Subordinate Legislation
National Health Service (Superannuation Scheme and Pension Scheme) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2012 (SSI 2012/69)
Good morning and welcome to the 13th meeting in 2012 of the Health and Sport Committee. I remind all those present that mobile phones and BlackBerrys should be turned off as they can interfere with the sound system.
The first item on our agenda is consideration of motion S4M-02588, in the name of Drew Smith, which recommends that the National Health Service (Superannuation Scheme and Pension Scheme) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2012 be annulled.
For this item we are joined by Nicola Sturgeon, Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Cities Strategy; and, from the Scottish Public Pensions Agency, by Chad Dawtry, director of policy, strategy and development, and Eleanor Guthrie, senior policy manager.
We took evidence from the cabinet secretary on the regulations at our last meeting so we will move straight to the debate. Under rule 10.4.2 of standing orders, the debate can last for a maximum of 90 minutes. Only members may take part in the debate—the cabinet secretary’s officials cannot participate directly. I invite Drew Smith to speak to and move motion S4M-02588.
Thank you. I assure the committee that I do not intend to take anything like that amount of time for my portion of the debate. One of the reasons why it will be brief is that the cabinet secretary has previously appeared before the committee on this issue. When I lodged the motion, I hoped that we might have the opportunity to discuss the issues with one of the finance ministers, but I understand that John Swinney is abroad and I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for stepping in to discuss this with us again.
I will inform committee members why I lodged the motion. Trade unions and ordinary national health service workers have asked MSPs to pause and consider before agreeing to attacks on NHS pensions. Allowing the regulations to come into force will result in an increase in employee contributions of up to 2.4 per cent, at a time when pay is frozen and the cost of living is increasing. From our previous evidence session with the cabinet secretary, we know that the hardest hit will be lower-paid part-time workers. All this will happen at a time when the NHS pension scheme is in surplus and not one penny from the increased revenue will go to improving the pension offer. In fact, paying more to get less will result in more people opting out of the scheme, as a result of which there will be a higher cost to the taxpayer to support retired health service workers in older age.
I agree with the Scottish Government and the cabinet secretary’s previous evidence on who is the instigator of the changes. There is no disagreement between us that the direction that the United Kingdom Government has set on public sector pensions is the wrong one. However, the Scottish Government has the power to act differently in Scotland, and I acknowledge that it has suggested that it is willing to look at doing that in future years. That means that there will be hard choices, but it is important that we note that, although a choice is hard, a choice it remains.
As I said, I am grateful for the cabinet secretary’s previous evidence. She has the opportunity to say something further this morning, and I wonder whether she could comment on some of the key questions. Why is the Government entering into negotiations on years 2 and 3 but implementing the coalition policy in year 1? What confidence can the workforce have in negotiations for years 2 and 3 when the change has been forced through in year 1? What is the cabinet secretary’s reaction to Unison, which points out that efficiency savings—which we discussed previously—could have negated the need to make the change in year 1? It cites a figure of £175 million for efficiency savings that have not been budgeted for—savings that have been achieved over and above the 2011 efficiency savings target. I understand that that figure is based on the Scottish Government’s figures. Unison argues that using that money now would allow for good faith negotiations to proceed in years 2 and 3.
The Scottish Government has said that it opposes the change. I therefore believe that it is incumbent on the committee to create the space to debate again the wisdom of the regulations. I would have preferred that Unison had had the opportunity to give evidence to the committee, given that it has embarked on selective strike action on the issue. However, I welcome the opportunity that you have given me, convener.
I move,
That the Health and Sport Committee recommends that the National Health Service (Superannuation Scheme and Pension Scheme) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2012 (SSI 2012/69) be annulled.
Drew Smith acknowledged this in his opening remarks, but I say for the record that John Swinney would have been here had it not been for his pre-arranged trade mission to Japan. He asked me to make that clear to the committee.
As I said when I gave evidence on the issue, it gives me no pleasure at all to sit here. I have sympathy with the position that the trade unions take on the matter. If the Scottish Parliament and Government had unfettered power over pensions policy, we might well have found ourselves in a different position and not requiring to debate the regulations. However, we are where we are.
The Scottish Government’s position is abundantly clear: we do not agree with the UK Government’s policy of increasing pension contributions in this financial year. We have made it clear on repeated occasions that we think that that is the wrong policy at the wrong time. The reason why we think that it is wrong is closely associated with factors such as the wage freeze and the rising cost of living. The Scottish Government would not have asked public sector workers to pay more towards their pensions at this time had it been in the position to decide on the matter without interference from Westminster.
That said, the Treasury, unfortunately and regrettably, has equally made its position abundantly clear: it has confirmed that, if the contributions are not applied this year, it will dock the Scottish Government’s budget by an amount equivalent to what the contributions would otherwise have raised. When we spoke previously, I set out what that would mean for the overall Scottish Government budget and for the NHS budget in particular. As we are talking specifically about the NHS pension regulations, I will confine my remarks to the NHS budget.
I do not like to find myself or the committee facing the hard, inescapable reality that, if the committee votes to annul the regulations, it votes to remove almost £5 million every single month from the health budget. I am afraid that that would involve taking nearly £5 million every month away from front-line services.
As I said, the Scottish Government does not agree with the policy. We have tried to protect low-paid workers. As I pointed out previously, nobody in the NHS who earns below £26,500 in full-time salary—the last time that I spoke to the committee, we discussed the full-time/part-time issue—will pay any increased contribution. Round about 47 per cent—almost half the members of the NHS pension scheme—will not pay increased contributions this year.
As I also made clear when I last spoke to the committee, the regulations concern this financial year—2012-13. We have made it clear that we are willing to negotiate with stakeholders and trade unions across all the different schemes to find out whether there are different ways forward for the future. However, we have also made it clear that any different way forward must be within the overall cost envelope that the Treasury has set because, if it were not, any changes that were more expensive than, or did not deliver the same level of savings as, the increased contributions would hit the Scottish Government’s budget, as would be the case this year.
I think that the last time that I was at the committee was the day before I was due to meet the Scottish terms and conditions committee to kick off the negotiations for the NHS. We had a constructive meeting that day. I recognise—as does that committee—the challenge of trying to come to a different set of arrangements within a cost envelope. Nevertheless, there is a willingness on both sides to try to do that.
Since that meeting, John Swinney has received a letter from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury that appears further to restrict our room for manoeuvre in future negotiations. That letter has been shared with stakeholders and trade unions. If it has not already been shared with this committee, I am happy for members to see a copy of it. John Swinney has written to Danny Alexander seeking clarification.
We remain committed to the negotiations, but the letter demonstrates clearly the position that the Scottish Government is in. We may want to do something different, but the whip hand is held by the Treasury, which is seeking to limit our room for manoeuvre.
I have huge sympathy with the position of the trade unions. I know that, however they vote on the motion, all members—or most members—will do so with a heavy heart. I underline that the reality is that, if the committee votes to annul the regulations, services in the NHS will be hit immediately.
I have no gripe with Drew Smith for lodging the motion but, beyond referring to efficiency savings, he did not suggest how we could fill the funding gap in the health service. Members of Drew Smith’s party frequently go on the record to criticise us for asking the health service to make efficiency savings. Voting for the motion would increase the efficiency savings that we are asking the health service to make. Remember that, up until now—if I have my way, it will always be the case—any efficiency savings that the NHS makes are ploughed back into front-line services.
That is the Scottish Government’s position. It is with a heavy heart that I find myself having this discussion again, but that is the reality of the situation that we face. If this Parliament had powers over pensions, as I hope that it will one day in the not-too-distant future, we would be in a different position, but the position that we find ourselves in today is, in large part, down to the division of powers and responsibility between this Parliament and the Westminster Parliament.
Thank you, cabinet secretary.
First, I had better declare that I am a member of the NHS pension scheme.
I became a politician for one reason: to defend services and the people who work in them. I take no pleasure in this debate, but I say to Drew Smith that, although I do not dispute his right to lodge a motion to annul the regulations, it is basically grandstanding and a form of gesture politics—it reminds me of the phrase “power without responsibility”.
We have the responsibility to ensure that we do the best for the workers in the NHS and for the people who use the service. I do not like the fact that the UK Government has taken this approach, which I see as a form of deficit reduction. However, if we agreed to Drew Smith’s motion, we would take something like £5 million out of the NHS each month. He did not tell us how we would fill that gap. He went on about efficiency savings but, since I became a member of the Parliament, I have heard various politicians talk about spending the same money twice, three times or four times.
We take no pleasure today in what we have to do but, as the cabinet secretary rightly said, the pensions change is being forced on us by the UK Government. If we had our own Parliament and our own Government, we could progress along the lines that Drew Smith has suggested, but we do not have that pleasure. We are being forced into a position that none of us likes or supports in order to defend services and defend the workers.
I will not repeat all the figures that the cabinet secretary has given us, but they are all correct and have all been proved. What would Drew Smith cut to ensure that we do not need to implement the regulations? He has not told us and he cannot give us any figures. As far as I am concerned, the motion to annul is just a form of grandstand politics—power without responsibility—and I will vote against it. I will do so with a heavy heart, but that is the situation that we are in. We must defend services and workers wherever possible. When we can do that with our own Parliament and Government, we will do so.
10:15
We are all in agreement that we are not comfortable that people are being asked to make an increased pension contribution at a time when their pay is frozen and the cost of living is going up. We can also all agree that there can be discussions about how the deficit reduction can be undertaken at a UK level. There is no doubt that a deficit reduction must be undertaken. However, most of us feel that this method of deficit reduction is not appropriate.
I have a number of concerns. First, the cabinet secretary came before us the other week and said that negotiations were going to take place in years 2 and 3. Why are we not having negotiations—within the cost envelope—in relation to year 1? Secondly, my particular concern, which I raised in the debate the other week, is the discrepancy between part-time and full-time workers. Two workers—one part-time and one full-time—could be on a salary of £15,000 but the part-time worker’s contribution would be substantially higher. The cabinet secretary acknowledged that that was the case. It seems appropriate to look at that area within the cost envelope in order to ensure justice for those on lower pay.
The motion to annul is necessary in order that we can have this debate: we could not have the debate unless we had moved the motion.
I am interested to know whether the distinction awards are pensionable. Those are awards for meritorious service, but they are often awarded late in careers and, if they are received for three years, they are pensionable. It does not seem fair that somebody on £100,000 who gets another £10,000 or £20,000 in their last three years of income also gets extra from the pension pot for as long as they live. That is another area that we should look at even in the first year.
The same principle applies to bonus points, which are separate from distinction awards, as I made clear in the chamber before the recess in my question to the First Minister. There are 2,000 consultants getting bonus points, and 630 have had a pay increase this year on the basis of their previous bonus points. Also, 250 have received new bonus points, so they too have had a pay increase in the past couple of years.
The answer to a freedom of information inquiry that we have made shows that there are still 500 managers on performance-related pay. Is that pensionable? I do not know. If it is pensionable, at a time of restraint when we are told that we are all in this together, the people at that end should be the ones giving it up. The mechanism for that might not be to put their pension contributions up, as that is already happening—there is a higher level of contribution for those on higher pay. It may be time to say that the awards are fine but that the recipients are not going to get a bigger pension because of them—the awards are additional to their pay. Perhaps in year 1 that would take out of the system sufficient for us to consider the question of contributions from part-time workers.
Richard Lyle, the cabinet secretary and the whole of the SNP Government constantly tell us that it will all be different when we get independence—that the Scottish Government will protect the workers in a way that is simply not possible while we are part of a UK structure. However, we will be left with the same share of the deficit and we will have to reduce it. Richard Lyle talks about other parties being irresponsible in calling for additional expenditure, but I regard it as irresponsible of the Scottish Government not to tell us what it would do if it had total power over its own pensions. That might even occur under the Scotland Bill.
We need to know what the Government is doing, as part of the process of moving towards a referendum to allow Scots to make a decision about independence, to consider how it can meet the aspirations that Richard Lyle clearly set out whereby, after independence, it will all be milk, honey, jam and the rest of it—I see that Richard Lyle is nodding—although for the first few years, at least, we will be in identical economic circumstances and we will have to pay our share of the deficit.
If we do not use the mechanism that we are considering, which I do not agree with, we must find another mechanism. What modelling has the Government undertaken in that regard? Will it publish its findings before the referendum, whatever date is chosen for it to occur?
Debates in committee such as this one can be slightly less hysterical than debates in the chamber. I commend Richard Simpson for how he introduced his speech and for some of the themes that he articulated.
I suppose that members assume—and that it is convenient to assume—that because I am a Conservative and a Conservative-led coalition Government at Westminster is dealing with the issues, I am charmed by and adopt with glee and excitement the policy of pension reform on which the Government at Westminster has embarked. That is not the case.
However, I do not accept the cabinet secretary’s assertion that we are having this debate entirely because of the division of responsibilities between Parliaments, and I do not accept that we are doing so entirely because the matter has been forced on us by the UK Government, as Richard Lyle suggested. We are having this discussion partly because the world into which everyone in this committee room will retire is very different from the world into which the two generations before us retired. People are living longer and the cost of pensions in Scotland and the United Kingdom, which has one of the most advanced pensions structures in Europe, is unsustainable. The reality of the demographics is that, whether the issue is tied to deficit reduction or any other issue, the current pensions model is unsustainable.
It is too easy for the Scottish Parliament, which does not have the ultimate responsibility for addressing the issues, to tease or window dress from a distance and to pretend that everything would be different if Scotland had control over such issues. There is a distinction between what Richard Lyle said and what the cabinet secretary said; the cabinet secretary was careful enough to say that things “might well” be different if we had control over the issues, which is not the same as saying that things absolutely would be different.
I welcome the cabinet secretary’s involvement in such discussions as the Government feels able to engage in, within the scope of its responsibilities, to negotiate an arrangement in Scotland. During our previous meeting it was difficult, ahead of those negotiations, to establish whether they will lead to anything specific. To some extent, we are having this debate slightly blind.
I understand that people will work longer, as will happen elsewhere. That might be the wrong policy at the wrong time, as some people suggest, but no one is saying what the right policy is or when the right time will be. Inflation is falling and the reality is that the contribution that people will make is increasing. However, the policy is ultimately redistributive, to some extent, in that people on lower earnings will receive a higher pension when they retire. That is a good thing.
Richard Simpson identified a number of issues. I understand the passion and commitment of people who have tied the issue up almost exclusively with deficit reduction—to some extent I, too, am uncomfortable with such language. However, Governments in power in Scotland, in the UK or in any country in Europe, whatever their colour or stripe, must wrestle with the same issues.
I accept that the physical nature of some of the work in the health service is such that expectations that might apply elsewhere might not apply to the health service. Such issues will be part and character of the discussions that take place. I, too, can say that I support the approach with a heavy heart, if that is the language of sympathy that we want to use—although I do not think that it is as honest as it needs to be. I oppose the motion, partly for the reasons that the cabinet secretary identified, but I understand the points that Richard Simpson made.
I understand and sympathise with much of the language that others have used, but I came into politics to be responsible. If we are charged with a responsibility, that means not always saying what people want to hear. There is an issue. It is easy to say that we dislike the solution that is being advanced, but it is much more difficult to articulate the alternative, and nobody is doing that.
After Jackson Carlaw’s comments, we must be clear again about why we are here today—we are here because of the threats and intransigence from the UK Government. The cabinet secretary has made it clear that, if we do not proceed with the regulations, £5 million a month will come out of the health budget alone and £8 million a month will come out of the Scottish Government’s budget. We must keep that clearly in focus.
The cabinet secretary referred to the recent letter from Danny Alexander about added interference in the Scottish Government’s negotiations, which she told us about when she appeared before the committee on 27 March. We must focus on that.
Drew Smith made two suggestions for avoiding implementing the regulations—he talked about using the £77 million surplus from the pension fund and the £175 million of efficiency savings that the health service is heroically making. The cabinet secretary dealt comprehensively with both those suggestions on 27 March. More important, the evidence from Scottish Public Pensions Agency officials knocked on the head the idea of using the surplus from the pension fund. It was made clear to us that we have no access to that surplus. Any surplus goes back to the Treasury, so the Scottish Government cannot use it. In the long term, a surplus from pensions should be reinvested in pensions to ensure that we have pensions for future demographics. Using the surplus is not an option that is available to us.
The cabinet secretary reiterated today her commitment and pledge to reinvest the £175 million of efficiency savings in front-line services. I would think that everybody on the committee and everybody who works in the health service would welcome and be pleased to hear that pledge. If taking £175 million out of the front line and using it for pensions is suggested, so that the efficiency savings are not reinvested in front-line services, we must ask what services would be affected and what jobs would be cut in the health service.
I agree absolutely with the health secretary when she says that she approaches the situation with no pleasure, with a heavy heart and with sympathy for all those who are involved in the health service. We heard all the arguments on 27 March, when we concluded that any choice that the Government has—Richard Simpson and Drew Smith implied that it has a choice—is Hobson’s choice: you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
I say with a heavy heart that I will not support the motion, because Scotland needs to protect our front-line health services. I do not understand why we are debating the issue when all the arguments were refuted in the evidence on 27 March.
I do not want to repeat anything that has been said and I will try to avoid doing that, except at the end of my contribution. I will try to concentrate on the reasons why we are here.
We are here because the Parliament is in a straitjacket. We are constrained in how we can react to matters, because of the Scotland Act 1998. It is rather ironic that the people who created that act, to which we need to march, were in the Labour Party, and the Labour Party has today brought Hobson’s choice to the table, even after having the explanation and the clear indication of how reluctant the Scottish Government is to act in the way that it must, according to the rules of engagement for the choices that we need to make.
10:30
The reality is that we are talking about a potential loss to the health service of £60 million per annum, which is equivalent to 2,000 nurses being sacked. Those are the figures that we are talking about but, again, Labour comes to the table with a smokescreen of a suggestion that we can use funds that we do not really have. If Labour brought something meaningful to the table, we would be brave enough to consider it, just as the old Labour Party was brave enough to make some tough choices. If Labour brought something to the table that we could look at, perhaps we could be persuaded by it and come to a different conclusion, but we have no choice in the matter. I cannot go along with the idea that we should be silly enough to stand back and allow Westminster to take money away from the Scottish budget.
I have a note of the cabinet secretary’s previous comments here. She has consistently said that she takes no pleasure in even discussing the matter. It is quite clear that she feels that way. I have no pleasure in talking about it, either. I find it reprehensible that the people who put the rules in place and have constrained us in this way are the people who have brought this motion to the table today.
The starting point for this discussion is clearly the gun that is being held at the Scottish Government’s head by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition at Westminster. To that extent, I think that there is agreement in the committee. The £2.8 billion of savings that are to be found across the public sector will be paid for by the people who work in the health service, to whom we all owe a huge debt of gratitude. That is the reality that we have to face in this discussion.
The fact that the increases in pension contributions will come out of the pockets of the people who work in the health service is something that concerns me and should concern us all. However, we also have to ask what the response of a responsible Government should be. It should be to protect low-paid workers as far as is possible within the constraints under which the Scottish Government operates. I believe that the Scottish Government has acted to do that. That is why it has put in place protection for the lowest paid to minimise the opt-outs from the schemes and, notwithstanding the perfectly reasonable point that Richard Simpson made, why no one in the NHS scheme in Scotland who earns below £26,500 full time will pay a penny more.
I accept that other members have concerns, and the purpose of our discussion this morning is to raise those concerns and have them addressed by the Government. That is perfectly reasonable, just as it is perfectly reasonable for Jackson Carlaw to make the point that we are facing a demographic shift in our society that will place a huge burden on future generations as we attempt to meet the costs of pension provision. However, the reality is that the Scottish Government is facing a clear choice. It could impact on front-line services by refusing to increase the pension contributions of public sector workers and workers in the health service. That is a price that I and others are not prepared to pay because, as Fiona McLeod said, it would take out of the health service £4.6 million every month, or £56 million over the financial year. That is simply not acceptable.
When examined, the Labour Party’s two suggestions, the first of which relates to efficiency savings and the second to the NHS pension surplus, are simply not credible. For a start, the surplus is not available to the Scottish Government; every penny of it has to go back to the Treasury. It is simply not the solution that Richard Simpson attempted to suggest it was.
I did not say that.
The cabinet secretary herself has adequately addressed the issue of efficiency savings. We cannot use the additional £175 million that was identified in 2011 both to address the pension issue and for investing in front-line services. If we used those savings to plug the pension gap, we would do so at the cost of front-line services. That point has not been adequately addressed by Labour members and I hope that Drew Smith will address it, and my point about the pension surplus, when he sums up.
This situation is not of the Scottish Government’s making but has been forced on us by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. The earliest opportunity that we will have to get rid of that coalition will be the 2014 referendum and I think that I speak for hundreds of thousands of people across Scotland when I say that I, for one, cannot wait for that opportunity to rid ourselves of that coalition not just for one election but for all time.
If no other member wishes to comment, I ask the cabinet secretary to make some closing remarks.
I thank all members for their comments.
People might not expect this, but I start by agreeing with Jackson Carlaw. It is the responsibility of all Governments, not just those in Scotland, to ensure that we have affordable, sustainable and fair pensions and the reality is that countries all over the world are facing up to the demographic changes that are taking place in society. We need to look at a variety of issues, including pensions and pension entitlements, and the fact is that no one can escape the longer-term challenge of ensuring that pension schemes are sustainable.
I do not think that anyone has mentioned this so far, but I should point out that a few years ago the NHS pension scheme was reformed to address certain longer-term sustainability issues. However, the fact is that, this morning, we are talking not about those longer-term challenges but about short-term increases in contributions that apply in this financial year. As members have pointed out this morning—and, indeed, as I said in the previous evidence session—the reality is that these short-term measures are more about deficit reduction than the sustainability of pensions.
I want to respond to a number of points that have been made. Richard Simpson asked—legitimately, I think—why, if we are prepared to negotiate for future years within a cost envelope, it has not been possible for us to do so for this year. We had high-level discussions with trade unions, but it was not possible to move this year to scheme-specific discussions that would have looked in detail at alternatives to these increases in contributions. That said, all the parties involved have agreed to do that in future. Notwithstanding my earlier comments about the Treasury’s latest position, I hope that we can have an open discussion on the matter and examine where we can do things differently to better meet the needs of Scotland’s workforce.
I want to address a question that I raised in my opening remarks: how, in these regulations, we can fill the gap in the NHS budget that will immediately arise. To be fair, I acknowledge that various people have made three broad suggestions to deal with that issue. The first relates to the fact that the NHS pension scheme is in surplus but, as Fiona McLeod among others pointed out and as we discussed at the previous evidence session, that surplus is not available to the Scottish Government. For as long as it might exist, it goes to the UK Treasury and is not something that we can rely on.
Secondly, we have had the all-encompassing efficiency savings. I direct this remark to Drew Smith and Richard Simpson in particular: they and other members of their party already routinely object to and protest about efficiency savings. I believe that it is important that the NHS is efficient, but I also believe that it is important that efficiency savings are reinvested into supporting front-line services. Therefore, I do not think that it is good enough to simply say that there would be a £5 million reduction every month in the health budget but it would be filled by efficiency savings.
The third proposal—in fairness to Richard Simpson, it was more specific—seemed to centre around certain entitlements that doctors have. I have done more than any previous health secretary to constrain and, indeed, start to reduce the budget for those entitlements. As members know, I am very keen to see long-term reform of that system. However, some of the entitlements are contractual—agreed under a contract that was negotiated by a previous Labour Administration, I hasten to add. They cannot simply be ripped up at will; longer-term reform takes time.
We come to the point that I will finish on, which is the point that I started on. If the motion to annul the regulations is passed, we will have a £5 million hole in the NHS budget every single month. Nobody who supports the motion has come up with credible suggestions about how we fill that hole.
I will not repeat everything that I said about the reluctance and heavy heart that I have in this discussion—you can take that as read by now. However, that is the position we are in. Until we are in a different position, in terms of powers of this Parliament, I am afraid that that is the reality we face. That is why I ask members to vote against Drew Smith’s motion.
I invite Drew Smith to wind up the debate and conclude by indicating whether he wishes to press or withdraw the motion.
I thank members for their perseverance and for taking part in a useful debate which was very different from those that we are perhaps more accustomed to in the chamber. There were a number of good contributions, particularly from Jackson Carlaw. Although I disagree with him on the wider scope of pensions policy, he made a number of good points in an extremely charming way—although he said that he did not want to be charming about it.
There was some discussion as to whether the cabinet secretary said in her initial remarks that things would be different or that things may be different if the Scottish Government had unfettered power in this area. Other committee members indicated that they believed that things would definitely be different. In creating the focus and providing the space to debate the regulations today, I sought to say to the Parliament that on such an important issue to NHS staff it is not good enough to say that things would be different in a different constitutional set-up. There are opportunities and the Scottish Government has powers. A choice may be difficult, but a choice it remains. A better argument to convince people of the case for a change in powers would be to demonstrate how powers have been used to help and support people.
There are a number of things about which I hope the cabinet secretary will keep in touch with the committee. From what has been said, it is not completely clear what has changed in Danny Alexander’s second letter. I appreciate that the finance secretary has written to seek further clarification on that, and I hope that the committee will be kept informed.
Richard Simpson has consistently raised the serious issue of half-time salaried staff paying a higher contribution rate than full-time staff. I hope that the Scottish Government will keep in contact with us about that as the negotiations progress. I obviously do not expect the Government to keep up a running commentary on negotiations, which, by their nature, have to take place in private.
Negotiations are taking place—the cabinet secretary has indicated that they have begun since she previously appeared before the committee. I hope that the negotiations on years 2 and 3 are taken seriously by all sides, that they are successful, and that we can have a more equitable solution to the pensions issue that takes account of some of the points that have been highlighted in the debate. On that basis, I am content not to press the motion to a vote today.
Drew Smith has indicated that he is not pressing the motion. Do members agree that the motion can be withdrawn?
Members indicated agreement.
Thank you very much to the cabinet secretary and her officials for attending this morning.
10:45
Meeting suspended.
10:47
On resuming—
National Health Service (Charges to Overseas Visitors) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2012 (SSI 2012/87)
We now move to agenda item 2, which is consideration of SSI 2012/87. Members have received a cover note that sets out the purpose of the instrument. The Subordinate Legislation Committee has not drawn the instrument to the Parliament’s attention.
Do members have any comments to make? No. Does the committee agree that it does not wish to make any recommendations on the instrument?
Members indicated agreement.