“Working together for Scotland: A Programme for Government”
Good morning. The first item of business is the debate on motion S1M-1609, in the name of Henry McLeish, on "Working together for Scotland: A Programme for Government".
There are now two amendments to the motion. The Conservative amendment came in rather late, but copies are available from the Scottish Parliament information centre at the back of the chamber. It is not in the business bulletin. It is an amendment to amendment S1M-1609.1 in the name of Mr Swinney and proposes to
"leave out from ‘and calls for' to end and insert ‘represented by and contained within the Working together for Scotland: A Programme for Government document.'"
The debate will end at midday to allow for a statement from the Lord Advocate on the Lockerbie trial.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I had hoped that your announcement on the Conservative amendment would be a change of mind on your part. Given the fact that the motion in the name of Henry McLeish is all-encompassing, I thought that the amendment that I submitted was in order. I would like some guidance on amendments.
I have given you guidance before. If you check the Official Report, you will see what I have said before on amendments. You are getting into a bad habit of raising a point of order whenever you do not get your own way and you should avoid that.
Presiding Officer, colleagues and members of the Scottish Parliament, earlier this week, Jim Wallace and I launched the Scottish Executive's second programme for government. I am delighted to review with members what "Working together for Scotland" is about. The Executive is happy to be accountable to Parliament and the Scottish people.
"Working together for Scotland" documents a solid record of achievement. It sets out what we have achieved and what we will achieve for the people of this country. It aims to deliver improved services for every person in Scotland. We want nothing less than prosperity and security for all—an inclusive Scotland that leaves no one behind.
Our commitments have been delivered and our promises kept. Seventy of the original commitments have already been achieved, 87 are still being progressed and we are on course to meet those commitments too.
By setting out its objectives and delivering on its promises, the Executive has made a real and practical difference for the people of Scotland. Let me illustrate how that has affected everyday lives.
We have delivered on justice through a new drugs strategy and by enacting new laws to replace outdated ones. We have delivered on health through a new health plan. We have delivered on education through the new teachers' pay arrangements. We have delivered on transport by funding the M74. We have delivered on social justice by ensuring that all pensioners will have central heating. We have delivered on the economy with record employment levels. We have delivered on environmental issues to ensure a sustainable future for the country. We have delivered on rural development by providing extra support for farmers and facilitating more local involvement in inshore fisheries management.
The document covers 14 subjects of public policy on which the first Scottish Government, working together with Westminster and the people of Scotland, will build a stronger and fairer nation. However, the document is more than a programme; it is a statement of our beliefs.
As we debate our programme, we reaffirm our commitment to a basic Scottish principle—social justice—as well as to my core aspirations that our Scotland will be a land of confidence, compassion and competitiveness. The coalition partnership is passionately committed to social justice. We will judge the decisions that we take and everything on which we spend money by that high principle. Social justice is our cause, our mission and our shared ambition. I hope that members also share that ambition.
That is why we are committed to expanding employment opportunity for all, to achieve the modern definition of full employment. That is why we want the highest standards in education, so that there is educational opportunity not for a few but for all. That is why we are committed to opening up the doors of enterprise, so that there is the opportunity to make the most of our businesses—and their creative and innovative talents—not for a few but for all.
That is why we are committed to abolishing child poverty, so that there is the best possible start in life for all children. What a scar it is on any nation for children to be living in poverty. Abolishing child poverty is one of the highest ideals that we have set for ourselves to deliver. That is why we are committed to the best public services, so that health care is open to all and depends not on the wealth that people have, but on the health care that they need. That is why we are committed to abolishing pensioner poverty, so that the elderly can enjoy a retirement with dignity.
The implementation of every policy will be judged according to the needs and demands of social justice. Today, I will focus on the new opportunities that we are opening up. They will not only form the basis of our programme for government, but be beacons of our aspirations for every part of Scotland.
Our clear commitment to social justice drives us to regenerate our communities and tackle the scar of poverty that for too long has blighted parts of our country.
Will the First Minister share with the Parliament the baseline against which he will judge his Government to have succeeded in lifting children out of poverty? Is that 1997-98 or 1996-97?
With the greatest respect to John Swinney, I must make it clear that we are outlining an aspiration this morning. We published a social justice strategy and the first social justice annual report. It is indicative of a party that has no policies that its leader wants to get into definition after definition. I want John Swinney to sign up to the commitments that we are making in the programme for government. That is a better way forward.
I asked the First Minister a simple question. The answer is material to whether the Government has succeeded or failed in tackling child poverty. Is 1996-97 or 1997-98 the baseline for the Government's performance on lifting children out of poverty?
We are interested in the facts. As part of our 10-year commitment, 70,000 children have already been lifted out of poverty. That is turning aspiration into action. The SNP can talk and talk about that, but, mercifully, it will never have the chance to implement anything in which it is involved.
The abolition of child poverty is a noble sentiment. I welcome the First Minister's aspiration to that. However, does he mean relative poverty or absolute poverty? There is a difference, of which I am sure that the First Minister is aware. I am interested in knowing which of the two he seeks to abolish.
That takes me back to my university days, when I did extensive research on that concept and studied the topology of poverty through the various ranges from absolute to relative. I do not want anyone to say that abolishing child poverty is a noble sentiment. The people who live in Easterhouse or Craigmillar do not want members to express noble sentiments. They want action. The Administration will act. I want Brian Monteith to agree to sign up to abolishing child poverty. Forget the noble sentiments. They do not feed anyone, house anyone or give anyone a job. Join us in our practical programme—
On a point of order.
I cannot choose to take a point of order, but I am happy to let Sir David deal with it.
Is there a point of order?
It is not a point of order, First Minister, but an intervention.
Does the First Minister agree that one of the Administration's honest failures between 1999 and 2001 has been its lack of delivery on the central heating package for Scotland's pensioners, which the First Minister mentioned? Does he accept that, to date, he has not delivered and that that is the problem? If, in the old days when he was a councillor, he had agreed to remove the capital receipt clawbacks, perhaps pensioners would have central heating now.
That is not the case. Tommy Sheridan will appreciate that we have made a commitment that starts in April 2001. An action programme involves costs and requires a time scale. I reassure Tommy Sheridan that the programme will get under way on the date that I mentioned.
Will the First Minister give way?
I am always interested in giving way. I cannot resist Margo MacDonald's invitation.
I cannot resist the First Minister either. However, I would like to give him the opportunity to withdraw his remark that noble sentiments never put bread on the table. Without the noble sentiments of our forebears, there would be bread, but many fewer tables than there are today.
Margo MacDonald might be off the list now. I am sure that she knows what point I am making. I have been in politics for a long time. Noble sentiments are wider global aspirations. Let us all unite around translating aspiration into action. That will be the guiding principle for us—that is important.
The First Minister made an important statement when he said that central heating would be available immediately. Does that mean that pensioners in Glasgow will get central heating immediately in April 2001, or is it dependent on the stock transfer balance?
The SNP is being ludicrous. We have made one of the boldest commitments on central heating for older people. The SNP has no policies on the matter. It is saying to me that if the measure is introduced on 1 April it should be completed by 2 April. The world outside takes a saner view of what we are doing than the SNP.
I want to move on to outline what the coalition is doing for Scotland. I made the point about communities and tackling poverty. Our principles demand that we do more and go further—we shall and we will. We will provide all council and housing association tenants, and pensioners in public and private housing, with warm, dry homes, through the installation, by 2006, of central heating and insulation. There will be free, local, off-peak travel for elderly and disabled people. We will work to ensure that, by 2003, no one has to sleep rough. Those are the significant parts of the strategy that we are developing. We are promoting social justice throughout Scotland. We are investing in our local communities and are determined to tackle poverty, exclusion and inequality.
We will build a new coalition—the Executive, the UK Government, local government, the Parliament, voluntary and community organisations—to meet the challenges that we face. We recognise that politicians cannot and should not claim to know every answer. Instead, as part of our partnership approach, we seek a coalition of views, perspectives and solutions based on our shared ambition to build stronger communities and our shared belief in a compassionate country.
These are the areas where we will build on the legacy left to us by Donald Dewar, the man who delivered the Parliament but for whom the Parliament belonged to the people of Scotland. He would expect nothing less of us than a commitment to move forward and to raise our sights to the challenges ahead, and to do so with a consistency of purpose and a certainty in our core value of social justice.
Looking to the future, "Working together for Scotland" does more than just report on the differences that we have already made. As we look forward together, we are forging a better future for this country. As part of our commitment to deliver real results for the people of Scotland, we have committed our goals to print.
"Working together for Scotland" sets tough new targets that we will have to meet and on which the public can, once again, judge our performance. The document crystallises our policy priorities; provides focus to our funding decisions; sets our strategy for government in Scotland; and directs the work of our officials so that everyone—ministers, Parliament, the media and the people of Scotland—is clear what we will deliver in the period ahead: an honest compact with the people whom all of us represent.
Will the First Minister give way?
I have a lot of territory to make up. The member knows that I like to bring people in, if there is time.
Here are some examples of our new commitments: we will protect rape victims from cross-examination by the accused; we will take forward a major review of all quangos; we will consult on the model of drug courts that meets Scotland's needs; we will increase computer equipment in Scottish schools and provide them with better broadband connections to the internet; and we will develop an alcohol misuse strategy. I have mentioned that we will provide central heating for pensioners and council and housing association tenants. We will protect the fares and the levels of service when we tender the services operated by Caledonian MacBrayne. In the rural areas of Scotland, we will give a commitment to work to secure a sustainable recovery strategy for depleted stocks of fish. Rhona Brankin and Ross Finnie are currently working on that.
We can go further forward than that to create a Scotland where, working together, we can achieve our shared ambitions of a stronger, fairer nation for the elderly, for hard-working families and for children—for future generations. It is that vision that drives us forward—a vision based on partnership.
"Working together for Scotland" encapsulates the effectiveness of the coalition Government of Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Our two parties, in partnership, are working together for this country. Our common commitment to work together for Scotland has delivered a successful partnership approach and stable government. We share a commitment to govern responsibly and well for the people of Scotland. I believe that that is a commitment that many on the SNP and Tory benches can support. Far too often in the chamber—and in politics as a whole—there are areas that we flag up as division, but there are also many areas around which we can unite for the people of this country.
I mentioned earlier our shared ambition to end child poverty. We must ensure that all children are given the best start in life. Our programme includes services targeted towards the very youngest in society, and we have already introduced sure start Scotland and ensured a free nursery place for all four-year-olds. Today, we go further, and we make a commitment to children and social justice so that, by 2002, we will ensure that all three-year-olds have free nursery places.
We will establish a new fund, which will bring together local authorities and health and voluntary services to build an integrated approach to services for children. We will reduce class sizes in primary 3 to 30 or less and increase the number of computers in schools. We will build on pilots of the educational maintenance allowances. That will be one of the biggest single ways of ensuring that young people from low-income backgrounds can get into higher and further education. We need their talent and we are doing something about it.
We are giving children's health the priority it deserves, for example, through direct action to improve young children's dental health and diet by providing fresh fruit in nursery schools and free toothbrushes and toothpaste to 100,000 children.
In an economy where knowledge is fast becoming the chief currency, there has never been a greater need for education. We have set ourselves exacting targets to improve Scotland's schools and we are beginning to achieve those.
We are committed to a quality of education that fulfils the potential of all our children. By April 2001, we will be supporting 62 new community school projects involving more than 400 schools. Above all, this is about ensuring that young people can achieve. We are proud of the fact that Scotland is rich in talent. The challenge for the Parliament and the Executive is to ensure that that talent comes to the fore and that every young person feels that they have a role in our society and a contribution to make—and that that is acknowledged by society.
We are investing to improve our school buildings through a comprehensive buildings strategy. We have secured a fundamental package of reform in teachers' pay and conditions—teachers deserve that. It is the first step to our tackling some outstanding education issues in this country.
On lifelong learning, 40,000 additional places are planned in further education and 2,800 in higher education. The abolition of tuition fees is linked to bursaries of up to £2,000 for students from low-income families: social justice, social justice, social justice. We are moving on individual learning accounts, from which 100,000 people will benefit. One of the key issues—it is worth while for SNP members to listen to this, because I am sure that they are interested in the issue—is literacy and numeracy. There is no point in seeking to provide opportunities at the highest level of the academic scale when so many people in Scotland do not function on basic numeracy and literacy issues. A confident Scotland means that everybody takes part in education. I am proud to say that we are spending nearly £23 million over the next three years to ensure that that happens. That will be firmly built on the back of our review of a careers service that will produce, for the first time, an all-age guidance service.
Scotland's economy is vital, which is why we have launched the small business gateway. It is why we are supporting 180 high-growth start-ups and why we have fundamentally reviewed Scottish tourism and it is making progress. It is why we have introduced a manufacturing strategy and why we will introduce a financial services strategy. We are working with Scotland and working with the careers service to ensure that we fulfil the potential that undoubtedly exists.
We want to ensure that we commercially exploit the innovation that exists in our country. That involves driving forward the e-revolution and ensuring that there is universal access to the internet by 2005. Ours is a modern economy, which recognises e-business and the e-revolution but looks forward to every business and every member of the Parliament being committed to a much more ambitious plan than we already have.
Scotland's health is crucial, which is why we have prepared a health plan. There are now more than 200 one-stop clinics, which are operated by the national health service in Scotland to provide speedy consultation, tests, results, diagnosis and, if appropriate, treatment, all in a single visit. The health service in Scotland is redesigning services around the patient. The care of our older people lies at the heart of our programme for government. An expert group is soon to be set up to produce proposals for free personal care and its costs and implications, for the Executive and the Parliament to consider. We are systematically tackling smoking, poor diet, homelessness, poverty, poor mental health, and drug and alcohol misuse. Those are all issues that underpin the difficulties that we face and the challenges that we are embracing.
The war against drugs must be stepped up. In every community, the war on drugs is about doing more to protect our young people. We will tackle the consequences of drug abuse and the reasons behind such behaviour. In our first two years, we have set up the Scottish Drugs Enforcement Agency; already, 89 per cent of schools provide a programme of drug education for every pupil. However, that is not good enough. By next year, we will raise to 100 per cent the percentage of schools covered by drug education. We want to take further steps, from dealers right through to effective treatment and rehab for those who are involved.
I have already mentioned the central heating initiative and free off-peak travel for Scotland's elderly. We recognise the needs and rights of older people. Let me make a further, more ambitious point. People in Scotland, in this Parliament and in the Government are now waking up to the fact that, in the future, as our demography changes, the needs of our older community will have a place at the highest point of the political agenda, and rightly so. That is one of the benefits of the past few months' discussions.
We want to make Scotland safer. That is why we are ensuring that there are more constables on the beat, more security in our town centres and greater enforcement against drug dealers. All in all, we want a safer Scotland. There are myriad other priorities, including sustainable Scotland, raising standards in health and education, promoting health and ensuring that transport, which is integral to the needs of the business community, is developed further.
Underpinning all that is the Scottish economy. Let us celebrate the state of our economy, as one of Scotland's national newspapers did a week ago, although the SNP reacted by writing to the newspaper asking how it dared to celebrate the fact that Scotland's economy is doing so well. We value and trust Scots and want Scotland to succeed. What would be the situation under an SNP Government? The SNP does not believe in Scotland and is willing to write letters saying, "You can't have it so good, you know." That is the point about the economy. Unemployment is at its lowest rate since 1976, employment is at its highest for 40 years, youth unemployment is down by 70 per cent and long-term unemployment is down by 40 per cent. Facts speak solidly about economic achievement.
We want further growth in the Scottish economy. We can achieve that and we can work in partnership with the business community, but let us not forget for a minute the real achievements. Sound public finances and low inflation have led to the changes that have happened. The partnership with Westminster does a lot of very positive good for this country.
We want to create a competitive, compassionate, confident country. I repeat that our programme caters for all our communities and for everyone. It is delivering improved services for children, for the elderly and for everyone in between. In fulfilling many important functions of government in Scotland, the Executive is working together. Through our actions in government, the coalition is demonstrating that the Parliament is coming of age. There is no dispute. The Executive is delivering a Scottish Government for Scottish needs and we look forward to the challenges that lie ahead.
I move,
That the Parliament endorses the contents of Working together for Scotland: A Programme for Government.
Members who would like to take part in the debate should press their request-to-speak buttons. I particularly want to see whether the latecomers intend to catch my eye. I call Mr John Swinney.
I have thought many things of the First Minister over the years in which we have debated, but until he uttered the words, "Scotland's never had it so good," I had never compared him to Harold Macmillan at any stage in his political life.
I am glad that we have the opportunity to debate some vital issues. The document that was published on Monday is a very worthy document. It is a great improvement in design and shape on last year's document. I am sure that the new document will fit into the Deputy First Minister's briefcase when he is going back to Kirkwall every week. Last year's document was described as a helpful replacement for an umbrella if one forgot to bring one when coming to the chamber from the Parliament headquarters. The new document is rather different and a little bit more bijou, as one might say.
On Monday, when I saw the design of the document and noticed that it was spiral bound, I thought that it must be structured in such a way that last-minute changes can be inserted into the document. I am sure that it is quite common in the commercial sector to use spiral bindings so that last-minute issues can be incorporated. I expected that the spiral binding was required so that the document could give due prominence to the Executive's last-minute commitment to the funding of the personal care costs of all elderly people in Scotland. I searched and searched through the document, but I could not see the commitment that was given in such clear terms by the First Minister at his news conference on Monday.
Maybe Mr Rumbles has the alternative pages in his briefcase in Kincardineshire.
Am I right in thinking that Mr Swinney is now welcoming the announcement that was made on Thursday rather than rubbishing it as he did at the time, which was a huge disappointment to the elderly?
On Thursday, I took a view very similar to the one taken by Mr Keith Raffan, who, unless I am mistaken, is still a member of the Liberal Democrats and whose services were terminated by the Deputy First Minister on Friday evening. If Mr Rumbles has not watched Monday evening's television bulletins, let me tell him, for the avoidance of any doubt, that I said that I welcome the commitment given by the First Minister on Monday. It was an absolutely cast-iron, irrevocable commitment to fund fully all the personal care costs of elderly people in Scotland, as set out in the Sutherland report. I did not give such a welcome last Thursday because, like Mr Raffan, I was a bit concerned about the way in which the weasel words were being used. I have not exactly seen the Minister for Health and Community Care rushing into print to reinforce the definition that came out of the First Minister's statement. I have no idea why the First Minister is pointing at his copy of the programme for government. He must like the design very much.
The document contains a number of worthy initiatives that the SNP will support if they are of benefit to the people of Scotland. However, just as happened in the debate on personal care costs for the elderly, there have been great expectations about the new document. It is the second programme for government since the Scottish Parliament elections and our expectations have been undeniably raised by the First Minister, by the Executive and by the people who speak on behalf of the First Minister to the media.
Presiding Officer, I intend to quote from some newspaper reports. I hope that I do not offend any parliamentary rules by the language that I am about to use, but I am sure that you will correct me if I am out of order. [Members: "Oh."] Yes, it is going to be that bad.
On 29 October 2000, it was reported in the Sunday Herald that the purpose of the policy review that the First Minister had launched was to "dump the crap". It went on to say that the review would
"weed out politically correct but electorally unpopular items".
I was struck by some remarks made by David Whitton in his column in the Daily Record the other day. He wrote:
"When it was announced the review was to be carried out one unnamed source unwisely said they were going to ‘dump the crap'. They seem to have discovered there was not a lot of ‘crap' to flush away."
I wonder where the First Minister was when he was formulating the programme for government, which is markedly similar if not almost identical to the programme that was launched almost 18 months ago. If he felt that the new programme was going to be so similar to the previous one, why did not he act to rebut the remarks made in the press at the time of his appointment and the launch of his policy review? Questions remain as to where the policy programme has come from.
If the First Minister would like some advice about any inappropriate, useless, pathetic policies that need to be dumped, I am sure that my colleague Mr Crawford will be able to give him advice on dumping his trunk road contract policy. If he dumped that policy, he might manage to endear himself to many more of the back benchers who summoned the strength to support him in the Labour leadership election. Everybody knows that the trunk road policy pursued by his Minister for Transport is not only deeply unpopular on the Labour back benches, but deeply unpopular among Scottish local authorities and the workers who are involved in those areas of business.
This debate is an exercise in testing how this programme for government measures up against the expectations of the people of Scotland, and in gauging the ability of the people of Scotland to understand what the Executive is actually talking about. One of the interesting new commitments in the document—
There are not many of them.
I agree with Mr Russell that there are not very many. Nevertheless, there is a commitment to restore confidence in the exam system in Scotland. That is something that the SNP very much supports, but it is a curious policy commitment. It is curious—an invention in the policy programme—that the Government feels that it must restore confidence in an exam system that it was party to creating in the first place. Here we have a Government that is saying that all its new commitments—all the things that it says it is going to do—are about making up for the damage that has been inflicted on Scotland's examination system. It is a Government strategy designed to paper over the failure that the Government is responsible for delivering.
I note that the commitment to restore confidence in the programme for government does not use the type of language that the First Minister previously used to give a definitive, personal commitment on the subject. On 13 December, the First Minister told Parliament:
"Just to ease John Swinney's dilemma, let me repeat for the chamber and for the country that the chaos that occurred in the summer must never happen again."—
Oh.
We have not finished yet. He continued:
"I will put it on record: it will not happen again."—[Official Report, 13 December 2000; Vol 9, c 859.]
I believe that people in Scotland would have a bit more confidence in the programme for government if the First Minister used language like that and gave clear, definitive commitments in it, rather than the weasel words that we are so accustomed to getting from this Government.
There is also a curious new definition of the word "failure". For most of the world, failure is something that happens when someone has not achieved something that they said they would do. For Labour and the Liberal Democrats in the Scottish Executive, failure has been redefined: it means "on track". In the first programme for government, published in September 1999, the Government said:
"by June 2000 . . . We will increase by up to 200 the number of police officers working against drugs".
In the second programme for government, in the section "Reporting on Our Achievements", the Government says that that commitment, on the attack on drugs, is
"On track Funding for 100 additional officers . . . in 2000-01."
There we have it: a commitment to 200 drugs officers by June 2000 has become a commitment to 100 police officers. Labour and the Liberal Democrats are letting down the people of Scotland by providing 100 fewer drug enforcement officers in the police service than they promised in the first place. Indeed, the commitment is now so on track that its achievements has been delayed until 2003-04.
If the First Minister wants to intervene, he is very welcome to do so.
I am happy to intervene to make the point that we have had from the SNP, as usual, a kind of ragbag of issues. I submit to John Swinney that his is a party that has no policies and is now dredging around for issues to discuss. I pose the same question that Mike Rumbles posed. Last week, the faces of the whole SNP visibly drained of blood when we approved the amendment. Nicola Sturgeon said that it was disgraceful. Will John Swinney tell the Parliament and the people of Scotland this: is he now fully signed up to the policies that we are pursuing on older people?
Well—
Answer.
Mr Rumbles has had a lot of excitement in the past few weeks trying to get the Executive to do what he wants. He should calm down. I will deal with his point later.
I will answer the First Minister's question directly, but first, let me say that I noticed that when I made the point about the Government delivering 100 fewer drug enforcement officers than it had promised, the First Minister did not intervene to correct me. I assume therefore that I am correct on that point and that the First Minister is wrong.
I have dealt with the first policy commitment, but I still have another one—[Interruption.]
Order.
The other policy commitment is on long-term care of the elderly. I was clear in what I said in my earlier response to Mr Rumbles. We very much welcome what the First Minister said on Monday on his commitment to pay for the personal care costs of all elderly people in Scotland, as defined and envisaged in the Sutherland report. I am delighted to give my commitment to that today.
If the First Minister wants to intervene again, of course he may.
The fact that I did not refer to the drugs issue is because there is a problem with either John Swinney's or his party's ability to read a document. Section 3.3 of the programme for government says on drugs:
"We will increase by up to 200 the number of police officers working against drugs in our communities . . . On track Funding for"—
the first—
"100 additional officers in forces provided in 2000-01."
What does John Swinney contest? The commitment to 200 is there; 100 are already being delivered. The next 100 will come over the next two years. What point is the SNP trying to make?
The point that I am trying to make is this. I held on to last year's programme for government. It has been a convenient umbrella, but it is also a convenient piece of political ammunition today. Page 4 states:
"by June 2000 . . . We will increase by up to 200 the number of police officers working against drugs in our communities."
The Executive has delivered only 100, so it has failed to deliver 100 of the officers it promised last year. The Administration had better have a decent explanation on the war against drugs by the summing-up of this debate.
I am beginning to run out of time, so I will speed up. Earlier, I asked the First Minister about the baseline figure for relieving child poverty in Scotland. It was quite clear from the hurried discussions that no one on the front bench knew the answer—I thought that the civil servants at the back might have been able to hand down a wee note to clarify the position. The Government has said that it is committed to lifting children out of poverty. The section "Reporting on Our Achievements" in this year's programme for government says:
"We will work in partnership with the UK Government to tackle child poverty and raise over 60,000 children out of poverty in Scotland by 2002 . . . On track".
The 1999 document "Social Justice . . . Scotland where everyone matters: Milestone sources and definitions", the Government says that the baseline year for measuring the reduction in child poverty is 1997-98. The most recently published figures, in the "Social Justice Annual Report 2000", show that 30 per cent of children were in poverty in 1997-98, and that 30 per cent are still in poverty now. The number of children in the poorest category has increased from 21 per cent to 23 per cent over the same time. That is 20,000 more children.
We are interested in exposing the rhetoric of the Government, which is telling people in Scotland one thing on the one hand, when the reality on the other hand is markedly different. It is the duty of an Opposition to point out to the Government the areas where it is failing to deliver on the expectations of the people of Scotland.
Will the member take an intervention?
I would have been happy to take an intervention, but I have 40 seconds left and the Presiding Officer will prevent me from accepting any more interventions.
I see Mr MacKay sitting there, talking about policies from a sedentary position. Let us talk about policies. Let us talk about the SNP's policies on—[Interruption.]
Order. Members in the chamber must quieten down. The member is on his last minute, which is why he did not take the intervention, and he was quite right.
Perhaps some more respect for the Presiding Officer from the Labour benches would be beneficial.
Mr MacKay has been sitting, shouting about policies from a sedentary position. Let me tell him a few things about policies. Drugs courts: they were rubbished by Labour in 1999; they are now Labour policy. They were SNP policy in 1999. A department of external affairs: the idea was rubbished by Labour in 1999, proposed by the SNP and is now Labour policy. Reform of the local enterprise company network: rubbished by Labour in 1999; proposed by the SNP; introduced by Labour. Abolition of Scottish Homes: rubbished by Labour in 1999; proposed by the SNP; introduced by Labour. Reform of the inspectorate of schools: proposed by the SNP; rubbished by Labour; now it is Labour policy.
Over the past 10 days, on a multiplicity of issues—health, the future generations fund, Scotland's trust for public investment, tackling yob culture and wiring Scotland up for the 21st century—the SNP has set out its new, imaginative ideas to take Scotland forward. It is high time that the Executive listened more to us and implemented our policies. Scotland would be the better for it.
I move amendment S1M-1609.1, to leave out from "endorses" to end and insert:
"condemns the use of valuable Parliamentary time and public resources for an exercise in spin and calls for the Parliament to take on the powers of a normal Parliament which would enable it to use all of the resources of Scotland to address the social and economic priorities determined by the people of Scotland."
In Hollywood, a sequel is usually an attempt to cash in on the success of the original film. Notwithstanding the fact that the first "Programme for Government" was a resounding box-office flop, the Scottish Executive, in a triumph of hope over experience, keeps on producing one disaster movie after another.
That begs the question as to why we are debating an even glossier brochure today than we did last year. This account of the year that is awa is highly partisan and unbalanced, and a wish list of the things that the Executive hopes to achieve at some point in the future—all produced at taxpayers' expense. Before offering us more pledges, it would have been better if the Executive had fulfilled some of its original election pledges and addressed some of its failures.
A more honest assessment of the past year from an Executive that likes to boast of its commitment to openness would have been appreciated. Instead, the failures have been snowpaked out as the Executive affects some kind of collective amnesia, tries to kid us all and produces yet another five-year—or longer—plan stretching into the distance. Frankly, this is not so much a Government as a politburo.
Where in the new document is the Executive's commitment to cut national health service waiting lists? In 1997, that was one of Labour's five election pledges, but it has been expunged from the history books faster than a deposed dictator in the Soviet Union. The reason for that is simple. Labour has failed on health, and by its own criteria. Today, there are 2,000 more patients waiting for NHS treatment than there were when Labour came to power in May 1997.
Having failed to meet that pledge, in true new Labour style the Executive shifted the goalposts and tried to make out that waiting times were more important than waiting lists. That pledge has not been met either, because the number of patients waiting for more than 12 months has increased dramatically over the past four years. A new survey recently highlighted the appalling state of our accident and emergency departments, where some patients wait up to five hours for treatment.
Labour introduced tuition fees after the previous general election, but rather curiously the Scottish Executive proudly boasts—
We have abolished tuition fees.
Wait for it, Mr Rumbles. The Scottish Executive proudly boasts in its programme for government that it has now abandoned the policy that was introduced by the dominant party in the coalition; it has done nothing of the kind. As I said yesterday, the graduate endowment is a tax by any other name. All students will still have to pay, on graduation, £2,000 for their education.
I will finish the point. Strangely, there is no mention of the graduate endowment anywhere in the programme for government, presumably because the Liberal Democrat party does not want its betrayal of our young people to be put on public record.
The point is simple: could the member tell the chamber how many students are paying the £3,075 tuition fee? Will he confirm that the Scottish Executive is paying the fee to the universities?
A significant number of Scottish students at universities elsewhere in the United Kingdom are still paying tuition fees—in clear breach of the undertaking in the Liberal Democrat manifesto, Mr Rumbles. Many more generations of students will pay £2,000 a year for their education—in clear breach of the commitment in the Liberal Democrat manifesto. Let us have less of the sophistry on tuition fees and get down to the reality of who is paying because the Liberal Democrat party cannot keep its word.
To cap it all, the Executive presided over the breakdown of the examination system, doing untold damage to its reputation and causing severe anxiety and stress to many young people and their families.
As Mr Swinney rightly highlighted, law and order has been another Executive failure. Crime is rising in Scotland—especially violent crime—yet there are fewer police officers today than when Labour came to power and the Executive has closed, or is in the process of closing, four prisons.
The flagship Transport (Scotland) Bill is also sinking fast. The plan to enable local authorities to introduce a toll tax on those travelling into our cities has already come under fire from Labour and SNP councillors in West Lothian, who have denounced the idea on behalf of commuters from that region who come into Edinburgh for work or other purposes. I predict that it will not be long before Midlothian, East Lothian—and the kingdom of Fife, First Minister—are equally up in arms over this. It is ironic that the protesting councillors are from the parties that forced the vindictive stealth tax through Parliament at the end of last year.
Instead of sticking to the failed policies and empty rhetoric that have marked the Executive from the start, the First Minister should have used the new programme for government as an opportunity for a fresh start. The first step towards winning back public confidence must be to tackle the waste of taxpayers' money that has been the hallmark of the Executive and has led to so much disillusionment with the Parliament.
The most glaring example of profligacy has been the building of the new Parliament at Holyrood. The financial mismanagement that has characterised the project beggars belief and has done more than anything else to undermine public confidence in the Parliament. The fact that the price tag has gone from £40 million to more than £200 million is nothing short of a national scandal.
I will be with you in a second, Margo.
Sir Stewart Sutherland indicated in a letter to The Scotsman the other day that the additional cost of implementing his report in full was £25 million. The growth in the cost of the Parliament building would have funded that for more than six years. People in this country think that that waste of money is appalling and should be condemned.
Sorry George, I invited Margo to intervene first.
Does the leader of the Conservatives agree that it would have shown good sense, good management and a good programme for government if the First Minister had said that he was going to advise the people who are going to spend a fortune on duplicating the efforts of the director of the National Galleries of Scotland, whom we are already paying to tell us what art we have that might enhance the new Parliament building?
I could not agree more with Ms MacDonald. As usual, she talks a remarkable amount of common sense from her position on the back benches. Would that the rest of the SNP did the same on more occasions.
The size of the Government in Scotland has also exploded, but although we have more government in Scotland it certainly is not better government: 22 ministers now do the job that was done by seven under the Conservatives. That only increases the public perception that politicians are more concerned with their own self-interest than with the interests of ordinary people. It is odd that even when Mr McLeish tries to do the right thing, he ends up getting it wrong. For example, no sooner had he announced a bonfire of Scotland's 187 quangos than Wendy Alexander announced the creation of another 20.
They are local economic forums.
Yes, local economic forums.
I hope that the review will prove a serious exercise, although it would be better if the Executive set an example by cutting its Administration down to size.
The financial profligacy that has led to public disillusion with the Parliament has been compounded by the increasing perception that the Executive and the First Minister lack direction on many crucial issues. That has been reinforced over the past week by the way the First Minister dealt with the implementation of the Sutherland commission recommendation on personal care. On an issue of clear principle, the response of the minister and the Executive has been one of spin and counter-spin, a nod here and a wink there—that is no way to run what the First Minister would like to call a Government. That sums up the approach of the Executive under the First Minister.
Let me make it clear that the Conservative party supports in principle the Sutherland recommendation on free personal care. It was one of the first parties to do that in parliamentary debate.
Sorry, Margaret.
We support the recommendation not only on the grounds of fairness and equity, but for another very good reason, which Sir Stewart Sutherland points out in his admirable report. It states:
"From the point of view of efficiency we consider that the extension of universality, through the collective approach entailed by the proposal, is the most efficient way of covering the risks of having to meet long-term care costs."
It goes on to say:
"The new certainty conveyed by this proposal as to the nature of future state provision could also enable the insurance industry to develop new financial products to cover the areas of individual responsibility."
Here is a great opportunity for the Scottish financial services sector to develop new and innovative products to meet a new demand. I suggest to the Executive that if it is serious about Sutherland it should pursue discussions with the industry on the matter as part of the development programme and review that is being undertaken.
I seek some clarity. The SNP now grudgingly supports what happened last Thursday. Does David McLetchie mean that the Tories now accept in principle what happened last week, subject only to the further privatisation of private personal health care?
Sorry?
Let us be quite clear: if we are talking about free personal care, are the Tories now qualifying their position by saying that the private sector should get involved in the costs?
I am afraid that the First Minister does not understand the Sutherland report, although that is not surprising, given his confusion about it.
The Sutherland commission recommendation related to nursing and personal care. There was no recommendation that the state should pick up the tab for all accommodation, hotel and residential costs. The Sutherland report also suggested that if the state took collective responsibility for nursing and personal care costs—which are highly unpredictable and difficult to underwrite—the financial services industry could develop a wider range of products to enable people to protect their assets and generate streams of income which would pay for the residential element of the costs that still have to be borne. I hope that that explanation clarifies the matter and that the Executive will implement the recommendation, which is important as accommodation forms a substantial part of overall care costs.
You are on your last minute, Mr McLetchie.
I am glad that we clarified that point on Sutherland.
We need a First Minister and an Executive with a genuine vision for a modern Scotland that delivers a dynamic economy and first-class public services. We do not have that yet. Nothing that the First Minister has said or done and nothing in the programme for government gives us any ground for optimism on that score. In the past 100 or so days, the First Minister has shown that he is not up to the job and that he leads a divided Executive and a ramshackle coalition that is not fit to run the Parliament any more. No doubt it will hirple on to the next election; however, the writing is on the wall for the Administration and I have no doubt that a damning interim verdict on it will shortly be delivered.
I move amendment S1M-1609.1.1 to amendment S1M-1609.1, to leave out from "and calls for" to end and insert:
"represented by and contained within the Working together for Scotland: A Programme for Government document."
I am happy to speak for the Liberal Democrats in support of the First Minister's motion S1M-1609, which asks Parliament to endorse the document "Working together for Scotland: A Programme for Government".
There can be no doubt that, in the coalition with our Labour colleagues, the Liberal Democrats have had a big impact on the government of Scotland. Indeed, our participation in the coalition Government means that for the first time in many years Liberal Democrat policies are being adopted in Scotland. As both Henry McLeish and Jim Wallace point out in the foreword to the document, this is a progressive programme
"forging a confident, competitive and compassionate Scotland".
On the subject of making progress, does Mr Rumbles believe that the programme for government sets out enough progress on the issue of introducing proportional representation for local government, although that is not actually mentioned in the document?
Mr Swinney must try much harder than that. He has obviously not read the document. The issue that he mentions is in there in black and white. I am surprised at the leader of the Opposition.
There is an obvious determination to deliver effective public services. The Government of Scotland is investing more in our health service. Our children will benefit from a better education service with rising standards of attainment and enhanced school facilities—for example, we have only to remember McCrone. Furthermore, there will be more police on our streets, which will make our country safer and our people feel safer.
I will examine in some detail sections of the programme that are particularly important to both the Liberal Democrats and the people of Scotland. First, the Scottish Executive's new health plan has formally switched health service priorities from the policy of tackling the length of waiting lists—it is particularly important that David McLetchie listens to this point—to a new focus on reducing waiting times for patients. It is blindingly obvious that what matters to patients is how long they have to wait, not the number of other people on the waiting list. Furthermore, the Executive has adopted the Liberal Democrat manifesto commitment of maximum waiting times.
Is Mr Rumbles saying that his Labour colleagues—whose virtues he has been extolling for the past couple of minutes—were wrong to focus on the issue of health service waiting lists?
The Labour Government in Westminster set those targets. The new Government of Scotland is a partnership between the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats. The Opposition parties seem to misunderstand the whole idea behind coalition politics; they need to get used to it.
The Executive's health plan includes more nurses; maximum waiting times; and reduced—
Will the member illustrate his point about the operation of coalition government with reference to last Thursday's events? Is the idea behind coalition government to take the Executive to the brink of defeat, or is it operating well in some other way? I think that we should be told.
Mr Russell's intervention sounds like the response of someone jilted at the altar. It is scurrilous of the SNP and the Tories—particularly the SNP—to pretend that they are interested in free personal care for the elderly. Anyone who was in the chamber last Thursday when the Minister for Parliament made his announcement could see how the SNP members could not bring themselves to welcome it.
Will the member give way?
Not at the moment—the member should try later on.
In a further move, the Executive has announced proposals to allow general practitioners to prescribe all nicotine replacement therapies. That meets a Liberal Democrat commitment for more resources to be devoted to health promotion, including addressing tobacco abuse, and follows the launch of a £26 million fund in the summer to promote good health and reduce illness.
At this point I was going to comment on last Thursday's events, but I think that enough has been said about that.
The Minister for Justice, Jim Wallace, is providing £8.9 million of direct funding to increase police numbers by up to 300 officers with the aim of reaching a figure that is an all-time high by next year. Furthermore, the Executive has delivered the Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc (Scotland) Act 2000, and we now await the nominated day for total abolition.
The programme for government sets out a number of initiatives, such as the introduction of a bill to reform family law, support for organisations that provide advice to families and individuals and the provision of free criminal record checks for volunteers working with children. That move is particularly welcomed by many voluntary organisations. The Liberal Democrats also look forward to the publication of the draft land reform bill to secure a right of community purchase, a crofting community right to buy and a right of responsible access to our countryside.
One other promise that must be highlighted—and on which Jim Wallace must be congratulated—is the commitment to introduce a much-needed independent element into the police complaints procedure and to issue a consultation paper on the subject in the spring.
Does Mr Rumbles disagree with the Executive on anything?
Do not tempt me. [Laughter.] I fully support the programme for government. Of course, I would have liked a few more things in it.
One of the social justice programme's main commitments is the decision to provide all council and housing association tenants, and all pensioners in both public and private housing, with warm and dry homes through the installation of central heating and insulation by 2006.
Will the pensioners who live in the seven local authority areas where stock transfer is proposed be able to receive central heating as of April 2001, or will they have to wait until after the stock transfer? Is the £350 million announced tied up with stock transfer, or is it available separately?
The document makes it clear that all pensioners will get central heating in a rolling programme to 2006. That major initiative should be welcomed by all parties. I am surprised that the SNP keeps carping about these good initiatives.
The programme for government is not about only what is to come; it highlights the achievements of the coalition Government in Scotland. I take pleasure in mentioning one of those achievements. Tuition fees have been abolished for full-time Scottish students who are studying at Scottish universities. That was a major Liberal Democrat pledge before the election, and it has been delivered by the coalition. Despite all the muddying of the water by the SNP and the Tories, and despite their attempts to worry and mislead people—we saw similarly scurrilous behaviour last Thursday, over the issue of personal care for the elderly—the simple fact is that no full-time students at our universities pay tuition fees. Although the Tories and the SNP may not understand that, our young people do. Last week, it was announced that applications to Scottish universities had risen by almost 10 per cent. Clearly, our students know that they do not have to pay tuition fees because the £3,075 is paid in full by the Scottish Executive.
As the Liberal Democrat spokesman on rural development, I shall highlight the achievements of the Minister for Rural Development in delivering for rural Scotland. The Liberal Democrats have a real interest in the sustainable development of rural Scotland, large swathes of which we represent: 10 of the 12 Liberal Democrat first-past-the-post constituencies are rural.
Will Mike Rumbles give way?
I have already given way to Fiona Hyslop.
It is worth noting that the Minister for Rural Development is a Liberal Democrat with a strong voice in the Cabinet—actually, a strong voice anywhere.
We have delivered extra support for farmers that is worth more than £150 million. We have passed the Salmon Conservation (Scotland) Bill, which was a much-needed measure to conserve wild salmon in the freshwater phase of their lives, although that bill was unfortunately—and inexplicably—opposed by the Conservatives. Most important, we have introduced an independent appeal mechanism for farmers when they are dealing with European Union payments. With a rural affairs department in the Scottish Executive, rural issues are high on the political agenda in Scotland—and rightly so.
Before I conclude, I shall mention the National Parks (Scotland) Act 2000—an enabling act that was designed to clear the way for the establishment of national parks in Scotland. We will soon have the Loch Lomond national park and, in my constituency, the Cairngorm national park. That is a major achievement of the coalition Government, although it is not highlighted in the environment section of the programme for government—l hope that the Executive is not hiding its light under a bushel. Twenty per cent of the management board of a national park will be comprised of directly elected local people. That is a genuine involvement of local people and must be a good move. I heartily welcome it.
Will Mike Rumbles give way?
Okay.
No. Mr Rumbles is on his last minute.
Sorry.
We have much to be cheerful about. The second programme for government—"Working together for Scotland"—contains many Liberal Democrat measures, as well as those proposed by our Labour colleagues in the coalition. Working together, the Liberal Democrats and the Labour party are delivering for Scotland. I urge the Parliament to endorse the programme for government, by voting for motion S1M-1609 in Henry McLeish's name and ignoring the rather disappointing amendments.
We now come to the open debate. If members stick to the four-minute limit, all those who have requested to speak should be able to do so.
The speeches that we have heard—especially the First Minister's—show clearly what is on offer from the coalition and what the consequences would be without it. What was inherited by the Labour Government in 1997, and subsequently by the Scottish Parliament, were crumbling public services, Victorian hospitals, rundown schools and a fragmented transport system. However, over the past three and a half years we have made slow but sure progress in tackling years of neglect.
Does Hugh Henry also recognise that the Government inherited shorter NHS waiting lists than exist now?
I recognise that we have invested a record amount in the health service to tackle both the problems that the Tories left behind and some of the accounting manoeuvres that the health service had to cope with, which we are being told about locally.
We know that the public are, quite rightly, impatient for change, and we want progress as a result of our record investment in the health service. Much remains to be done. The Minister for Health and Community Care has heard from me—and from many of my colleagues—that we want results. However, we also heard David McLetchie allude to the Tory alternative: private health care, privatisation and the removal of the health service from public control. The Tories are offering cuts in services; we are offering investment in services.
We also welcome the massive investment that has been made in education. In my constituency, not only has every four-year-old been given a pre-five place, but there has been steady progress to ensure that every three-year old will have a place. New pre-five centres have opened in Johnstone, Glenburn and Foxbar and across the south end of Paisley—something that would never have happened if the Conservatives had been returned to office. Classroom assistants have also been introduced. In every primary school that I have visited in my constituency, the teachers speak with pride about the introduction of classroom assistants and the difference that they are making to education in those schools. Notwithstanding the fact that some teachers have concerns about what has been achieved under the McCrone settlement, I look forward to progress on the back of that.
The M74 would not have been offered for completion if the Conservatives had been returned, and there have been record levels of investment in local government. When I was a council leader in 1996-97, I would have given my right arm for the kind of settlement that local government has received this year.
Will Hugh Henry give way?
Will Hugh Henry give way?
I have only a minute left.
There has been progress, but what happens when Labour makes progress? The SNP cries, "It is not enough. It is not happening soon enough." What does the SNP have to offer? It has aims but few commitments. It will abolish quangos, but will establish conventions and trusts. When it makes commitments, it simply echoes what has already been done and tries to claim the credit. When it promises legislation, it is to ensure that all Scottish universities have an elected rector. Most important, the SNP proposes to introduce a Scottishness vetting for all college and university teachers. I invite SNP members to look at their website information from 1998. It talks of
"an appointments policy that gives due weight to an informed enthusiasm for Scotland's history and culture"—
in other words, Mike Russell's appointed zealots applying the purity test. The SNP would also resurrect the Scottish Examination Board with a new remit.
The UK Labour party—and, in the Scottish Parliament, the coalition parties—is delivering progress. In contrast, the alternatives are a return to the destruction of the Tories or a journey into the fantasy land of the SNP.
I shall try not to show any zealotry in my speech.
Mr Swinney has drawn attention to the handy nature of the programme for government booklet. Last year's document was much larger and it was a different shape; this year's is ring-bound. I look forward to a continuation of that policy—the Executive is obviously going into the publishing business, so I will make a couple of suggestions. Next year, the book could contain a pop-up First Minister. The following year, we could be offered a cut-out-and-keep Jack McConnell, made from sticky-backed plastic. The book could also be shrink-wrapped, with a CD of Ross Finnie's greatest hits on the cover or—considering the commemorative gifts that now accompany many publications—one of Tom McCabe's rubber truncheons.
The reality is that the document is full of style and photos that signify nothing. We heard the soundtrack to it from the First Minister this morning, in a speech that was—I am trying to be generous, Presiding Officer—gibberish. The First Minister said:
"The SNP does not believe in Scotland",
but that is meaningless. Scotland is not a faith or a talisman; it is a country—we are standing in it. The First Minister went on to promise universal access to the internet—good news for the inhabitants of the planet Pluto.
The Administration has no substance whatever. It is built around a cult of personality—which is bizarre, considering the First Minister's personality. He was described memorably by Alan Taylor in the Sunday Herald as a man who speaks in crossword clues. Both of the statements that I mentioned are good examples of that.
The programme for government is a hollow document. It is not what the First Minister described as being an "honest compact" with the people of Scotland. The truth of that can be proved by a simple comparison of this year's text with last year's. On education, 54 per cent of all the pledges are not new, but are repetitions of aims that have not been achieved. On sport and culture, the figure is 67 per cent. The document consists of repetition dressed up with photos—some of the repetition is older than last year's document.
I am worried that Helen Liddell has returned to haunt us. On 11 March 1999, Mrs Liddell said that by 2000 there would be one modern computer—I do not know what an old computer is—for every five secondary pupils and one for every 7.5 primary pupils. The target date is now 2002. That aim is simply a repetition.
The Executive has no ideas. It is a body that has no policies and simply makes things up as it goes along. It is deceiving the people of Scotland. This document, whether it is sitting on a bookshelf, being handed out in the chamber or being delivered through a letterbox—if one has a letterbox big enough—is a cynical sham. It says that everything is happening and that there is lots of good news. Mike Rumbles has given us his reasons to be cheerful—if one looks at Mike Rumbles, that is surprising—but the reality is that there is a lack of achievement. The document represents spin over substance and rhetoric over reality. That was embodied in the First Minister's speech this morning.
In Scotland we need a Government that is ambitious and wants to achieve things. We need the type of Government that is described in the SNP amendment—a Government that uses the powers and resources of Scotland to achieve for the people of Scotland. We certainly need that in regard to education. On class sizes, the ambition in this document is not enough. No educational research shows that the reduction of class sizes to 30 or 25 makes the difference that we need. I know that the SNP will introduce ambitious ideas and I know that the SNP's ideas attract the people of Scotland. Our job is made easier when one compares our ideas and vigour with the Executive's nonsense.
Time forbids a thorough appraisal and critique of the Executive programme, save to say that the poverty of aspiration that is inherent in the document is due entirely to the Executive's adherence to the failed free-market policies of new Labour in Westminster and Scotland. Those free-market policies promote rather than tackle poverty and inequality. One example of the Executive's poverty of aspiration is its failure to introduce a simple measure that would be popular with at least 90 per cent of the population: the abolition of the council tax and the introduction of a local wealth tax that would redistribute income throughout the country.
I will concentrate on what Mike Rumbles called a major issue, which also betrays poverty of aspiration. There is a commitment in the document to the provision of whole-house central heating and insulation for every Scottish pensioner by 2006. The First Minister has had to admit today that, in its first two years, the Executive has failed Scottish pensioners by its unwillingness to install one central heating unit in any Scottish pensioner's house. During its four years, the Westminster Government has similarly failed our pensioners. If the Executive or the Westminster Government had been willing to ditch discredited Tory policy, we could have installed in every pensioner's house in Scotland whole-house central heating and insulation by 1 April this year. Instead, we have poverty of aspiration and rhetoric about a five-year programme.
Some members may ask how we could have done that. In politics, the reasonable question is often where the money to pay for programmes will come from. Many members—particularly Labour members who have a background in local government—will understand that the introduction by the Tories in 1996 of the capital receipt set-aside rules resulted in a major loss of revenue for local authorities to spend on council housing. The Westminster Government has been in power for four years and has refused to change those rules; the Scottish Executive has been in power for two years and has refused to change them.
Will the member give way?
I am in my last minute, unfortunately.
The problem is that, if the Executive had ditched that discredited Tory policy, £315 million would have been available immediately to local authorities throughout Scotland to deliver for 126,000 households in Scotland whole-house central heating, insulation and/or double glazing. In other words—I direct this to Mike Rumbles in particular—instead of talking about a programme that will begin on 1 April, we could have been talking about a programme that had delivered for every pensioner household in Scotland. That demonstrates the Executive's poverty of aspiration and I challenge the First Minister or his deputy—whoever sums up—to announce today at long last whether the Executive will ditch the discredited Tory policy of capital receipt set-aside. That would give local authorities the ability to look after their tenants as they deserve to be looked after and—in particular—to concentrate on pensioner households in Scotland.
Hugh Henry presented the tissue of factual inexactitudes that got Labour elected in the first place. He ignored totally the new hospitals that were built in Scotland under the Tories and the virtual creation of the M74. Not only would we have completed the M74, but we would have fulfilled our promises to complete the M77. At the moment, all we have from Labour are words.
Will Mr Gallie give way?
No chance—we have heard enough from Hugh Henry.
Another day, another glossy. Henry McLeish delivered a lot of promises but what he is good at is delivering a lot of glossies. The value of the document, given its cost, is doubtful—"of doubtful value" is also an excellent description of its contents.
Will the member give way?
I do not have time.
The public's expectations of this Parliament were raised by promises by Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the nationalists—
Not by the Tories.
Absolutely not by the Tories. The public's expectations have not been met and, to the Executive's discredit, its promises have not been delivered. If the Executive has achieved a measure of success, it is in the number of glossies that it has produced. If we piled up all the publicly funded glossies that it has brought out, we would probably reach the height of the Scott monument.
To be consistent, will Mr Gallie condemn the citizens charter documents that were produced at great expense by the previous Tory Government and which achieved absolutely nothing?
The citizens charters achieved much. The hospitals that achieved charter marks are today performing well.
Today's two-and-a-half-hour debate on the document's wide-ranging stream of issues is absolutely meaningless. The Executive should be ashamed to waste parliamentary time by producing a document that takes such a broad-brush approach and which is full of promises that will end up as nothing more than that.
When we look at the content of the document, we see the Executive's promises about the police, but what we must look at is its performance on the police. The Labour Government and this Executive, having reduced the numbers of police compared to 1997, now simply aspire to the numbers that we had in 1997. The cash that is provided for the police does not take account of training, early retirement, replacement and pension costs, which go in with the revenue costs that are applied to the police. Although the First Minister mentioned the number of police who have been recruited to deal with the drugs problem, the Executive has again simply moved police from one sector of our police force to another.
The document boasts of the Executive's intentions on prisons and talks about improving the prisons estate, but what has the Executive done? It took away £13 million from the prisons budget and has created a situation in which prison officers in the Scottish Prison Service suffer from a massive loss of morale.
If those are the kind of promises that Executive ministers claim to have met, it speaks for itself that all that they have done is failed, failed, failed. They have failed on health and waiting lists and they have failed on education.
The Government promised to improve school buildings. Four years on, we find school buildings in a deplorable state. Henry McLeish promised today that the Executive would reduce teacher to pupil ratios in primary schools. That promise was made four years ago; it has been repeated today.
The Executive has failed in every respect. Bringing out glossy magazines will not do the image of the Parliament or the Executive any good.
I wish to blend loyalty with constructive suggestions in my speech. Mike Russell said that the launch of "Working together for Scotland" was all spin and very wicked. My views on such things are well known, but, although some Government documents—both here and from London—are full of verbiage that does not mean much, this document is an honest attempt at a factual statement of what has been achieved and what is aimed for. It might not win a first-class honours degree, but it is a serious attempt at a new approach and that is to be welcomed—it can be improved on as we go along.
I will concentrate on some aspects of the document that have not been thoroughly dealt with so far, starting with local government. We welcome the promise on the community initiative and community planning, which is helpful. We welcome the pledge under paragraph 2.9 of the document—which I think John Swinney missed in his reading of it—that the Government is
"committed to continuing to make progress on electoral reform"
in local government.
I hear what Donald Gorrie says about community planning, but how will local government respect and understand that? We are in the middle of a trunk road network crisis. All the trunk roads in Scotland are, through a flawed process, about to have their maintenance privatised. How can that be treated as being in any way sensible—particularly given Donald Gorrie's comments on community planning? Can the proposals really be believed by local authorities?
I was going to come on to roads later. We need to do things better in future—we must rebuild the partnership that was beginning to develop between the Parliament, the Executive and local government. Roads were badly handled in the past; we should learn from that and do things better.
There is an opportunity to create genuine, grass-roots democracy in Britain, which I welcome. The matter of the voluntary sector is related to that. I welcome Jim Wallace's agreement to the Government's paying for Scottish Criminal Record Office checks on volunteers. That is a step forward. Several MSPs and many bodies outwith the Parliament pressed hard for that, and it is to the Executive's credit that it has started to recognise—albeit slowly—the argument and to address the point. That has not been done in London.
We are promised a strategic review of how we fund the voluntary sector. I repeat my plea that the Executive does not merely go on with endless projects. We need core funding for existing bodies, whether national bodies—such as Citizens Advice Scotland—or local youth clubs and sports clubs, which have suffered dreadfully over the past 15 years or so. We must give them more funding and continuity. There is a promise on the voluntary sector, but our actions need to be taken right across the board. In official circles, there is a tendency to consider only social inclusion partnership areas and other areas for specific grants. Help is needed right across the board in the voluntary sector.
I welcome the document's pledge to
"develop a strategy to tackle alcohol misuse".
I also welcome Jim Wallace's announcement of a commission or committee to examine licensing and alcohol problems. I gather that that undertaking came too late for the printing deadline for "Working together for Scotland: A Programme for Government", but it is a welcome step. I hope that the Executive will support other measures that can be carried out more quickly and without always waiting for lots of strategy reviews and commissions in future. A lot of progress could be made, but I welcome the commitment that has been made by the Executive.
I will concentrate on one section of "Working together for Scotland". There are 16 health pledges in the document, but only half can reasonably be described as new commitments. Most of them were announced in "Our National Health: A plan for action, a plan for change"—another glossy document—only a few weeks ago. I do not agree with Phil Gallie often, but that begs the question why we needed a further glossy document to reannounce some of those pledges in the space of only a few weeks. Two of the other pledges in the health section are leftovers from last year's programme for government. They are things that the Executive promised, but failed to do last year, and so has been forced to re-include in this year's programme for government.
That all begs the question that John Swinney posed: where is the radical new thinking that was promised by Henry McLeish when he was elected First Minister a few months ago? There is no evidence of it in the programme for government that has been published this week.
We have heard various taunts about policies from members of the other parties so, helpfully, I will make a few suggestions to the Executive on how it could turn the document into a programme for government that would deliver for the people of Scotland. How about fruit for every single primary school pupil? That would be a real attempt to change young people's habits and improve their diet, so that we might have a chance to rid ourselves of the sick-man-of-Europe tag in the next generation.
How about the removal of charges for dental check-ups? That would be targeted action to address the fact that more than 50 per cent of adults are not registered with a dentist, although the rate of oral cancer is increasing.
How about setting the ambitious target of halving the maximum waiting times for in-patient treatments, instead of just promising to reduce them to nine months—a waiting time that was derided by the Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care when he was in opposition? That Tory scandal is now paraded by him and his colleagues as a new Labour target.
How about real action to end postcode prescribing? Instead of announcing a new body which—according to the existing body's chief executive—does not have the power to end postcode prescribing, why not give the existing body the power to do the job that it exists to do?
Those are real suggestions and SNP policies that we would be happy for the Executive to implement, to turn a programme for government that is lacking in detail into one that could deliver real progress for the people of Scotland.
The most striking thing about the programme for government is what it does not say. It is astonishing that, after last week's to-ing and fro-ing, there is still no commitment to implement the Sutherland recommendations in full. That raises the question of the status of the welcome pledge that was made by the First Minister on Monday. We know that his Cabinet does not agree with it and we do not need reminding that the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, does not agree with it. Susan Deacon, who has responsibility for turning the First Minister's rhetoric into reality, steadfastly refuses to give a commitment to free personal care. Yesterday, she issued a statement that was scarcely in the same language as that which was used by the First Minister on Monday.
Will the member give way?
I would give way if I were not in the last minute of my speech.
Susan Deacon's statement seemed only to erect barriers to free personal care. The people of Scotland are reading these words, so why is there no commitment in "Working together for Scotland: A Programme for Government" to implementing the Sutherland recommendations in full? Is it because the First Minister is the only member of the Scottish Cabinet who believes in that commitment? Instead of glossy documents that contain few details—certainly no new details—why cannot we have real commitments and straight answers to the questions that the people of Scotland are asking?
I welcome the opportunity to debate the Executive's record and its future plans. The Executive is at least honest enough to admit that there has been delay in delivering some of its commitments. I am especially concerned by the delay in the reorganisation of national health service acute services, particularly in the Forth Valley Health Board area. Forth Valley Health Board has been dithering around on the issue for more than a decade and its indecision has raised doubts about the location of gynaecology, maternity and paediatric services at Falkirk royal infirmary. Such indecision is unacceptable. I hope that the Executive will take steps to ensure that there is a full range of women's and children's services at Falkirk royal infirmary. The Executive should also introduce measures to reduce waiting times at Falkirk royal infirmary and, indeed, everywhere else in Scotland.
I hope that there will be no further prevarication on the Sutherland recommendations on care of the elderly. We are talking about the generation of people who built the welfare state. It would be a gross betrayal of those people if they were denied care in their time of need. The Executive has received much criticism for not making its intentions on Sutherland absolutely clear. I hope that the First Minister's statement on Monday—although it was rather belated—will ensure that free personal care for all elderly people will become a reality by April next year at the latest. If that upsets some politicians at Westminster, it is up to them to take action to raise standards of care for elderly people elsewhere in the UK. The Scottish Parliament should be a standard bearer for others to follow on this and other issues.
Although the Scottish Parliament has received criticism on student finance, it has taken a more enlightened approach than Westminster. Westminster abolished student grants and imposed tuition fees. The Scottish Parliament is restoring student grants, particularly for students from low-income families, and has abolished advance payment of tuition fees. Nevertheless, there is widespread dissatisfaction among students that, after graduation, they will be forced to make payments into a graduation endowment fund, even if their annual incomes are as low as £10,000. Cubie recommended a threshold of two and a half times that figure. I hope that the committee that is dealing with the Education (Graduate Endowment and Student Support) (No 2) (Scotland) Bill will make appropriate amendments to it before it comes back to the chamber at stage 3.
It is part of the Parliament's job to make the Executive accountable. That means telling the Executive when it has got things wrong, whether on student finance, care of the elderly, the national health service or anything else. The Executive has a duty to listen and respond to the Parliament. If it does that, there will be a more democratic style of government and the people of Scotland will be better served by an Executive and Parliament that respond to their needs and aspirations.
It is right that the Parliament should focus each year on the programme for government. Doing so reminds the nation of what we set out to achieve and what we have achieved, and allows us to review any new measures that require to be taken.
"Working together for Scotland: A Programme for Government" is a summary of the work that is being carried out by the Administration. I contend that it is more accessible than any other document in the history of the Scottish Parliament.
The contrast between the type of Scotland that we had in the mid-1990s and what we have now is stark. In the mid-1990s, there was no strategy or commitment to tackling child poverty; no commitment to having a public strategy on concessionary fares for Scottish pensioners; no strategy for tackling domestic abuse; no commitment to free places in nurseries for three and four-year-olds; no strategy for the funding of part-time students and poorer students in higher education; and no commitment to, or finance for, the new stretch of the M74—the Tories may have been committed to it, but not enough to provide finance for it. There was no social justice strategy and no commitment to giving every child an e-mail address and to having computers in our schools. The Administration is delivering and will continue to do so.
Will the member give way?
Today, I will do so.
Can the member remember when the M74 was called the A74? Does she not recall that the designation of that road changed under the Conservative Administration because we turned it into a motorway?
I do not remember—Mr Monteith is a wee bit older than I am. He misses the point. Mr Gallie may point out that the Conservatives were committed to completing the M74, but they do not understand that that commitment was no use given that they were not prepared to put their money where their mouth was.
The biggest challenge that we face is building our national health service. Any country with a national health service recognises the complexities of running it. It is not simply about cash injections and the biggest ever increases in funding, which we have introduced; it is about establishing basic principles about management. Managing a national health service demands recognition of the need to advance the discoveries of modern science; it demands recognition of the ever-increasing drugs bill, the need for proper management of NHS staff and the continuation of partnership working between managers, trade unions and professional organisations.
Labour members recognise that it is key to have staff at the centre of the strategy. That is why Susan Deacon rightly continues to meet our trade unions and professional organisations, in partnership, to give them a say in how our national health service should be working.
The move from the Scottish health authorities revenue equalisation formula for distribution to the Arbuthnott formula under Labour and the Liberal Democrats is a key change. The change in formula will make a difference to every health board, and there are no losers. All parties should welcome that.
The SNP has at last published its plan for governing the NHS. That is welcome and long overdue. There is much on which we can agree, such as the need to achieve equality of access and the highest quality of care and to introduce a dental health plan. We are taking action in those areas. As ever, the weakness in the SNP's argument is that its promises are not costed. The proposal to employ 1,500 more nurses in the NHS is not costed. The SNP does not cost its proposal to end postcode treatment or say how it will end it. Although we listen with bated breath for an explanation of how the SNP proposes to cut waiting lists, it has not got a clue about how that can be done and it has given no costings.
Will the member give way?
I am in the final 30 seconds of my speech.
We have an action plan for the national health service that is comprehensive and welcomed by everyone. It is not simply down to the Administration to make that plan work; it is down to everyone in the Parliament and the agencies that we fund—the health boards and the trusts—to deliver on the plan to create a better health service, cleaner hospitals, better treatment and a more patient-focused health service.
Had the First Minister or Mr Henry given way to me earlier, I would have asked them whether the omission from the programme for government of any reference to the proposed privatisation of trunk road maintenance contracts was deliberate. I looked in vain for any reference in the programme to the fact that a Labour Government is planning to press ahead with that privatisation. I am sure that members from all parties will welcome the delegation from Highland Council, led by David Green and the council's transport convener, Sandy MacKenzie. Like council representatives and leaders of all parties throughout Scotland, that delegation would have welcomed the abandonment of the Executive's policy on trunk road maintenance, which enjoys the support of hardly any members of the Parliament, bar the Minister for Transport.
I begin with a quotation that I believe sums up the Rural Development Committee's first report, which was published earlier this week. Under the convenership of Alex Johnstone, the committee concluded that
"the combination of poverty and the decline of traditional industries is a threat to the sustainability of rural life as we know it."
I am sure that we are all of good intentions—no one ever quarrels with that and we must take it as read. However, the enormity of the committee's conclusion has not yet been grasped. People in rural Scotland face a deeper crisis than ever before. Two elements constitute that crisis: hidden poverty and decline and crisis in many of the traditional industries.
No one would pretend that there are magic solutions to those problems, but it is disappointing, to say the least, that the issue that was raised at every meeting of the Rural Affairs Committee, as it went around Scotland, is not mentioned—it does not even find utterance—in the programme for government. I am referring, of course, to that unmentionable, four-letter word that begins with F: fuel. At every meeting, fuel tax was mentioned as the single greatest problem for the rural economy. That is why, at the forthcoming general election, the SNP will pledge to make an immediate cut in fuel tax and to aim to cut levels to European averages.
The tragedy of this Parliament and of this Executive is that the Government will not speak out against Westminster policy where such policy is plainly opposed by the majority of people in Scotland and where it causes, in my submission, grievous damage.
We read of the effect of that policy on the traditional sector of farming in today's edition of The Press and Journal, in which the north-east board chairman of the National Farmers Union says:
"My fuel costs at harvest are normally between £6,000 - £8,000, but this year were about £14,000".
Alternatively, we could turn to the comments of a married fisherman, who said that, last year alone, his extra fuel costs amounted to £76,000.
At the same time as that massive increase in fuel costs, there is a massive fall in farm incomes. Given that a sheep farmer's income is £5.76—not an hour, but a week—we must recognise that the rural economy is facing more problems than ever before. Nothing in the programme for government will go any way towards tackling that crisis.
My heart always sinks when Fergus Ewing's name comes out of the hat before mine. My worry is that he will give my speech and that I will have to invent another one. That is not the case today, but I will reinforce the theme that he chose to follow.
The report that the Rural Development Committee published this week contained a genuine reflection of what we found when we travelled around rural Scotland. Our inquiry was carried out over 10 months and the report reflects the feelings of many of the people whom we met and spoke to.
Like Fergus Ewing, I will take the theme of what does not appear in the programme for government document. When I looked through the section that is devoted to rural development, I found that, although many of the projects that the Minister for Rural Development pursued over the year were mentioned, there was no reference to beef exports, for example. Nowhere does the document mention the "great success" of the date-based export scheme. Hailed as a triumph at the outset, the scheme has been a total failure and seems to have fallen off the list of successes. Although the BSE crisis in Europe makes this a difficult time, farmers want and expect the Executive to pursue the issue of beef exports, yet it is not mentioned in the list of promises.
The Executive also fails to mention the implementation of the new less-favoured areas scheme, which threatens the very future of our crofters and marginal hill farmers. Jim Walker, the president of the National Farmers Union of Scotland, said:
"By year 3 of the Scheme, as it currently stands, the majority of LFA farms across Scotland face having their incomes drastically and unfairly cut".
Similarly, the president of the Scottish Crofters Union, Donnie MacLennan, said that the Scottish Executive had, with its deal on the new scheme, "abandoned" crofters. The renegotiation of that disastrous scheme must be among the Executive's top priorities. Scotland's hill farmers and crofters expect nothing less.
In the document, the Executive says quite clearly that it intends
"To support a high quality science base in agricultural, biological and related sciences which delivers research of strategic relevance".
However, the reality is, as has been made clear over the past 10 days, that the Scottish Executive is cutting funding to the Scottish Agricultural College by £1.5 million in real terms over the next three years. The SAC says that those cuts will jeopardise key research programmes, at a time when public concern about food safety and animal health has never been greater.
The chairman of the SAC, Maitland Mackie, who is a prominent member of the Minister for Rural Development's party, stated publicly that the Scottish Executive does not share the view of the Scottish farming industry that the SAC is essential to the survival of the rural and agricultural sector. Fears are growing that the highly educated Scottish farming industry will no longer have the support of that valuable institution, which is well known throughout the world.
Another aspect of the underfunding of the SAC hits home in many rural areas in Scotland—I take as my example the proposed closure of the veterinary laboratory in Thurso, which covers a huge geographical area in the Highlands and Islands and is responsible for 300,000 cattle, 1.1 million sheep and 5,200 agricultural holdings. It carries out key surveillance and research and its scientific achievements, which include research into enzootic ewe abortion, scrapie and bovine viral diarrhoea, are known worldwide. The threat to the laboratory will undermine Scotland's agriculture. I urge the minister to examine ways of keeping that laboratory open and to consider the proposal to reopen the Oban laboratory.
Before I call the next speaker, I ask members to observe a little more courtesy when other members are speaking. The noise in the chamber is quite loud.
I welcome the publication of the programme for government. It is a staging post for measuring our successes to date and for setting out our aspirations and intentions for the future. That means pointing out where work continues to need to be done, but I take issue with Phil Gallie's point that the document was of doubtful value. Setting targets is an important discipline and we should let the people of Scotland judge whether those targets have been achieved. The document will also let us judge ourselves and whether we are on course. Indeed, Nicola Sturgeon used the document to highlight areas where progress that might have been hoped for when the first document was published had not been made. The document is important and it is accessible to anyone who chooses to read it.
Honesty is required in all parts of the chamber. We have to accept that we do not always move as quickly as we would like and we have to accept that we occasionally get things wrong—as we had to in the chamber last week. However—Dennis Canavan's speech highlighted this point—honesty is also required throughout the chamber when the Executive achieves things that are welcome. That often happens with the progress of bills. Many of the Executive's achievements, as set out in the document, are indeed the achievements of the Parliament and a reflection of the work that people of all parties have undertaken in committees. The document is about working in partnership.
David McLetchie was misleading when he tried to tie the Executive and Parliament to timetables, commitments and pledges made by a Labour Government in another place. This Executive is a coalition of two parties, and this Parliament is new. If we are to tie UK national parties to pledges made in other Parliaments in the UK, perhaps we should ask Mr McLetchie why the Conservatives in this Parliament were, only a fortnight ago, in favour of restrictions on tobacco advertising to protect our children from smoking. When the bill went to Westminster—which we allowed—the self-same Conservatives voted against those restrictions.
It was not the same Conservatives.
Mr McLetchie took a dangerous line.
The Executive is a coalition of parties working together. For the most part, we work together well. We are delivering on our common goals—social justice, improved public services, enhanced democracy and equal opportunities for people throughout Scotland. We are beginning to deliver on the issues that matter to ordinary Scots—for example, long-term care for the elderly. Earlier, a red herring appeared—as usual—on why that issue was not mentioned in the document. Events of last week overtook the printers, as they overtook so many people.
We have made progress on higher education funding, on record spending in our health service, on our child care strategies and on our decent, sustainable and viable three-year funding deal for our colleagues in local government. Many of those points have been highlighted by my colleagues Pauline McNeill and Mike Rumbles.
We can always look back over the past year and see the rows, the banana skins and where things have gone wrong. However, we can also see where we have done good work. There has been increased investment in our education system after McCrone, increased investment in our schools infrastructure, a 40 per cent increase in support for rough sleepers initiatives, extra sports co-ordinators in our schools and 43,000 extra places in further and higher education. More is to come. Progress has been made on the reform of local government, on new planning regulations for mobile phone masts, on reduced class sizes for primary 3, on expanded drug rehabilitation services and on police numbers, which will have risen to an all-time high by 2002. Donald Gorrie spoke about free criminal record checks to protect our children and to assist the voluntary sector; he was instrumental in bringing that about.
We do not always get things right, but those of us who go out and speak at conferences will, I am sure, have had the same reaction as I have had. When I was speaking at an Alzheimer's conference a couple of months ago, somebody came up to me and said, "You passed the Adults with Incapacity Act." How many people out there know that we passed that act in 2000? How many people know how many years and decades of wishes went into the passing of that important act by this Executive and this Parliament? The people whose lives depend on the act know, and the carers and users of services know. It is important that we get balanced views in the contributions that we hear today.
I would like to widen the debate a little. Up to now, it has been about the Scottish Executive's programme for government. I would like to consider the responsibilities of government in general.
Before I do, I will pay tribute to the First Minister. I applaud—as will everyone in the chamber, I think—his personal commitment to social justice. I sense that he really means it. That is excellent, and quite different from what we hear in some of the speeches from another Parliament. However, although not exactly boasting, he spoke about the richness of the talent to be found among young people in Scotland and said that he wanted them to make a contribution. So do I—but not only in Scotland. It is not enough to say that each of them will have access to the internet. The idea of contributing internationally is much bigger and wider than that, as I will explain later.
I freely concede that the Executive's plans in some areas might well improve some of the services and facilities for which the Executive has ultimate responsibility. However, it is not enough for this Parliament to be judged to have fulfilled the normal expectations of a Parliament. People look for much more than that. Although Hugh Henry said that, as a former local government leader, he would have given his right arm for some of the settlements that local government has now received from the Executive, it is not carping of the SNP and other Opposition parties to say that that is not good enough.
Last night, I was in the company of people who are described as handicapped or physically disabled. They were marvellous young people, and much of that is down to the fact that they go to a particular club. That club is due to run out of funds on 31 March. If that happens, it will be a stain not just on local government in Edinburgh but on the Executive for not being able to provide the support to develop the talents that the First Minister talked about. I do not mean to carp, but where there are shortfalls we are, as Donald Gorrie said, entitled to comment on them.
I said that I wanted to widen the debate. I believe that Parliaments are supposed to exercise rights and responsibilities. In negotiating with teachers, Jack McConnell has rights and responsibilities. Devolution has given him responsibility for the Scottish education system. In another defining area of our society, Jim Wallace and the Scottish law officers have rights and responsibilities—looking after the system within our boundaries. However, because the system stops at the border, it is constrained. In the past few months, we have seen that Scottish justice will stand up to international scrutiny. Just like Scotland's children, it has much to contribute to the world. We have much to contribute to the development of international justice and to the improvement of civil rights for all people. We should not do that through the prism of Westminster. If we have the right to have our own legal system, we have the responsibility for ensuring that it contributes to the development of legal systems in the world. We have that responsibility and the aim is achievable and reasonable, as has been demonstrated at Camp Zeist.
I believe that the Executive and Parliament should seek to exercise that responsibility on behalf of the people whom we represent. The exercise of such a responsibility will make us all grow. It will make our aspirations higher. We will benefit more people—and not just here in Scotland. If we think small, we will do small things. We must think a lot bigger. If we have our own criminal justice system, and if it is seen throughout the world to be a sound system, let it interact directly with the other systems of the world.
I urge the Scottish Executive to embrace as part of its programme for government all the aspirations, responsibilities and rights of government. Do not cut us off from global developments in any area of human activity, as will happen if we think small. Although I agree with many things in the programme for government document, I believe that it is too limited in its aspirations.
I am pleased to be able to speak this morning—not least because I have been uncharacteristically quiet for the past couple of weeks, suffering from laryngitis. I am back—and I have a lot to say.
One of the useful things about making a closing speech in a debate is that one can sit and listen to what people say and pay attention to the form and content of their speeches. What we have heard this morning shows, once again, the real differences between those of us who are trying to deliver for the people of Scotland and Opposition members, who simply want to use any debate to labour the same old political points.
This morning, we have heard from the First Minister and from a range of coalition members about our very real commitment to social justice. That marks out the partners in the coalition from the Opposition. Social justice is our No 1 priority—not using every debate to focus on constitutional questions irrespective of whatever else is going on or, for the Tories, using every debate as an opportunity for selective amnesia about what was done during 18 long, hard, desperate years of Tory government.
Alex Johnstone made a wee aside earlier:
"It was not the same Conservatives."
Really!
I said that it was not the same Conservatives who voted in this Parliament and in Westminster, which is what Margaret Smith seemed to suggest.
I can rest my case safely on that. Who are the real Conservatives? What is the real Tory agenda? What are the Tories doing here and at Westminster? We should be told what their real policies are.
I am glad to hear that Cathy Jamieson listened carefully to the debate, as she will have heard me make four specific proposals about how we can improve the health of our children and the quality of health care generally. Will she tell me which of those proposals she agrees with and which she disagrees with?
If Nicola Sturgeon looks at the comprehensive health plan that the coalition partners have published, she will find out that many of those proposals are already commitments. I think that the SNP is going through the plan and picking things out. The SNP has a duty to consider fully costed proposals.
Sit down, Nicola—you have had your opportunity to speak.
There has been a lot of talk about the Sutherland report over the past few weeks. I speak as somebody who used to go into people's houses to assess whether they should go into residential care, or nursing care, or get a home help or benefits. It is a very complex issue. The written answer that Susan Deacon gave yesterday to my parliamentary question about the remit of the care development group is very helpful. It lays out in detail what needs to be done, including identifying the gaps in existing provision and making
"proposals for the implementation of free personal care for all, along with an analysis of the costs and implications of so doing".
That is something the SNP and the Tories have never done.
The real Tory agenda was beginning to show when David McLetchie spoke. The Tories say they want free personal care and then say that there is an opportunity there for the financial services market. What that reveals is an expectation that somewhere along the line people will have to pay for services and that those services will be privatised.
That is an utter distortion of what was said. The member may be unaware that a significant number of financial products currently on the market aim to help people who are budgeting for old age. That is in addition to, and without prejudice to, the desire of this Parliament, including my party in the Parliament, to support the provision of universal free personal care to our elderly.
I am grateful for the clarification, but I do not think that it takes away from the fact that the real Tory agenda is privatisation of the health and care services. Many of the people who will benefit from what we are currently doing to improve the quality of life for elderly people cannot afford to take out the private schemes that Annabel Goldie, David McLetchie, Phil Gallie and others spoke about. The Westminster Government is attempting to do more than the Tories propose to solve that problem.
Phil Gallie said that "Working together for Scotland" is of no value. The people of Scotland deserve a decent-quality publication. I worked for years with people who complained bitterly about the legal jargon that the old Scottish Office produced, under Governments of all political persuasions. People will be able to look at this document and see issues in it that affect their day-to-day lives. I say to Phil Gallie—is reforming family law of no value? Is taking action on domestic abuse and on land reform of no value? Is taking action to improve the education of our children of no value? Social justice is the most important thing on our agenda—and only this coalition is delivering it.
The interesting part of "Working together for Scotland" is the aptly named flyleaf. It bears the photographs of the ministerial team. Anyone can write words: in the document there are a great many words, but whether anyone pays attention to them depends on who is uttering them and what their track record is. In this case, a picture speaks a thousand words.
The photographs on the flyleaf show a reflective and somewhat uneasy Jim Wallace. Perhaps he is pondering rising crime or the cut in police numbers since 1997. Perhaps he is pondering the proposed closure of four prisons. I see a pugilistic Ross Finnie—no doubt explaining that the Rural Development Committee has it wrong when it has the temerity to suggest that there is an economic crisis in our rural communities. Fergus Ewing was right to tell the chamber of a sheep farmer's weekly earnings of £5.76. Alex Johnstone was right to raise inquiries about the apparent omission of beef exports from the document. An open-mouthed Wendy Alexander is clearly asking the questions, "Is a graduate tax not the same as a tuition fee?" and, "Why have we not abolished tuition fees?"
It seems to me that Susan Deacon's quizzical expression is because she is stung by the fact that we have 2,000 more people waiting for hospital treatment than in 1997 and by the crisis in many accident and emergency departments—or perhaps because the Executive's handling of the Sutherland report was one of the most dismal advertisements for the Parliament since its inception.
It was a success of the Parliament.
I am happy to take an intervention from Mr Rumbles rather than some sedentary insolence.
Apologise.
Despite that personal remark, does Annabel Goldie accept that what occurred over Sutherland was a positive move where the will of Parliament prevailed? The Parliament should not be criticised in that way.
At times, I wonder what world the Liberal Democrats live in—certainly I wonder among what people they move. I have spent the week since last Thursday meeting people who have said to me—it is a deeply disquieting consequence of the absolute muddle that took place then—"Parliament is a shambles, don't any of you know what you are doing?" I have endeavoured to explain that two parties knew what they were doing, one party had no idea what it was doing and another party was engaging in a shameless con.
I am glad that Mr Rumbles has raised the point, because it bears further expansion. If anyone in this chamber desires to play a collective part in the promotion of the Parliament as an instrument for the good administration of devolved government in Scotland, it is high time the coalition Executive tried to represent a position that does not bamboozle, confuse, dismay and at times infuriate the Scottish public but rather—
I have taken an intervention from Mr Rumbles, which I am dealing with.
But rather tried to strike a position and indicate to the Scottish public that it knows what it is doing and does not have to clarify its position through hastily convened press conferences with the First Minister.
The First Minister's photograph on the flyleaf is most engaging. He seems to have acquired a lump of cotton wool in the general direction of his brain sector. I can only assume that that led to the confusion last week when what the Executive had agreed on personal care of the elderly was entirely obscure.
If I look further, I see an uneasy, reflective and, I think, slightly disturbed representation of Mr Galbraith. As he presided over the Scottish Qualifications Authority shambles, as he ultimately had to explain to the Parliament how that shambles had arisen and as he was partially relieved of his ministerial responsibilities because of his supervision of that shambles, that Mr Galbraith looks reflective is no wonder. That one of the messages that the Parliament has given to the public in the course of the past year has been a deeply disturbing position on the SQA is also no wonder.
If I look further, I see Angus MacKay clearly looking taken aback. That is probably because he had been told that his ministerial statement was not to be heard because the Executive had decided to leak it to the media in advance.
If the programme for government is really expected to have any credibility with the Scottish people, they are entitled to look at the photographs, reflect on what they represent and consider the Executive's track record so far. I hesitate to say that I do not think that their vote will be one of confidence. So far, we have had a sorry display instead of good, firm and sensible government. There is nothing—or very little—in the document to suggest that the Executive's resolve to do better will be implemented.
In the content of the programme for government, not much has changed from mark 1. There is an improvement in the presentation: we do not have the outsize coffee table version that we got last time. That version had a delightful picture—to allude to Annabel Goldie's speech—of the then Minister for Communities taking a cup of tea. I am sure that the Minister for Social Justice was quite relieved that she did not have to pose in a similar fashion for the new programme for government.
Does it not occur to the people who write such documents that some of us might read them and contrast the second programme for government with the first? It is clear that not much has changed. We were promised that bad and unpopular policies would be dumped. What has been dumped? I have not heard one speech on what has been dumped, because, despite that promise, nothing has been dumped.
The Parliament and the Opposition parties, in good faith and with good grace, recognised that the First Minister might want to put his own stamp on the Government. However, it seems that the stamping of authority has brought on a bout of foot-and-mouth disease. He mouths the word "Government". When is a Government not a Government? When London tells him to use the term "government" in general terms, but on no account to describe the Executive as the Government of Scotland.
The First Minister puts his foot in it by tripping all over the issue of free personal care for the elderly—he got there on the Monday, but only by trampling over Cabinet colleagues and Labour back benchers. I listened carefully to Cathy Jamieson's comments on the Sutherland report. She talked about "proposals" rather than an unequivocal commitment. I will read her speech in the Official Report with interest.
The First Minister was seeking to put his stamp on the Government when he wanted to brand the Edinburgh International Conference Centre with a projection of his own image. I must warn the First Minister that there are young children living around Morrison Street in Edinburgh. Those children need to sleep at night and their parents were very relieved when his project did not happen.
The Parliament recognised the delay in the document with good grace and would have accepted it had the Executive proposed something different from what we had first expected, such as getting rid of the extension of the right to buy and the privatisation of trunk road maintenance. The vanity of projecting one's image on to a building pales into insignificance beside the Executive's decision to delay its programme for government—barely altering it—just so that it could be launched on its 100th day in office. That is vanity rather than statesmanship.
John Swinney and Phil Gallie made some important points on police numbers. It was also interesting to hear David McLetchie's comments on the Tory policy on care of the elderly and the threats of privatisation. That is another matter that we will pursue, to find out exactly what the Tories propose for our old folk. It was interesting to hear Mike Rumbles talk about reasons to be cheerful—as far as I remember that was a number by the late Ian Dury and the Blockheads.
Will Fiona Hyslop acknowledge the fact that the private sector is already highly involved in the care sector? Labour local authorities use private services all the time to supply care provision under their social work responsibilities.
I respect Phil Gallie's comments, but the way David McLetchie referred to the private sector seemed to indicate that the Conservatives want to develop it far further.
There is a commitment to social justice among members of the Labour party and the SNP. I listened with interest to Hugh Henry's comments on the wonderful world of Paisley. Does he know how many of his constituents are among the 16,000 more children who are living in households on income levels below 70 per cent of average income? Under Labour, the number of children living in such households has increased. When Cathy Jamieson talks about the Executive's commitment to social justice, she should remember that it is delivering that commitment that is important. The Executive's own figures show that it has not delivered on child poverty.
I do not know how to make it clearer to the SNP than do the figures in our annual social justice report, published last year, which show that we have lifted 70,000 children out of poverty. There is a huge task ahead of us and I am delighted at Fiona Hyslop's commitment to assist the coalition to deliver on that.
I want to end child poverty, but that demands action and delivering on commitments. The Executive's figure of 70,000 children relates to 1996-97 rather than to 1997-98. The change took place in the year before Labour came to power. The Labour Government has failed to deliver on child poverty.
Will the member give way?
The minister has made her point and I want to move on.
Donald Gorrie made an important speech on the importance of the voluntary sector in delivering social justice, and the significance of core funding to the voluntary sector. Dennis Canavan talked about the Scottish Parliament being able to take a more enlightened approach. That was an important point. I would like to reassure Pauline McNeill that the revenue costs of the SNP's health policies, which she seems to welcome, are less than last year's NHS underspend.
Fergus Ewing and Alex Johnstone made important speeches on the rural dimension and the absence of substance in "Working together for Scotland". We must begin to talk about the problems of rural poverty. There have been references to social justice figures. We want to use statistics on improvements in social justice, but I should point out that the Executive has used the Department of Social Security report "Households Below Average Income" as its baseline. Are members aware that the report says:
"It should be noted that results for Scotland do not include people living north of the Caledonian Canal"?
That means that half the landmass of Scotland and about 175,000 people are excluded from the figures. We have heard about the poverty incomes of £5.76 a week and that is the reality that we should be discussing in today's debate.
The document does not represent a programme for government—most of it is a programme for administration. Furthermore, it is a programme for the administration of decisions that have been taken elsewhere—by Europe or previous Governments, and that goes for Helen Liddell and her targets for computers in schools, too.
Having studied the programme for government, I realise that two things have been dumped. I wonder whether they are deliberate omissions. One is a pledge to tackle the problem of persistent reoffending. That pledge has disappeared, although I thought it was rather good. The pledge to train 5,000 new child care workers by 2002 has been removed. Was that considered a bad policy? I rather liked that pledge, too, but I suspect that it does not appear in the new document because there are only 11 months to go and the Executive has reached only a third of its target. Out of 157 pledges made by the Government, almost 60 per cent are either reannouncements, commitments from the previous programme for government or EU directives. There are 12 pledges on the environment, 11 of which are EU directives or reannouncements.
What has happened? On the empty homes initiative, the Executive is sorry, but it is not delivering its pledge of 900 such homes by 2000 because it turns out that that was a typographical error. Homelessness is at an all-time high. The number of homeless people currently living in temporary accommodation is higher than when the coalition first took office. That is what is happening under new Labour.
We want a Scotland that can embrace wider powers. There have been brief moments in which we have glimpsed what the Scottish Parliament can do when it acts in the collective public good. That is what Dennis Canavan meant about the Parliament's enlightened approach. As Margo MacDonald said, we can do so much more. We have the ideas, vision and passion. Independence and the use of the Scottish Parliament's full powers would mean a Government of substance, not just semantics. "Working together for Scotland" is a programme for administration, not government, and Scotland deserves better.
As the First Minister said at the outset of the debate, this Executive has delivered an impressive record and with this document we commit ourselves to a strong programme for the future. It provides more than just a snapshot of what the Executive has done for the people of Scotland: it covers the spectrum of the work that we believe is necessary to improve the lives of all the people of Scotland.
We have been fulfilling our promises and we are delivering. Margaret Smith was right when she said that one of the great benefits of a document such as this, or its forerunner, the first programme for government, is that it sets targets. If there are delays in meeting targets, I can assure the Parliament that ministers are conscious that the targets exist in the programme for government, and that is a goad for us to deliver. For example, in my area of responsibility, there have been delays in producing the draft bill for land reform. The explanation is the introduction of the crofting communities' right to buy. Nevertheless, there is an incentive for us to get on with the job.
It is unique for an Administration to allow itself to be examined and held to account, and it improves the quality of governance in this country.
Will the minister give way?
No, let me get into my speech.
I agree with John Swinney that this is a better sized document and that it is more convenient to carry. That said, I regret to say that that is about all that I agree with John Swinney on today. The Parliament will have noted with considerable disappointment the lack of any substance in the speeches of either of the Opposition leaders. John Swinney was so bereft of any criticism of this document that he was left to discuss its style at considerable length. He then launched into some lurid quotations, for which he even apologised in advance, about policy reviews. I take issue with that. My colleague Angus MacKay, who is not here, said that perhaps Mr Swinney was referring to his own party's policy review. If Angus were here, I would explain to him that a review requires a party actually to have policies.
With the noble exception of Nicola Sturgeon, the debate has been bereft of anything from the SNP that approximates to a policy. In her winding-up speech, Fiona Hyslop gave some grand slogans about what the SNP would like. Slogans, not policy, is the SNP that we have come to know.
The Deputy First Minister obviously does not read the newspapers and he obviously did not listen to my speech, because I listed a number of initiatives that the SNP has taken on policy questions, and I listed a number of initiatives that his ministerial department, which is bereft of any good ideas, has adopted from the SNP. Would he care to respond to the points that I raised about his failure to deliver the number of drug enforcement police officers that he promised in his 1999 programme for government? Let us have specific answers to specific questions, rather than this rant.
I will happily deal with the question about police numbers. There is a very good news story to tell on that.
Nicola Sturgeon referred to long-term care for the elderly. I confirm what the First Minister said on Monday. The problem with the SNP is that it would rather we did not make the commitments that we have made. It would rather go on trying to score party political points than accept and welcome the policy commitments that we have made.
For the Conservatives, Annabel Goldie gave an amusing winding-up speech, but it did not amount to much substance; it was an analysis of the photographs of each member of the Cabinet. The trouble with the Conservative party is that it does not get the big picture. Because it has so little to say about specifics, it concentrates on trivia. David McLetchie indulged in a few whinges, including his normal one about the Holyrood building. Anyone who reads the speeches of David McLetchie in this Parliament will be hard pushed to find one substantive policy commitment.
I know what this coalition is about, I think I know what the SNP's ambition for independence is, and sometimes I even get a glimpse of what William Hague is about, but the question for the Parliament is, what is the point of David McLetchie? He never makes a substantive contribution about what the Conservative party wants to do. I understand why the Conservative party is quiet about its policy intentions: we know that their cost is a cut of £16 billion in public expenditure across the UK. The Conservatives have said that that is a mistake, and that it should be £8 billion, but even £8 billion across the United Kingdom is a substantial cut. The Conservatives should come to this Parliament and be honest and say which cuts will take place in each of our constituencies if their spending cuts go through.
I am grateful for a number of positive contributions to this debate, for example that of Mike Rumbles, who referred to the health plan and free SCRO checks for volunteers who work with children, and Hugh Henry's comments on the Government's commitment to invest in education. Donald Gorrie alarmed me somewhat when he started by saying that he would make a loyal speech with some constructive suggestions. He was true to his word. He highlighted issues such as the need for a strategic review of funding of the voluntary sector, some of which we will have to address. The same is true for the important issue of alcohol misuse, and I confirm again the Executive's commitment to have a comprehensive review of liquor licensing law.
Pauline McNeill listed a number of our achievements, and in a powerful speech winding up for the Labour party, Cathy Jamieson underlined the emphasis that this Parliament and Government place on our commitment to social justice. I welcome Margo MacDonald's acknowledgement of the personal commitment of the First Minister to the cause of social justice.
I take issue with Mike Russell, who said that there is no substance in this programme. In the social justice chapter of the programme, we talk about tackling the tough housing choices and what we must do to end rough sleeping in our community, to reduce homelessness and to tackle fuel poverty. If ever there were issues that mattered to people in need, they are those issues. This is a programme of substance, and a programme that we are intent on delivering.
Of course those are important issues, but homelessness under this coalition is at record levels. Temporary accommodation, the impact of which on children in particular is an important issue, is at record levels. What is the Executive delivering? Yes there is a commitment, but is the Executive doing?
The rate of rise in homelessness has slowed down, and in the third quarter homelessness was down. That shows that a trend that has being upward for some time, and which no one in this Parliament liked, is being turned round. We are making serious inroads in tackling rough sleeping.
Tommy Sheridan, who is not here, talked about fuel poverty. He begrudgingly accepted that we are going to provide central heating for Scotland's pensioners. He should not ignore the fact that in our first programme for government we committed ourselves to improve the insulation in 100,000 homes, particularly those of pensioners. The target date was 2003, but already that task has been completed in 40,000 homes.
The funding that is being made available by this Executive will increase police numbers to record levels. Phil Gallie is wrong to say that no account has been taken of training. The money that we put in place last year included money for the training college at Tulliallan, and it took account of the 200 officers who will go there for the Scottish Drugs Enforcement Agency. The SDEA was established only in the first half of last year. I am sure that John Swinney agrees that it would have been wrong to denude all local constabularies of their officers who are skilled in drug enforcement and put them into the SDEA all at once, but already in this financial year there are 100 police officers, and the resources are there for the 200 additional—
Will the minister give way?
No. I have answered the point and I have only one minute to go.
I reassure Alex Johnstone that we take the problems of farmers in less-favoured areas seriously. The fact that a safety net exists ensures that there is a period of time for some of the serious issues, which he is right to highlight, to be addressed. Ross Finnie has already set up a working group involving the National Farmers Union of Scotland and the Scottish Crofters Union to address some of these important issues.
In conclusion, I affirm the approach of this partnership Liberal Democrat-Labour coalition to what is best for the people of Scotland. Our Government is getting down to work to fulfil the hopes that so many have held for so long for this Parliament. It is not possible to achieve everything overnight, but with a stable Government we can make steady progress.
"Working together for Scotland" demonstrates the breadth of our achievement and ambition. As the First Minister said, the programme is not about aspirations; it is about putting aspirations into action. Our programme for government will make a real difference. We are working together for Scotland and I commend the motion to the Parliament.