Engagements
To ask the First Minister what engagements he has planned for the rest of the day. (S4F-02303)
With your permission, Presiding Officer, the Government will make an announcement this afternoon, and I want to give the chamber notice of it.
It is over 20 years since the poll tax came to an end, and I believe that the expanded electoral roll should not be used to collect poll tax debts. It is, of course, within the law for councils to use current information to assess current council tax liability and, given that the council tax reduction scheme protects 500,000 of our poorest citizens, the tax is being applied in a proper and fair way. However, the relevance of information from the current electoral register to the position of debts from 25 years ago is difficult to fathom except through some misguided political intention. The total amount of poll tax debt that was collected around Scotland last year was £396,000. I therefore announce today that it is the Government’s intention to bring forward legislation to ensure that councils can take no further action to recover ancient poll tax debts. After 25 years, it is about time that the poll tax was dead and buried in Scotland. [Applause.]
It would have been helpful, First Minister, if I had had some indication that you intended to make an announcement. The Parliament might have been better served by a statement at some point during today’s business.
I look forward to the First Minister’s legislative programme and to his ending the underfunding of local government full stop.
Let us get back to First Minister’s question time. This week, we learned that the Scottish Government is failing to meet its targets for cancer treatment waiting times and that we are flying in consultants from India to cover weekend staffing shortages. The health service that the First Minister made front and centre of his failed referendum campaign is facing £0.5 billion of cuts that his Government refuses to acknowledge. Against that backdrop, how is the First Minister’s golf handicap coming along?
Two things: the performance against the 31-day cancer treatment target is 96.3 per cent in Scotland, which is above the 95 per cent target, and the performance against the 62-day target is 92.9 per cent, which is below the target but a significant improvement not just on the previous quarter but on any figure that was achieved when the Labour Party was in power. Johann Lamont will remember that the target was never met in any quarter over the entire time that the Labour Party was in power. The figure of 92.9 per cent is short of the target but significantly higher than the achievements in both England and Wales. Nonetheless, we must strive to meet our cancer targets in full, because they are hugely important for the Scottish people.
The national health service budget will increase in real terms next year. Mr Swinney will announce budget proposals for the following year in his announcement next week. Johann Lamont can be absolutely certain that the Government will honour its commitment to ensure that the front-line national health service budget continues to increase in real terms—something that was not promised by the Labour Party either in 2007 or in the run-up to the 2011 election. I suspect that that is one of the key reasons why the Government is trusted on the national health service and the coalition of Opposition parties is not.
The First Minister might not be aware of this, but Dr Peter Bennie, the chair of the British Medical Association Scotland, has asked for “an honest, public debate”. The First Minister’s response fails on every single count and reveals a degree of complacency that even I am astonished by.
Just weeks before Scotland made the decision to vote no, the chief executives of our health boards held crisis talks with Scottish Government officials about the future of the NHS. They warned that £0.5 billion of cuts were coming down the line. After two years of dismissing the daily warnings of staffing shortages, missed targets and failures in patient care, is the First Minister now willing to have the real debate about the future of our NHS that the health boards are asking for, or is he going to concentrate his time on the golf course while we wait for Nicola Sturgeon’s coronation before getting back to work?
I will respond on those two specific points. The 92.9 per cent performance figure, which we are not complacent about, which is why we are working to bring it up to 95 per cent and beyond, compares with 84.5 per cent, which was the figure for the last quarter when the Labour Party was in office.
Johann Lamont seems surprised and perplexed that I should mention that. I merely say—quite rightly in my view—to the Labour Party and the Opposition in general that while the 92.9 per cent achievement of the target is not good enough, it seems relevant to point out that the figure was 84.5 per cent when Labour left office. Of course, the health minister of the day hailed the cancer and accident and emergency target performances as great achievements of the Labour Party in office. If 84.5 per cent was a great achievement, how come 92.9 per cent is totally inadequate? We work to improve the figures all the time.
The real-terms budget of the front-line NHS will continue to increase. That is not a commitment that was made by the Labour Party in opposition, never mind when it was in government in 2007. It is also not a commitment that has been redeemed by the Labour Party in office in Wales, which is facing the same political and economic pressures from the Westminster Government.
Let me repeat: Scotland’s national health service real-terms budget will continue to increase on the front line.
If anyone is “surprised and perplexed”, it will be the people across this country and the staff and the patients who listened to that answer and wonder whether the First Minister ever understands what is going on in the real world. His own leaked papers say:
“There is collective agreement from the leadership across all the professional management and clinical groups that planning for immediate transformational change is necessary and difficult; but radical and urgent decisions need to be made ... The status quo and preservation of existing models of care are no longer an option given the pressing challenges we face.”
Let me recap: “immediate”, “necessary”, “urgent” and “pressing”—those are not my words but those of the people running our NHS. After two years of dismissing the problems in our health service, how long must the people of Scotland wait before the Government accepts the scale of the challenge and gets round to fixing our NHS?
Let us look at the pressures on the national health service. There is the revaluation of pensions through a Westminster Government decision; there is the withdrawal of the national insurance rebate, which is another Westminster Government decision; and there are staff costs identified as a pressure. What are the staff costs that are particular to the Scottish national health service? It was our decision to increase the pay of nurses and other staff—that pay increase was not reflected south of the border, where strike action is faced as a result of the betrayal of national health service staff. All that indicates to me and, I suspect, to the people of Scotland, that, in order to protect and preserve our national health service, we have to control its finances, not just the administration.
The pressures—and there are pressures—on our health service are coming as a consequence of Westminster Government decisions, which is why it makes the Labour Party’s incredible decision to campaign hand in glove and shoulder to shoulder with the Conservative Party something that it will pay a heavy price for in the coming weeks and months.
Scotland’s doctors and NHS managers agree that we need action to fix an NHS that was described by the BMA as a “car crash”. For two years, Scotland has been on pause while Alex Salmond fought his referendum. Now he has gone part time and there is no programme for government.
What we see here is a rerunning of the referendum argument, with the First Minister blaming Westminster rather than taking responsibility and running the country. We deserve better from the First Minister of Scotland than simply that response. There can be no doubt that our health service will come under even further pressure this winter and action is needed. When will the Government get back to work and fix our NHS?
The national health service budget has risen by 3 per cent in real terms over the Government’s term of office—an increase in the front-line budget over and above inflation. In Wales, the national health service budget has fallen 3.6 per cent in real terms under a Labour Administration.
This is Scotland.
Mr Findlay!
Johann Lamont seems to shrug away the many indications that the Labour Party’s decision to campaign shoulder to shoulder with the Conservative Party will cost it dear. The BBC says that
“It was right to join Tories”
according to Johann Lamont. Unfortunately for her, that is not the view of Labour Party supporters in Scotland—or should I say former Labour Party supporters? I have just been handed the indications from the latest Panelbase poll, to be released today. [Interruption.] Well, I will not read out the whole thing for Alex Johnstone’s benefit, because it is very bad news for the Conservative Party as well. However, there is a 15-point lead for the Scottish National Party, which is ahead at Westminster.
Modesty forbids me from mentioning the trust ratings for the various political leaders—mine in particular—but let me say that all of the unionist party coalition are negative on trust. That does not surprise me. Nicola Sturgeon emerges with glowing trust ratings, and I am sure that she will take up the cudgels in the future.
Prime Minister (Meetings)
To ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Prime Minister. (S4F-02304)
No plans in the near future.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister promised to protect health spending for the next five years—a promise that was similar to the one that he gave before the 2010 general election. Alex Salmond made the same promise a year later, saying that every penny of extra health spending down south would be passed to Scotland’s national health service. Here is the difference: the Prime Minister kept his promise but the First Minister broke his. We know that because the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies crunched the numbers.
It was wrong.
Order.
Health spending by the United Kingdom Government is up 4.4 per cent and health spending by the Scottish Government is down 1.2 per cent. Alex Salmond has broken his health promises in the past, so what can he do today to assure the people of Scotland that our NHS will not lose out in the next five years, as it has done in the past five?
National health service spending in Scotland has increased in real terms and every single penny of consequentials has been put into the front-line national health service budget in Scotland.
The reason for the figure in the IFS report is that it included sport; it included the Commonwealth games expenditure. As Ruth Davidson might remember, the Commonwealth games was a big spend, but the health service and sport—although the effects that they can have are interrelated—are hardly the same thing.
Every single penny of health service consequentials has been invested in the health service in Scotland. Unfortunately, of course, we now find pressures coming through the back door from Westminster on pensions and national insurance, which the Prime Minister forgot to mention in his speech. Perhaps 500,000 national health service staff in England are going on strike as a result of the Prime Minister’s and Ruth Davidson’s lack of care for health service staff.
I thought that the First Minister might say that, which is why—[Laughter.] It is why we phoned the IFS this morning and spoke to the report’s author, who not only stands by the figure, but told us that he spoke to the SNP to explain why the IFS was right and the Government’s frantic spin about sport was way off the mark. I will read from correspondence with the IFS:
“This sub-portfolio covers health only and does not include things such as sport, the Commonwealth Games etc, which are separate sub-portfolios.”
That matters because, if the Scottish Government had done what it said it would do and matched UK health funding, our NHS would have received £700 million more. That is £700 million that the Scottish Government promised to spend on doctors, nurses, cancer care and accident and emergency services but which it instead funnelled somewhere else. That is £700 million that was promised but never delivered.
That is serious and it is probably why the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing stood up last week—the First Minister has repeated it this week—and cynically tried to rubbish the IFS’s work. Here is the problem: Alex Neil and now Alex Salmond made that claim in the full knowledge that it was wrong. I am happy to release the email that shows it.
The smaller question is why the health secretary and now the First Minister have misled Parliament, but the bigger one is why the Government did not give the health service £700 million that it promised.
If Ruth Davidson knew the answer, she should not have repeated the misinformation.
The front-line health service budget in Scotland has gone up by 3.2 per cent in real terms. Given the 7 per cent decline in the Scottish Government’s budget, how on earth would that have been possible unless every pound of consequentials had been passed on to the health service in Scotland? How would it have been possible for us to have made improvements across the range of targets in the health service over our period in office? How would it be possible for us to have more staff in the health service? Above all, how has it been possible for us to ensure, under these straitened circumstances, that national health service staff in Scotland are at work and not on strike, as they are south of the border?
If I was Ruth Davidson, the figures that I would be looking at very carefully are the 9,120 families who will be affected by the child benefit cuts in the single constituency in Scotland that the Tories hold at Westminster, or the 5,600 families who will be affected by the extraordinary decision to reduce the amount that is paid to the working poor in Scotland—people who work for a living, who are to be cheated by the Conservative Party. Those are the people whom Ruth Davidson should be worried about.
Cabinet (Meetings)
To ask the First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the Cabinet. (S4F-02301)
Issues of importance to the people of Scotland.
When the First Minister goes, will he please take Kenny MacAskill with him?
No.
Surely the First Minister has had enough of defending the Cabinet Secretary for Justice. The First Minister said that he was comfortable with the policy on stop and search of children just before it was abandoned, he rallied to Kenny MacAskill’s defence on the abolition of corroboration before that was put on hold, and he stood on the very spot that he is on now lecturing me that it was for public safety reasons that the police were armed routinely. Now that has gone, too. Meanwhile, Kenny MacAskill shrugs with casual indifference, as if justice is nothing to do with him. He is more trouble than he is worth.
Now that the referendum is over, and to save his successor the bother, will the First Minister please just take Kenny MacAskill with him?
I am sorry that if, over the years, Willie Rennie believes that I have been lecturing him. A lecture depends not just on there being a willing teacher, but on there being a willing pupil. Therefore, I have never tried to lecture him too much.
I will give just one of the many reasons why I will not do what Willie Rennie suggests. As was said by Graeme Pearson on the radio this morning—so it must be correct—crime in Scotland is at a 39-year low. That is why the justice secretary is on a high.
Welfare Reform
To ask the First Minister what action the Scottish Government is taking to support people affected by United Kingdom Government welfare reforms. (S4F-02311)
We are taking a range of actions to mitigate the impact of UK Government welfare reform. We are providing £260 million over the period 2013-14 to 2015-16 to help those who are most affected. We and our local government partners have committed a total of £40 million in 2013-14 and 2014-15 to fill the gap in funding from the UK Government for council tax benefit successor arrangements, thereby ensuring that more than 537,000 vulnerable people in Scotland have been protected from increased council tax liability.
We have established the new Scottish welfare fund, which we are funding with £33 million a year, to replace discretionary elements of the social fund, and we have provided £7 million for welfare reform mitigation, such as advice and support services, in each of the three years from 2013-14.
We will continue to do what we can within the powers that we have to help those who are most affected by cuts and changes that are being imposed by the Westminster Government. Perhaps the better solution would be to bring the relevant powers under the control of this Parliament.
The Deputy First Minister has written to the Prime Minister calling on him to delay the implementation of universal credit in Scotland until the Smith commission has reached its conclusions on welfare, which is a position that I think that all parties in the Parliament could and should support. Does the First Minister agree that this Parliament should have the powers that it needs to make Scotland a fairer country, including welfare powers?
As the Deputy First Minister made clear in her letter to the Prime Minister yesterday, the roll-out of universal credit undermines the unionist parties’ vow to devolve further welfare powers, which is made more urgent by the Tories’ continuing attack on welfare, which their colleagues in the Labour Party now seem to support.
In that context, and given that vows are meant to be kept, we can surely look forward to unanimous support in the chamber for the Deputy First Minister’s letter and request to the Prime Minister.
The First Minister will recall the joint approach that Labour and the Scottish Government took in the previous budget round to ensure that the bedroom tax was fully mitigated this year. However, some people are being pursued for arrears from the previous financial year. Will the First Minister make it clear today that local authorities are allowed to use their current funding from the Scottish Government to clear bedroom tax arrears for 2013-14?
John Swinney will address that very point in his budget statement next week, so I shall let him do so. I am sure that we will stand shoulder to shoulder with Jackie Baillie on the issues, and I am sure that, once she realises the benefits of that approach, she will also realise the inescapable logic of the argument that this Parliament not only could but should control welfare, so that we can provide the same protection for the people of Scotland, in particular the poorest people, on a range of other issues as we provide on the bedroom tax. Would it not be much simpler if we had those powers in our hands?
Armed Police (Convention of Scottish Local Authorities Position)
To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s response is to COSLA’s agreement to oppose the policy of allowing police officers to carry guns while carrying out routine duties. (S4F-02309)
I am of course aware of the position of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, which was reported following its meeting at the end of last week. Police Scotland announced yesterday that it has reviewed the current position, taking into account current risk and threat, and balancing that with the recent concerns that politicians and the public have expressed, and has decided that the standing authority to carry firearms should remain in place for a small number of officers: 275 out of 17,318 officers.
However, the chief constable has also stated that firearms officers will now be deployed only to firearms incidents or where there is a threat to life.
Given the months of controversy, does the First Minister now accept public concerns on the matter? Does he agree that Parliament was promised a strong Scottish Police Authority that exercises diligence in holding the chief constable to account through governance, accountability and transparency, and that the authority should have examined the policy options to identify the best way forward on the matter before any decision was taken?
Does the First Minister also agree that, in the absence of such action, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice should have called on the authority members to take steps at a much earlier stage to allay justified public concerns?
Actually, I think that the process shows a police service that is responsive to political and public concern, which should be applauded and complimented.
I agree with a great deal of what Graeme Pearson says on these issues, but I have trouble reconciling what he says now with what he said in his previous existence as head of the then Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency. That is quite relevant, because there is a lot of common sense in what he said as head of the SDEA: that he wanted a standing authority for his officers—almost 200 officers in Scotland—to carry firearms. I will read the exact quote. He said:
“In the dead of night when we are dealing with those that we identify as the most serious criminals in Scotland, and sometimes in Europe, we could have an emergency situation where firearms predictably become an issue ... I think that my officers have the right to be protected and also have a duty to protect the public.”
I agree with that point, but I sometimes find it difficult to reconcile the common sense of Graeme Pearson’s argument back in 2005 with some of the stuff that his colleagues have come out with in recent weeks.
In fairness, the First Minister must acknowledge that there is a great deal of difference between the threat that is presented in dealing with organised criminals who have previously been involved with firearms and are suspected of murder, and the threat to an officer who is wandering the main streets of our town. [Interruption.]
Order.
Yes, and that is why I accept and see the logic of the point that was made in 2005. [Interruption.]
Order.
Let me repeat: there are 200 of those officers in Scotland. There are only 275 in total with standing authority. What Graeme Pearson has to reconcile is how that number of 275 is compatible with 200 officers having standing authority for that one specific offence. That is why I think that the logic and credibility of what he said in 2005 are very difficult to reconcile with some of the arguments of his colleagues recently.
Few of us think that the industrial scale of stop and search or the distinct policy change on armed policing was purely and simply an operational matter, but the chief constable, with the Cabinet Secretary for Justice’s tacit approval, has repeatedly relied on those two little words to avoid proper scrutiny. Does the First Minister agree that it is time to codify the scope and reach of the chief constable’s operational independence?
No. I think that the process that we have gone through on the issue has been a very good one. [Interruption.]
Order.
I think that, when a police service responds to public concern in a constructive way, it should be applauded for doing that, and that the process has come to a conclusion that I hope and believe that people think is satisfactory. Therefore, I think that protecting the chief constable’s operational independence and his ability to deploy the resources that he has to best effect to keep the people of Scotland safe from harm should be strongly protected.
I would have thought that the process vindicates the argument that we have a police service in Scotland that is held in the highest regard and public esteem, and which responds to public concern when it is voiced. What on earth do parliamentarians expect the police service to do if it is not to listen to parliamentary and public concern? That should be applauded and complimented, not treated as some sort of retrospective political argument.
Does the First Minister agree that buried in this is the most important aspect, which is that 98 per cent of Scotland’s police force was unarmed and will, thankfully, remain unarmed?
I always agree with Christine Grahame whenever I have the slightest opportunity to do so. She has made the extraordinarily important point that the 275 officers represent around 2 per cent of the entire complement of Scotland’s expanded police service. Just as we should recognise the sense and logic of her point, we should recognise that it puts the matter into perspective, with its satisfactory resolution.
In view of the First Minister’s comments about listening, does he support the introduction of a whistleblowers helpline for police officers and staff to ensure that concerns about issues such as the policy on the arming of police, as well as other ethical concerns since the creation of Police Scotland, can be raised safely and confidentially and taken seriously?
I am always interested in constructive suggestions when they come forward, but I repeat that I would have thought that the process indicates that we have a listening police service and a listening chief constable.
It is worth noting that the record numbers of police officers in Scotland are particularly important. There are 17,318 officers across Scotland. If we had followed the same policies that have been pursued in England, of course, that number would have been dramatically diminished. In fact, I saw a figure that suggested that the English police service has lost more officers than the record total that we have in Scotland. It seems to me that morale in the Scottish police service is excellent, because people are carrying forward their duty to protect Scotland and achieving a 39-year low in recorded crime with many of their colleagues standing shoulder to shoulder as opposed to getting their P45s, which is happening in England.
Employment
To ask the First Minister what steps the Scottish Government is taking to promote and safeguard employment. (S4F-02305)
The Government is taking a range of initiatives to create jobs and attract inward investment. The business gateway, Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise deliver that range of support to start-up and expanded businesses, and therefore encourage job creation. Regional selective assistance awards provide vital support to help businesses to grow. In the year to 31 March 2014, those offers were worth a total of £52.5 million. They were accepted by 117 businesses for projects that are expected to create or support 6,161 jobs.
We should remember that, despite George Osborne’s scaremongering, Scotland was the top-performing area of the United Kingdom outside London for foreign direct investment in 2013.
I welcome the thousands of new jobs that have been created through the support of Scottish Enterprise, but does the First Minister agree that the United Kingdom Government must keep to the vow—the solemn pledge that was made during the referendum campaign—and set forth a clear commitment and timetable to bring job-creating powers to the Parliament so that we can maximise opportunities for the businesses and communities of Scotland?
Yes, I agree. I am interested in vows and guarantees. Many people in Scotland do not believe that it should take an online petition to guarantee something that was guaranteed two weeks ago. People who stand surety for such guarantees risk their personal reputation. People should never put themselves into a Tory trap. That trap is not about job creation or income tax; it is about standing shoulder to shoulder with the Tories in a referendum campaign without having any control of the consequences.
That ends First Minister’s question time.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. From your comments earlier, I suspect that you share my concern that the use of First Minister’s question time to make a parliamentary statement without giving members from any party the opportunity to question the Government is an abuse of parliamentary time and disrespectful to all members. Last week, we had the odd spectacle of the First Minister opening a debate with a parliamentary statement—that is, a speech delivered without interruption—and then being allowed to close the debate that afternoon, despite its being a two-day debate.
Presiding Officer, I know that you share my desire to build on the democratic renewal that we have seen in Scotland. It is not power used or wielded by the Government of the day that protects democracy but the accountability that is exercised by the Parliament. I am sure that you will remember, as I do, a time when Scottish National Party front benchers were among the most vocal in holding the Government of the day accountable to the Parliament of the day. Do you agree that, if we respect democracy, the procedures of the Parliament need to be protected and not treated as a plaything by those with power, privilege or position?
Thank you, Mr Macintosh. I think that I made perfectly clear my views on the announcement that was made at the beginning of First Minister’s question time. In relation to the debate last week, its format was agreed by the business managers in the Parliamentary Bureau.
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