Scottish Executive Budget Review
Good morning. The first item of business is a debate on motion S2M-5063, in the name of John Swinney, on the Scottish Executive budget review.
The Deputy Minister for Finance, Public Service Reform and Parliamentary Business and I have known each other for a long time and I wish him to take no hurt from what I am about to say, but I am more than a little disappointed that Mr Lyon is here to defend the Government's position in this debate. It is absolutely ludicrous that Tom McCabe is not here to defend the Government's position on an issue that is a result of his comments, recorded in the Official Report of the Finance Committee. It is absolutely absurd that a minister of the Scottish Executive who is paid a fortune by taxpayers does not have the decency to come to this debate to answer for the misleading way in which he has dealt with the matter or for a volte-face for which he has never properly accounted to the Parliament.
The First Minister fought the previous election on a manifesto that said he would
"Be open and transparent in government".
He said that his top priority would be
"to enhance, rather than avoid, parliamentary scrutiny".
Although we in the Scottish National Party do not always agree with the First Minister, we could have taken those words at face value and considered that the First Minister would run his Administration in line with those significant commitments to the principles of being open and willing to embrace scrutiny of Government by Parliament.
In the debate, I want to test whether the Scottish Government has honoured those principles, which the First Minister offered, in connection with the Howat review of the Scottish Executive's budget.
The Howat review was set up by ministers in 2005 to classify spending into various categories, to consider the performance and outcome of programmes and to identify those programmes that do not match partnership priorities and are not performing well. It reported in the summer—late; everything is late with the Scottish Executive—and its conclusions are now in ministers' hands.
On 7 November 2005, the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform appeared before the Finance Committee and offered to publish the report. We did not even ask him—he offered. He said:
"I have no doubt that the committee will want to examine the outcome of the review. Following the review, I intend to publish a report in spring next year".—[Official Report, Finance Committee, 7 November 2005; c 3012.]
Spring 2006 was months ago.
However, that was no flash-in-the-pan statement. The minister came back to Parliament on 11 May this year and said to Mr Brownlee:
"The group expects to submit its report before the summer recess. I will publish the report in due course thereafter."—[Official Report, 11 May 2006; c 25563.]
Then, in response to news reports, the minister announced that he would not publish the report until the conclusion of the spending review in September 2007. The reaction from the Finance Committee's independent adviser, Professor Midwinter, was:
"It would be pointless to publish it next September after the key Spending Review decisions have been made."
He said that such action would be a
"retreat to the private government of the public finances that existed before devolution."
The contents of the Howat report, which was paid for by Scottish taxpayers and examines the spending of taxpayers' money in Scotland, are now being pursued through freedom of information legislation. Therefore, we have the further ridiculous situation of legislation that was designed to open up scrutiny of Government business and which was proposed by the current Lib Dem-Labour coalition having to be used to find out information commissioned by the Lib Dem-Labour coalition and suppressed by the Lib Dem-Labour coalition. What a perverse position the Liberal and Labour Executive has got itself into.
John Swinney described a perverse situation. Does he agree that it is even more perverse that the Liberal Democrats, who went on about freedom of information in the first session, have been sent out to carry the can today?
I never thought that I would ever feel sorry for the Deputy Minister for Finance, Public Service Reform and Parliamentary Business, but believe me, I feel very sorry for him today.
The perverse position of the Lib Dem-Labour Executive gets much worse when we start examining the justification for refusing to disclose the report. In response to my first freedom of information request, the Executive said that the report could not be disclosed in case it caused an adverse public reaction. If it is worried about causing an adverse public reaction, why does it let the First Minister out of Bute House in the morning?
Like Mr Davidson, I am amazed that Lib Dem ministers who for years pontificated in a more than self-righteous fashion about the need for open government have suddenly signed up to secret government on big issues. I wonder how many Lib Dem voters in Scotland believed that their parliamentary group in this institution would sign up to run the Scottish Government in a fashion that would make the Labour administrations in North and South Lanarkshire proud of every step that they have taken.
Despite all the questions that I have asked about the review, it is still impossible to work out what has changed ministers' minds. Why did the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform decide one day that he would publish the report, sustain that line for months and then, when he saw the report, suddenly decide that it could not be published until after the election? I can only presume that the report constitutes a damning indictment of the Lib Dem-Labour Executive and its management of our public finances. If that is the case, the people of this country have a right to know what their Government has been doing with their money.
If the report contains shocking proposals about changes to public spending—so shocking that they might cause an adverse public reaction—surely the public have a right to know before they cast their vote at the election. Why should the Lib Dem-Labour Executive be allowed to hide away from public scrutiny of its record and why should it be able to take major decisions affecting public spending without letting the public know what awaits them?
Perhaps the reason is, as the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has been told, that there is headroom in the budget to fund other priorities and the Government wants to keep that secret to fund the announcements that it will use to try to buy the forthcoming election. The Government has good form in that regard.
Perhaps the real reason why the report is not being published is that we have not only an invisible but an incompetent Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform who cannot get it right. If members do not believe me, they should believe sources within the Executive.
On 29 September, the day after my party leader, Nicola Sturgeon, questioned the First Minister about the review, a report in The Herald said:
"A source in the Executive later said that the report being kept confidential was standard and should have been expected, and Mr McCabe had been unwise to promise an early publication."
I presume that that comment was from one of Mr McCabe's rivals to be the next leader of the Opposition in the Scottish Parliament.
We call for the Howat report to be published and I hope that that will be the outcome of today's debate. If not, we have said that, on taking office, an SNP Government will publish the report as a matter of urgency.
Scotland will have a choice between this Labour-led Executive that operates in secret and an SNP-led Government that is open with the people. Scotland will have a choice between a Labour-led Government that has wasted a fantastic opportunity to invest in our public services and an SNP Government that will take wise decisions for all in Scotland. That choice cannot come soon enough to release Scotland from this wasteful and secretive Labour-led Executive.
I move,
That the Parliament calls on the Scottish Executive to publish the Howat review of the Executive's budget before the conclusion of Stage 1 of this year's budget process.
I welcome Mr Swinney's concern for my well-being. In his opening remarks, he spoke about our making announcements to buy elections, but the SNP has form on that one.
Much has been made of the fact that we will publish the report of the budget review group at the same time as we publish our decisions on the 2007 spending review. Since day 1, our position has been that the report would be published. [Interruption.] That is why the Finance Committee was informed that it would be published, why on two occasions Mr McCabe confirmed that it would be published and why today we reaffirm that the report will be published along with a range of other advice that will be available to ministers who take decisions on the 2007 spending review.
Will the minister take an intervention?
Will the minister give way?
I will make some progress, if members do not mind.
The subject was discussed at length during Mr McCabe's appearance at the Finance Committee on 19 September. He explained that the report was only one part of a range of advice that ministers will receive as part of the decision-making process in the run-up to the next spending review in 2007.
The budget review group was appointed to help the Executive with that spending review by attempting to provide a range of options that allowed for realignment of budgets. The options in the report are a work in progress, and that is why a number of the budget reviewers have been asked to carry out a further round of work. They will be gathering more evidence, undertaking further analysis and providing further advice that will be used by ministers in the lead-up to decisions in the 2007 spending review.
Will the minister clarify why ministers are apparently able to publish the advice that they receive on the Scottish National Party's spending plans but are unable to publish the advice that they receive on their own spending plans?
Answer!
Given that the SNP spending plans are calculated on the back of an envelope, that is not exactly hard to do. They do not require a lot of advice.
Officials are undertaking a wide range of other work to provide advice to inform the spending review. Publishing the report at this stage, before that further work has even begun—indeed, before publishing any other advice to ministers in connection with the spending review—and months before any decisions are taken would be neither sensible nor appropriate.
If that is the case, why did Tom McCabe say to the Finance Committee that the report would be published in the spring of this year?
As John Swinney well knows, the minister made it clear that that was not set in stone. He qualified the position. [Interruption.] Calm down.
It is now two years since the last spending review, and due to the postponement of the Westminster spending review until 2007, which has resulted in a similar delay in Scotland, at the next spending review three years will have elapsed since the last one. During that time, we will have enjoyed significant growth in public expenditure, and budgets are at a historically high level. However, the benign fiscal climate is likely to change after 2007, as any cursory examination of the current state of the United Kingdom finances will reveal. Therefore, it is important that robust advice is prepared to help ministers to make the hard choices that are likely to confront them when deciding the priorities for 2008, 2009 and 2010.
By the time that the spending review comes round, the Government's intention is to have an array of robust information available to ministers to help them make the right choices that will ensure that services continue to improve and are sustainable in the longer term. Our ambitious futures work will support that objective by helping to assess some of the key challenges and opportunities that Scotland might face in the next 20 years or so, building on the work that is already under way in health, transport, planning, education and other areas.
I thank the minister for taking an intervention and draw his attention to the loyal grins behind him from Mr McNulty. [Interruption.] In fact, they are now loyal hysterics. I am sure that the minister recognises the importance of parliamentary committees in the budget-setting process in the Parliament. As I am sure Mr McNulty would agree, surely it is right that if committees are to be taken seriously in the budget process, they should have access to the same information as ministers.
That is where Mr Neil reveals his ignorance of what we are talking about. The independent budget review group's work was nothing to do with this year's budget. It concerned the spending review that will inform decisions about spend in 2008, 2009 and 2010. This year's budget process is not being informed by the budget reviewers' work. If Mr Neil reads the reviewers' exact remit, it will inform him. He should have read it before making that point.
Will the minister give way?
I have taken several interventions. I want to make some progress.
We have been reforming public services since devolution, with modernisation taking place across Scotland. Much has been achieved, and more still has to be achieved. The current Scotland-wide dialogue on reform is well under way, helping to increase the speed and widen the scope of reform, which will be important in sustaining our services in the future.
Our efficient government programme is an important part of that wide agenda. So far, we have identified £920 million of cash-releasing efficiency savings and £350 million of time-releasing gains, which will be released by 2007-08. We are continuing to work to identify further efficiency gains, which will be needed in future.
All the various strands of work, and the range of advice, including the budget review exercise, will ensure that ministers have the most robust information possible to help them make decisions on spending in the period from 2008 to 2011.
In conclusion, the independent budget review process is not a part of this year's budget process, as the SNP motion seems to imply. It is a work in progress, along with a wide range of other work designed to provide robust information for decisions that will take effect from 2008 onwards. We have pledged to release the full suite of advice, including the budget review, when the spending decisions have been made, and we restate that commitment again today. I hope that Parliament will support our approach by rejecting the SNP motion and supporting the Executive amendment.
I move amendment S2M-5063.1, to leave out from "calls on" to end and insert:
"notes that preparation for the 2007 Spending Review, including the provision of advice to Scottish Ministers by the Budget Review Group, is ongoing and further notes the Scottish Executive's intention to publish a comprehensive suite of documents including the completed Howat review as part of the Spending Review package."
It is always a pleasure to debate financial matters with so many members in the chamber, and it is a particular pleasure to debate them with the Deputy Minister for Finance, Public Service Reform and Parliamentary Business. It appears that, having first suppressed the report of the Howat review, the Executive is now suppressing the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform.
I am not entirely sure where Mr McCabe is today—his deputy might enlighten us. Perhaps he is busy hiding all the other evidence of the Government's failure to get value for the tens of billions of pounds of taxpayers' money that it spends every year, or perhaps he is in St Andrews lobbying the information commissioner and begging him not to release any of the Howat review until at least after next May. As a result we have the almost tragic situation of the deputy minister being in the firing line for the mistakes of his boss—I am sure that he had no part in them. Is it not time for the Parliament to consider outlawing the baiting of the deputy minister?
As Mr Swinney said, we should have already seen the report, had the benefit of its contents, and been able to debate it. We would have done, had Mr McCabe not changed his mind. On two separate occasions, he confirmed to me, in committee and on the floor of the chamber, that the report would be published. There was not a word about waiting until September 2007—at least until ministers had received the report.
To be fair, we have committed to publishing the report. That is in our amendment, and there has been an on-going commitment to publish. That is what we have always said, and on both the occasions that Mr Brownlee referred to, Mr McCabe qualified the timing of the publication.
It is an odd interpretation to consider "in due course", said in May this year, to mean "in September 2007", but perhaps we should be used to the twisting of the meaning of plain language by ministers in this Executive.
As Mr McCabe has confirmed to me in response to questions on the subject, the terms of reference for the report have not changed. The report has been completed. Mr Lyon said that it was a work in progress but, under the terms of reference on which it was commissioned, the report has been completed and submitted to ministers. Does Mr Lyon deny that?
As I said, the report has been completed, and further work is now being undertaken as a result of the options provided.
Mr McCabe was clear that the report had been completed under the terms of reference and that further, separate, work was now under way, but perhaps he has not enlightened his deputy. There are no obstacles to the publication of the report except those put in place by ministers.
The review group was asked to consider 2005-06. Today, the Deputy Minister for Finance, Public Service Reform and Parliamentary Business is telling us that nothing in the review—not one single piece of information—is relevant to the scrutiny of the budgets that are currently before the Parliament. Is there some mystical quality about the 2005-06 budget that renders it irrelevant to 2006-07 and 2007-08 but sufficiently useful for 2008 onwards that it was worth commissioning the external review? The situation is utterly bizarre.
During committee consideration of the budget process, my colleagues have pressed ministers on why they will not publish the Howat review. Mr Lyon's colleague, Mr Kerr, told the Health Committee that if the report was published, there would be
"a host of wild and inappropriate misunderstandings about the advice that has been given to ministers."—[Official Report, Health Committee, 24 October 2006; c 3150.]
However, it is hardly the case that there is any clarity now on what is in the report. Is Mr Kerr seriously suggesting that if the report is hidden away until next September, the entire populous will be able to reach a Zen-like state that renders them capable of understanding its true meaning?
What Patricia Ferguson told the Enterprise and Culture Committee was certainly likely to cause confusion. She said that the Howat review
"is not a commentary on what has already happened; it is meant to influence what happens in the future. I have nothing more to add."—[Official Report, Enterprise and Culture Committee, 24 October 2006; c 3349-50.]
It is a shame that she had nothing more to add, because she could have explained why something that is intended to influence what happens in the future is of no relevance to the Parliament, even though it scrutinises future spending.
Where does ministers' refusal to publish the document leave the Government? It leaves the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform lacking in credibility, to the extent that he dare not even turn up for his own debates. It also leaves the Deputy Minister for Finance, Public Service Reform and Parliamentary Business lacking in credibility.
Does the member not find it perverse that the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform will open the next debate for the Executive, in which he will attack Liberal party policy on fiscal autonomy, while the deputy minister is here defending Labour policy on lack of information?
Perhaps Mr Lyon needs to negotiate better. [Laughter.]
I wonder how much credibility the Minister for Parliamentary Business has left, given that she said, in relation to what she described as the Executive's enthusiastic introduction of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, that the Executive was committed to open and transparent government. We will find out how enthusiastic it is about that act when Mr Dunion has issued his opinion on the suppression of the Howat review.
Even the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is not known for being particularly open about anything, has said:
"we must all open our books, be fully transparent and each of us account for our actions".
Furthermore, as Mr Swinney noted, Jack McConnell said in his party's 2003 manifesto that as First Minister, he would be
"open and transparent in government".
Damaging the credibility of Executive ministers is one thing, but damaging the credibility of the Parliament and its scrutiny process is quite another. I urge ministers to consider rather more carefully than they have done to date their cavalier refusal to publish the Howat review. Given that taxpayers have paid for that report and for the spending decisions that are analysed in it, they have a right to see it before next May. I have every confidence that they will because, at some point, the Government will have to give way and, when it does, ministers will have even less credibility than they have now.
I have enjoyed some of the jokes in this morning's debate, but I want to highlight some of the background to the issue that we should be focusing on, which is the process of how we examine the Scottish Executive budget over the longer term and what needs to happen if we are to do that effectively.
Six or seven years ago, Arthur Midwinter, along with one of his colleagues at the University of Strathclyde, produced a report on the headroom that was available to the Executive to change budgets in year. It concluded that between spending reviews, there is limited scope for the Executive to make strategic shifts in its budget. The Executive can make some adjustments, but because so many resources are taken up by major services such as the mainstream national health service, local government and education services, it can do so only at the margins. Although such adjustments are significant, they affect only 1 or 2 per cent of the budget; 98 to 99 per cent of the budget is specified and accounted for.
That is why spending reviews are so important. They give whoever is in government the opportunity to consider whether changes of direction should be made in major areas of spending and how that can be done. Even then, the scope for change is limited because, ultimately, no politician will say that we should shift away from providing the services that the Executive is expected to provide, whether in hospitals, schools or universities. However, spending reviews offer more scope for adjustment.
During spending reviews, long-term advance consideration needs to be given to the options that are available. That is certainly the Finance Committee's position. Early on, we were led by Arthur Midwinter in advocating the idea that we should use a zero-base budgeting approach to conduct a systematic review of how the Executive spends its money so that we can identify not just the scope that exists for change, but the direction in which it could take us. As members will recall, the Finance Committee undertook to carry out such a review, with the Executive's assistance. That was just before John Swinney joined the committee, when Alasdair Morgan was still the deputy convener. If I remember correctly, it was at that point that the minister said that he wanted to take possession of the process, and that was when the Howat review was announced.
Des McNulty will be aware that the description of the task that was to be undertaken stated:
"it is possible that the Scottish Parliament's Finance Committee may choose to seek evidence on the report from the reviewers."
When the review was set up, the Government seemed relaxed about the Finance Committee taking evidence from the reviewers. Why has the Government now decided against that?
All I can do is try to provide what seems to be the logical explanation. At least two factors must be taken into account. The first is that the spending review has shifted year. It was initially intended that the spending review would take place in the present budget round, which would have meant that we would have gone through it by now. However, the Westminster Government put its spending review back a year, which shifted the basis on which the original undertakings were made. A regrettable consequence of that is that the spending review is now aligned with the elections. Originally, that would not have been the case.
Just let me finish. Secondly, I am not sure that the remit that the Howat review was given necessarily made it fit for the purpose that it might sensibly have been asked to fulfil. The Finance Committee was concerned about that at the time.
In my view, the review was asked to combine two different tasks. On the one hand, it was an invitation to people from outside the Government to think the unthinkable. There is a place for that in government, but it could be handled differently. On the other hand, the review was to examine the Government's performance and management. The intertwining of those two aims underlies the current problem.
If the Government wants to think the unthinkable, as it has done in the past—the Wanless report and the Gershon report are examples of that—it is entirely consistent for the investigation that is carried out by external experts to be pondered on by the Government so that it can determine how it wants to respond, because some of the ideas that the independent experts suggest will not be ones that politicians would want to propose and there could be confusion that the report contained suggestions that were made by politicians. The remit for the Howat review poses that risk. That said, anything that focuses on the efficiency of how things are done and what scope exists for change might be legitimate.
If that was a ringing endorsement of the Government's stewardship of the budget process, Mr McNulty will have to get a bit more enthusiastic about the Government.
On the substantive point that Alasdair Morgan raised, the remit of the Howat committee gave the Finance Committee an opportunity to scrutinise the review report. That suggests that the spending review is not a one-off announcement that is made in a parliamentary statement but a process that engages many other players, including various parliamentary committees. It also suggests that a lot of scrutiny and a lot of players have been carved out of the process by the Government's reinterpretation of the Howat review's remit.
That depends on whether one views the Howat review as the only aspect of the matter. I appreciate that John Swinney wants to make a political point and that he and Derek Brownlee have entertained us with some of the points that they have made, but there is a real, substantive issue: in the context of the spending review—in particular, one that is aligned with an election—how do we do what is best for Scotland? How do we ensure that we have the appropriate mechanisms for identifying the parameters of change and, at the same time, protect the integrity of the political process? I am not sure that the matter is entirely straightforward, but it does not centre on the Howat review's publication. How we take forward option appraisal in Scotland and the room that exists for different choices are issues for us all.
Derek Brownlee has mentioned the SNP's options for higher education. The financial incompetence that lies at the heart of those proposals demonstrates the need for the proposals that we make to the public to have a robust basis.
We will not take any lessons from the party that has a £500 million black hole in the Glasgow housing budget.
Des McNulty makes the point about the election cycle as if that is the reason for not publishing the report, but surely it is the reason for publishing it. In a democratic society, the voters should have access to all the information to which ministers have access before they have to vote.
I have no idea what options might be in the Howat review, but I am sure that there are some that the Liberal Democrats would find unacceptable and some that the Labour Party would find unacceptable. It may even contain options that the SNP or the Conservatives would find unacceptable—who knows? There are many different ways of spending money. We have the opportunity to put our proposals to the electorate, who will make the choice. If that process gets tied up with a different kind of process, we will all end up very confused. I would not necessarily want the Howat review to be counted as the expression of my views any more than Mr Neil might want other things to be thought the expression of his views.
We must recognise that there are things that we need to do to ensure that Governments have the space to think the unthinkable. This is a good knockabout debate, but the Gershon review, the Wanless review and perhaps the Howat review—I have not seen it and do not know what it contains—represent an attempt to explore the parameters. However, if that simply becomes a political football, we will never have a sensible process.
At first glance and on a superficial level, there appears to be some merit in the SNP motion, which requests the publication of a review into Scottish Executive expenditure. However, if we scratch beneath the surface and take into account the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform's comments to the Finance Committee in September, it is obvious that the Howat review forms part—an integral part, but still only part—of a wide-ranging review of Government expenditure in Scotland. In isolation, the review is unlikely to provide much information or many solutions, if solutions are needed. I see the Howat review—
He cannot see the review.
I see it as one piece in a jigsaw, the final product of which is intended for the 2007 spending review and the Scottish budget thereafter. It has nothing to do with the current budget or the 2007-08 budget, on which debate is about to begin.
Will Andrew Arbuckle give way?
I will make some progress and then I will give way.
Outside the Parliament, people will wonder what the debate is about. People in business will realise that sometimes internal reviews take place to check that delivery systems and management are as they should be. The Conservative party might recognise that point from when it was considered to be the party of business, but it might have forgotten it. Such reviews deal with the internal workings of organisations.
Will Mr Arbuckle explain to the Parliament why he has not, since Mr McCabe appeared before the Finance Committee in November 2005, made any of those comments in public or told the minister that he ought not to publish the report when he originally said that he would publish it?
Only a few minutes ago, Mr Swinney heard the deputy minister confirm yet again that the report will be published.
That is not what I asked.
The answer to the question is that there is no need to do what Mr Swinney asked. The report will be published when it is ready to be published.
Outside the Parliament, people will wonder what the debate is about. All around them, they see increased investment in the public sector. They see new schools, more investment in the national health service and more cash going into better public transport and many other sectors. Those who cannot see the increased commitment to improve Scotland's infrastructure can see it in the draft budget for 2007-08, which runs to almost £31 billion, which is 50 per cent more than only five years ago. Where does that leave the dust storm that the SNP is trying to kick up this morning?
In his eyes. [Laughter.]
Far from it. If the SNP members want to bring the debate down to a knockabout, that is up to them.
The Howat review's original remit included the classification of spending into different categories—statutory spending, partnership agreement spending and other categories. How many people outside the Parliament are waiting with bated breath to know the height of the various piles of cash that arise from the review? The original remit also asked the review to consider the performance and outcomes of various programmes, looking beyond this parliamentary session. Checking how effective investment has been is the mark of a responsible Government or, indeed, business.
Is Andrew Arbuckle not proud of the role that Jim Wallace, a great Liberal, played in getting freedom of information legislation through the Parliament? Is the position that he argues not contrary to every principle and word in the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002?
As Mr Neil recognises, the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 is one of the many achievements that the Liberal Democrats have contributed to the Government. There is no need to invoke it, because a promise has been given that the review will be published.
There have been accusations in the press that the information in the Howat review will be used as part of a base budget review. My response to that is, so what? [Laughter.] Just wait. Members should calm down. Des McNulty referred to the budget adviser's favourable views on base budgets. Although few organisations in the public sector actually get round to having base budgets, there are few healthier options on the financial front. In fact, there should be a requirement on public bodies to ensure that little pockets of service that continue to eat up cash are not quietly forgotten. We need base budgets. As far as the Scottish Executive is concerned, that is especially the case if the Howat review forms part of a base budget review following a period during which there has been a massive increase in the Executive's annual expenditure. Moreover, it seems extremely likely that we will be entering a period of financial stringency, when acumen and accuracy will be required to ensure that cash is spent efficiently.
If the main purpose of the Howat review is to produce material to feed into a base budget review, I can sympathise a little with the Scottish National Party because, in my time in the Parliament, the SNP has seemed totally unable to produce any budget of its own.
Rubbish.
No. The review reflects nothing more than a responsible Government ensuring that public investment in projects is efficient and effective.
Will the member give way?
No, he is closing.
The debate shows that, far from gaining even a whiff of wind in its sails, the SNP is trying to huff and puff itself towards the next election six months down the line.
We have all enjoyed the desperate wriggling by the Executive as it tries to justify the unjustifiable. It has been great stuff. The debate is not just about one report, however. Andrew Arbuckle asked what members of the public would make of the debate. It is about the fundamental principles of the Parliament, which is why I will begin by quoting them and reminding everybody of them, particularly members of the Executive parties:
"the Scottish Parliament should embody and reflect the sharing of power between the people of Scotland, the legislators and the Scottish Executive … the Scottish Executive should be accountable to the Scottish Parliament and the Parliament and Executive should be accountable to the people of Scotland … the Scottish Parliament should be accessible, open, responsive and develop procedures which make possible a participative approach to the development, consideration and scrutiny of policy and legislation".
That is what the debate is actually about. It is about the role of committees, which act, in effect, as the second chamber of the Parliament, with their vital role in scrutinising decisions. It is about the sharing of power and being part of the process. That means having input into decisions. Participation does not, as the minister suggested, mean releasing documents only after the decisions have been taken. There can be no participation, power sharing or accountability if that is the Executive's approach.
The attitude of George Lyon's boss was clear. In his letter to the Finance Committee prior to its meeting of 19 September, he wrote:
"However, on reflection September publication of the report will enable us to make best use of the investment we have made in the review, by thoroughly working through the advice and implications of the different options without external pressure."
Let us think about that phrase, "without external pressure". "External" means external to the Executive. Presumably, that includes the committees, the Parliament and the people of Scotland as a whole. We are talking about the approach of the Government to the legislature and the people of Scotland. At the moment, the Government does not want the report to be published because of a fear of external pressure, a fear of sharing power, a fear of accountability and a fear of participation.
I know that many members who are in the chamber now campaigned for this Parliament and tried to persuade people to vote in the referendum on it and to agree to the significant expenditure of public money on the Parliament. That was because we thought that this would be a Parliament based on principle, which would do a good job and enable the people of Scotland to have a real say in decisions on how public finances are spent. We wish to remain true to the principles of the Parliament, yet we are being told, seven years into it, that external pressure means that reports about the spending of billions of pounds of public money cannot be published or will only be published after decisions have been made, which is a disappointment to everybody who campaigned and voted for this Parliament.
The committee rooms, the debating chamber and this whole edifice mean absolutely nothing if the Executive majority chooses to ignore the principles on which the Parliament was established. The role of the legislature is to hold the Executive to account. The role of cross-party committees such as the Finance Committee is to hold the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform and, through him, the whole Executive to account.
I am glad that we have only two choices at decision time today. We either support the SNP motion or the single, lonely amendment in the name of the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform, which was spoken to by the Deputy Minister for Finance, Public Service Reform and Parliamentary Business, because the minister could not make it. As the legislature, we have a choice. Are we going to hold the Executive to account? Are we going to demand that the principles of the Parliament—of sharing power, of accountability, of accessible, open, responsive Government and, most of all, of participation in power—be adhered to? Are we going to ensure that the Executive is held to those principles? Are we going to do our job as a Parliament? I hope that we are. I hope that everybody is going to vote according to their conscience to hold the Executive to account. To do otherwise would not be to do our job as legislators.
It is always a pleasure to follow my good friend Mark Ballard in a debate and to agree 100 per cent with what he has said. To amplify the point, it is relevant to mention that the Howat review cost the taxpayer £134,306.52. If Mr Arbuckle thinks that a humorous matter, he should come and speak to my constituents, who could use that amount of money to get a house, an operation or treatment for their special-needs children.
This is a serious debate that goes to the heart of what is wrong with the Scottish Executive. Earlier, the minister tried to chastise my colleague Alex Neil for not studying the review's remit—which was rather like being savaged by a dead sheep. The experts were given a remit to consider the performance and outcomes of programmes, based on a performance assessment rating tool. They were asked to identify those Labour-Liberal programmes that do not match with the partnership agreement priorities or that are not performing well. The review is a report card for the Scottish Labour-Liberal Executive—it contains a judgment about its performance. After Mr McCabe received his report card, instead of showing it to his parents—the public, in this case—he decided to keep it secret. It is like a schoolchild being given his report card and deciding to tear it up and chuck it into the gutter on the way home, because he cannot bring himself to show his parents what the experts—the schoolmasters—have said about how well he has been doing.
All the subterfuge, bluster and irrelevance that we have heard this morning are completely irrelevant. Moreover, what Government can bind its successors anyway? The present Executive is saying what the next Executive should do. Hang on a second—is there not something missing there? The people have a little bit of a say about who their next Government will be. Perhaps the next Government will want to take its own decisions. Funny, that. It might actually be a different Government. We might have a different finance minister—one who turns up to debates.
I must move on to freedom of information, on which I will quote two of my parliamentary colleagues whom I hold in the greatest esteem. Margaret Curran said:
"The Executive enthusiastically introduced the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Bill because it is committed to ensuring that citizens have the means to call to account the people who make decisions that affect them."—[Official Report, 2 November 2005; c 20191.]
That is rousing stuff. Des McNulty said:
"we wanted to change the culture of Government acting in secret, to stop the routine withholding of information".—[Official Report, 2 November 2005; c 20207.]
What has happened to Superman Des McNulty? He has reverted to Clark Kent this morning—what a shame.
On Tuesday, Mr Swinney took his arguments to the Finance Committee, which Mr McNulty envisaged scrutinising and studying the review by now. Mr Swinney offered help to save the Labour-Liberal Executive from the error of its past ways and to try to move forward to a broader, sunny fiscal upland. However, instead of supporting Mr Swinney and endorsing his proposal to take evidence from the Howat group, Mr McNulty and his colleagues—whom I hold in high regard—voted against that proposal by five votes to four.
Sadly, I cannot—
Since Mr Ewing has criticised Mr McNulty, it would be reasonable for him to give way. I do not know how I will make up the time, mind you.
The Finance Committee voted to take evidence on the review, but after it has been published.
I have no doubt that we will debate that next summer.
When President Reagan said that the 10 most frightening words in the English language are, "I'm from the Government and I'm here to help you," I now know what he meant.
I express my condolences to the deputy minister. I know how he feels. I am sure Mr McNulty does also, having been in a similar position.
The debate concerns two issues. The first is what the Howat review was about. To my mind, it was intended to inform the spending review.
No.
That was my understanding of the review's main purpose. Alasdair Morgan should not heckle from the floor; he should intervene or—
Gordon Brown is conducting the spending review in London. Has he received the Howat review?
A spending review also takes place in Scotland. The comprehensive spending review here should have taken place this year, but it has been postponed until next year, because the comprehensive spending review in London has been postponed.
In the Scottish budget spending review, ministers consider what can be expanded and contracted. The Howat review's purpose was to bring in a fresh set of eyes to advise the Executive on what the sun could set on and what could be expanded.
I am sorry, but I have only about three minutes for my speech.
Bringing somebody in serves a good purpose and it is done in local authorities, too. If deciding on closure programmes is just left with a minister or a department, people will come forward with the ones that look most frightening, because they do not want to lose face or revenue.
I warned our whips that if they asked me to speak, I would not be altogether helpful, because I think that the Executive made a mistake. It was unnecessary to set a timescale of February 2006. If the review was intended to inform the spending review, setting that timescale was unwise. It would be unwise to publish a report that says some budget lines should be altered or that advises ministers to discontinue programmes when decisions are not to be taken until more than a year later. That would leave those projects in limbo, as it is not known whether the Executive will accept the Howat review's advice that they should be run down. I wish that I had picked up on that lack of wisdom at the time, but perhaps I was not paying enough attention.
It is not the case that the Executive was unaware that the UK comprehensive spending review had been postponed, because the Chief Secretary to the Treasury announced the postponement in summer 2005. When the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform appeared before the Finance Committee a year ago, he knew of that postponement. In the quote from him that is in my prepared speech, which I am not using, he says that the spending review will take place in 2007.
So why did the minister say that he would publish the review?
I do not know—doing so was unwise.
As Andrew Arbuckle said, the public are not desperate to see the Howat review. In post office queues and pubs, people do not say, "Oh dear, what's happened to the Howat review?" People are not terribly likely to vote on that basis. However, I say to the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform that it was unnecessary to set himself a bear trap by saying that he would publish the report in spring. The minister conceded that if the review group asked for more time, he would consider allowing it. If the Executive has something to learn from the situation, it is that it should not make such commitments when it is unlikely to fulfil them.
Yesterday, I asked our whips whether the minister would appear, and I was told that he would. Given what a pugnacious character he normally is, I am surprised not to see him here.
The debate was too much for him.
Order.
Last week, I was invited to participate in an animal welfare debate at the University of St Andrews debating society. After about three minutes of listening to and watching George Lyon today, I felt that I should be on the phone to Advocates for Animals, because it was pitiful to watch a minister come here to represent the Government of Scotland and have nothing of note to say on a vital issue.
As Mark Ballard said, the debate is about the dignity, role and power of the Parliament. The Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform has been arrogant in failing to turn up to defend his actions and the subject has been pathetically passed on to the Liberal Democrats as fall guys, which makes me feel sorry for them, although that does not help us.
Andrew Arbuckle and Elaine Murray said that the public are not that interested in the Howat review. Does Mr Davidson think that the public might be interested if the Howat review made recommendations that the Executive adopted to alter, damage and cut public spending programmes of which people are fond?
We are all elected to Parliament to represent the interests of everybody who lives out there, who pays their taxes and who tries to access public services. If the position is such a big mystery, how is it that the justice committees receive bill after bill, financial memorandums pile up and the chief of the Scottish Prison Service told the justice committees this week that, to be frank, if he had had more information, he would probably have thought that the budget would not work? The deputy minister talked as if no changes have been made and the question is for the future, yet decisions are being made now that will set spending for the future. That is ridiculous.
Will the member take an intervention?
In a moment.
Mr Arbuckle at least mentioned the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. It is scandalous that although the Liberal Democrats shouted and screamed about that act, they are taking the hit today and saying that the act does not apply and is not relevant and that we do not need the information at this stage.
Will David Davidson take an intervention?
No, thank you—time is short.
Perhaps Mr Rumbles and his colleagues might reflect on freedom of information after they leave the chamber, and drop a note to everybody on whether they have even had sight of the Howat review. If they have, that would be more than the committees have had.
Come on, David—take an intervention.
To be honest, I find it strange that Mr Rumbles is defending his front bench's defence of the Labour Party. That is ridiculous. [Interruption.]
Order.
I give way to Mr Arbuckle, who is sitting on the front benches.
Mr Davidson said that decisions have been made as a result of the review. What proof, if any, does he have of that? What decisions have been taken?
I did not say that. I said that decisions are being made in parliamentary committees about bills from which huge spending issues arise, so the Howat review must be part of the process for the 2007 budget. That is the Howat review's relevance to the Parliament.
The truth is that parliamentary committees need to be able to take on any challenge in any way that they wish in scrutinising actions taken by the Government, its words and even its silences in the chamber. Ministers not coming to the chamber to discuss such matters of importance is an abuse of the chamber. I am afraid that funding makes the world go round. George Lyon must come clean and say that the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform was wrong not to come to the chamber. Perhaps the First Minister ought to come here and apologise for the fiasco that has occurred.
The Government has made a commitment to publishing the full suite of advice, including the budget review group's report, at the same time as decisions on the 2007 spending review are published. The fundamental reason why the independent budget review group was set up was to inform decisions that will be taken in the summer of 2007. It will provide information that will allow ministers to make decisions at that time about what future spend will be through to 2011. Of course the Finance Committee will scrutinise subsequent budgets in the financial years from 2008 onwards.
I turn to the criticisms that have been made. It is scandalous that David Davidson should dare to criticise the Executive in respect of the freedom of information legislation. His party was fundamentally and utterly opposed to the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. Every Tory member voted against that bill. Let us not hear any more sanctimonious nonsense and doublespeak from the Tories. They are far from being great defenders of the Scottish Parliament; indeed, I suspect that every Tory member was against its establishment.
I thank Mr Lyon for his outburst because we are now seeing him in his true colours. He believes in the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, but he has been sent to the chamber to deny its principles.
I am sorry, but we have always made it absolutely clear—as we have done again in our amendment—that the information in question will be published. As I have already explained, the appropriate time to do so is when decisions are taken on the 2007 spending review.
Will the minister take an intervention?
If Mr Swinney does not mind, I want to make some progress.
As I have explained, the independent budget review group's report is not the end of the process. The group will gather more evidence, undertake further analysis and provide further advice to be used by ministers in the lead-up to spending decisions in the summer of 2007. Mr Howat and four of his colleagues will have meetings with heads of departments and officials in which options will be tested in greater detail to ensure that they are robust and accurate. Therefore, the submission of the report does not bring the exercise to a close; it is only the beginning of a further process that must be carried out by the budget review team.
As we prepare for the tighter financial prospects of the next spending review, we must reflect on previous spending reviews. Since devolution, our resources have grown by 70 per cent, our economy has grown every year and our employment rate is among the best in Europe. We have introduced free personal care for the elderly.
Will Mr Lyon explain why Tom McCabe did not give the Finance Committee in November 2005 all the reasons that have now been given for not publishing the report until after the spending review is complete?
I have read the evidence that Mr McCabe gave to the Finance Committee and, as far as I can see, it was made clear that the information was being prepared with an eye on the work that would be undertaken on spending decisions during the spending review in 2007. That is the position. We have given an absolute commitment that the information will be published.
We have introduced the ban on smoking in public places and invested heavily in new schools and teachers, and pupil performance is improving. We have invested heavily in more staff and in modernising pay and conditions in the health service and we have invested in hospitals and community health centres. There are fewer premature deaths from heart disease and cancer, and overall life expectancy throughout Scotland has risen. We have done much more than that and, as we approach the spending review in 2007, it is right that work should be undertaken to provide robust and accurate information so that ministers can take hard decisions at that time.
In conclusion, it is nonsense to suggest that the Government is trying to cover up the report. We informed the Finance Committee what would happen when the independent budget review was set up and we have always said that we would publish the report. Today, we are reaffirming our commitment to publish it at the time of the spending review, when decisions are taken. Again, I ask the Parliament to reject the SNP's motion and support the Government's amendment at decision time.
I am glad that the Liberal Democrats are leading and closing the debate for the Government because of their association with the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. What they have said points to the extent to which they must compromise their principles as junior partners in a coalition.
As Alasdair Morgan is well aware, advice to ministers is protected under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.
It is up to the Government to decide what constitutes advice to ministers. The more ministers try to hide behind that smokescreen, the worse they look.
Would the SNP publish all advice?
The member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale should not come to the debate at such a late stage and intervene.
Exactly. He should get on his feet and apologise.
John Swinney rightly criticised the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform for not being in the chamber. However, let us be clear. He is beginning to look like damaged goods. Even the two Labour members who have spoken in his defence have been more than slightly critical of him.
John Swinney was too kind. The Liberal Democrats do not have to defend the indefensible—they should stick up for their principles. When Jim Wallace introduced the stage 1 debate on the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Bill in January 2002, he mentioned that the consultative steering group looked for
"an accountable, visible Parliament, where people were encouraged to participate fully in public debate and the policy-making process."—[Official Report, 17 January 2002; c 5453.]
People cannot participate in a policy-making process after decisions have been made. Today, Mr Lyon said that the Executive will release the full suite of information once the spending decisions have been taken. That flies in the face of how the Parliament was meant to operate.
It is not only the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform who has been absent. Except for two Labour members of the Finance Committee, Labour Party members have been absent for most of the debate. Where, for example, is Maureen Macmillan, who said in the stage 3 debate on the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Bill that
"the passing of the bill and its implementation … will be used to the full to bring about that change of culture"—
the culture of openness that we have been talking about.
Perhaps Donald Gorrie got things right when he said in the same debate:
"In life, it is people who are the problem, not rules. Many people in national Government … are brought up in a climate of secrecy".—[Official Report, 24 April 2002; c 11217-18.]
I think that we have a problem with our Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform in that respect.
On Tuesday this week, Dr Murray asked, in relation to calling people from the Howat review group in front of the Finance Committee,
"will they be able to discuss the review with us? In calling them, would we be putting them in a difficult position?"—[Official Report, Finance Committee, 31 October 2006; c 4011.]
I thought that it was the purpose of parliamentary committees—particularly the Finance Committee—to put people in a difficult position.
If Mr Morgan had read the Official Report of that meeting more carefully, he would realise that my concern was that I would put Mr Howat and his colleagues in a difficult position, whereas it is the minister who should be questioned.
It can sometimes be difficult to put Mr McCabe under any scrutiny whatsoever.
If people are submitting a report that might contain significant options, they should be able to answer to the Finance Committee. All that I can say is God help parliamentary scrutiny. Somehow I do not think that the Finance Committee will pick up a prize for the third time in a row in the awards ceremony that will take place later this year.
We heard a rather novel argument from Mr McNulty that perhaps the Howat review was not fit for purpose. The minister is now damned on all sides—by us, the Greens and the Conservatives for the lack of transparency in not publishing this vital document, and by his own back benchers for setting up a review that was not fit for purpose.
I think that it was when he was in Elgin that Mr McCabe said that the Howat report would be published this year. Did anyone on the Lib-Lab benches say then, or subsequently, "No—you mustn't. It's only part of a jigsaw, and nobody wants it. It will undermine Government. The public don't want it so please don't publish it"? No—nobody said a word. They changed their minds only when the minister changed his mind. Fergus Ewing put his finger on it when he said that the minister changed his mind only when he saw what was in the report.
The remit of the report was to review Government policy. Is there a possibility that the policy did not quite get the glowing endorsement that Mr McCabe had hoped for when he set up the review? The jury is out, but I can see which way most people's minds are turning.
Even if we believe the Government argument and accept that the minister should not have committed to publishing the report this year, we have to acknowledge that it was not a slip of the tongue. It was not like Des Browne saying, "We will set up an inquiry," when he really meant, "Oh no we won't set up an inquiry." Rather, it was a deliberate and calculated statement. So when did Tom McCabe decide that he had made a mistake? Did his civil servants tell him that he had made a mistake? Des McNulty did not tell him that he had made a mistake. Did the First Minister tell him that he had made a mistake?
A different argument was used by Elaine Murray and Andrew Arbuckle—that the public were not clamouring for the report. Well, the public might clamour for the report if they knew what was in it and if they knew that it questioned some Government programmes to which they were significantly attached or from which they benefited. However, the public are not being told, just in case.
Let us be clear: open government does not consist of publishing documents only when they are of interest only to academic historians after the decisions have been made. Government advice—if it is Government advice—should be withheld only if there is some overriding public interest in doing so. The minister has not demonstrated that that is the case. It is quite clear that the only interest involved in withholding the document is the interest of the Labour Party. The Government stands condemned out of its own mouth.