous Scottish Government.
The First Minister spoke again today about the £40 million in the schools fund that is targeted at areas of deprivation. He will have seen in guidance that was issued by his Government on 10 July 2007 that the funding is
The note gives advice to councils about how they should distribute the fund, but the final determination lies with each council. I say to Jeremy Purvis that councils in Scotland now have £40 million more, which is an increase of almost 40 per cent in their budgets for school buildings this year over what they would have had if the Labour-Liberal Executive had stayed in office.
Further to my friend Malcolm Chisholm's question, what assurances has the First Minister had from Steve Cardownie that the SNP group will not do yet another U-turn and propose further school closures, which would make implementation of the SNP manifesto impossible?
I thought that as someone who has considerable experience in the City of Edinburgh Council, as well as in this chamber, as well as in the House of Commons, as well as in the House of Lords, that Lord George Foulkes would welcome the fact that the SNP group had brought some sense and sensibility to what the council was doing.
Troops Returning from Iraq and Afghanistan (Health)
To ask the First Minister what plans the Scottish Government has to improve health support and provision for troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. (S3F-122)
The immediate health-care needs of armed services personnel in Scotland are met by the Ministry of Defence, which provides primary health care, rehabilitation and mental health care through its own medical facilities in Scotland. Military personnel requiring routine in-patient treatment will normally be referred to a national health service hospital, according to clinical priority.
Is the First Minister aware that
Alan Meale has written to me on that very point. There is a great deal to be said for his proposals. I discussed part of this issue with the Secretary of State for Scotland, who is also the Secretary of State for Defence, after we attended a few weeks ago an event in Strathclyde park organised by a new charity called Forward Edge of the Battle Area, which considers the recreational needs of former service people. Alan Meale made some strong points in his correspondence, and we will look at this important issue extremely sympathetically to find out what contribution the Scottish Government can make to it.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. My understanding of the rules governing back-bench supplementary questions at First Minister's question time is that a back bencher gets a supplementary if it involves a significant local issue, which Margo MacDonald's question was indeed concerned with. I was, however, slightly surprised when Alex Neil then got in with a highly political supplementary that was bowled underarm to the First Minister—which, if I may say so, is a rather startling departure for Mr Neil. Presiding Officer, will you clarify the rules on this matter, given that First Minister's question time is very valuable to back benchers?
The rules clearly state that the choice of supplementaries lies with the Presiding Officer. As a result, I have the right to choose whoever it might be, which is what I have done. I also point out that Nicol Stephen's original question was on the issues that might
Meeting suspended until 14:15.
On resuming—
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