Plenary, 02 Dec 2004

Meeting date: Thursday, December 2, 2004

Official Report 745KB pdf

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First Minister's Question Time

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Cabinet (Meetings)

To ask the First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the Scottish Executive's Cabinet. (S2F-1243)

I asked that as slowly as I could.

And the First Minister is eternally grateful. My papers are falling on the floor.

At next week's meeting of the Cabinet, the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport will report back to us on her visit to Australia this week to support the Scottish team in the youth Commonwealth games. I am delighted to be able to report to the Parliament that, after only two days of those games, the Scottish youth team has already won 14 bronze medals, seven silver medals and seven gold medals. The team deserves all our support.

I echo the First Minister's comments—we are all proud of the team and wish it the very best of luck in the remainder of the games.

The First Minister will be aware that the unfair council tax—the tax that hits pensioners and hard-working families hardest—has risen by 50 per cent since Labour came to power. Does the First Minister consider that to be acceptable?

That figure is not true. As I have said before in the chamber, every year since devolution, the increase in the council tax in Scotland has been smaller than the increase in the final six or seven years of the last Conservative Government. The council tax in Scotland is going up by less than council tax in England and Wales is going up. That is partly because of the way in which we have worked with local authorities in Scotland to ensure that they deliver better value for services, but also because we are using our resources to fund properly education and the other critical local services that local government in Scotland supports.

For the First Minister's information, band D council tax has risen by 50 per cent since Labour came to power. If he thinks that it is any comfort to hard-pressed pensioners and families in Scotland to say that, in England, it has gone up by 70 per cent, he should think again.

I have a positive suggestion for the First Minister. Earlier this week, the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform announced a package of public sector efficiency savings. In local government, the efficiency savings for next year alone are in the region of £80 million. Some people doubt whether those savings can be made without cuts being made in council services, but if the First Minister is confident that they can, does he agree that the people who should benefit most from the cutting of waste in councils are the hard-pressed council tax payers who have seen their bills go up by 50 per cent under Labour? Instead of simply cutting from councils' budgets the amount that they have been told to save and keeping the savings centrally, as the Executive intends to do, will the First Minister give back the money to local authorities to pay for a freeze on council tax next year?

It is precisely the purpose of our measure to ensure not only that we have adequate and, indeed, strengthened funding for local services and that, over and above investment in front-line services, we bring about improvements in those services, but that increases in council tax levels are even more reasonable than they have been in recent years. Those twin aims are in line with the views, opinions and aspirations of the people of Scotland. Miss Sturgeon simply cannot come to the Parliament week after week to demand more money, offer no reforms and then stand up and claim that, in some way, she could cut taxes.

The money in question is the money that the First Minister is telling us can be made in efficiency savings. I asked him a specific question that was not about keeping increases as low as possible, but about freezing council tax. The average projected increase in council tax next year is 4.5 per cent. For families and pensioners who are already struggling to pay their bills, that could be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

An extra £80 million in council coffers could wipe out that increase and allow council tax to be frozen next year. If the First Minister believes that that much can be saved by cutting waste in councils, surely council tax payers should get the benefit. Surely even the First Minister cannot think it fair to force councils to make efficiency savings and still have to raise council taxes to pay for services.

Instead of siphoning off the money to pay for a stream of headline-grabbing ministerial announcements, will the First Minister give the money back to local authorities, to allow councils to give respite to people by freezing council tax next year? Yes or no?

This is absolute, total hypocrisy from Ms Sturgeon and the Scottish nationalist party. Every SNP spokesperson who has spoken about this since July this year has condemned the efficiency savings that we are going to deliver in local government and national Government in Scotland and has said that they will result in job cuts and reductions in front-line services. Now, not only is Ms Sturgeon supporting the efficiency savings, but she is saying that she does not want the money to be reinvested in front-line services.

The services that the SNP claims to support and which it is always demanding we spend more money on are services that she wants to be cut so that she can finance a tax cut. She should sort her policy out, one way or the other. The SNP should either support services or support tax cuts. It should support either our approach, of improved services that are well financed through efficiency savings, or it should support the Tory policy of tax cuts, if that is now its position.

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Prime Minister (Meetings)

To ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Prime Minister and what issues will be discussed. (S2F-1244)

I expect to meet the Prime Minister tomorrow and I expect to discuss issues of importance to the people of Scotland.

I wish the First Minister well in his discussions with Mr Blair. No doubt they will be swapping notes on so-called efficiencies in government, as that is very much the thought of the day or the week.

Since the First Minister and Mr McCabe are about to tell us about all the money that is supposedly to be saved in the next few years, will the First Minister hazard a guess as to how many billions his Scottish Executive has wasted over the past five years? Further, why is any interest being shown in the subject only now, five years too late?

That is absolute rubbish. The percentage of the Scottish Executive's budget that is spent on administration has been reduced systematically since devolution. We have ensured, not only in central Government but in local government as well, that there is a constant drive for efficiency. It is absolutely right and proper that, five years into devolution, we now make a further drive for efficiency savings and redirect that resource to front-line services.

We know that the Tories consistently oppose what we are doing in this regard because they oppose that investment in front-line services. They do not want to see additional investment in education. In fact, in Mr McLetchie's area, the Tories have proposed substantial cuts in education. They do not want to see the substantial investment in the health service in Scotland that is part and parcel of this efficiency drive, because they do not want public resources to be used for the public health service; they want them to be used to subsidise those who can already afford to pay. Further, they do not want to see investment in transport, tackling crime and the other areas that we are investing in, because they do not support public services. That was their record during 18 years in office and it is a record that we have proudly reversed. We will continue to do that even more effectively in the years to come.

We can debate records but, as I adequately demonstrated last week, the health service in Scotland is in a far poorer state today than it was seven years ago. It is galling—and shows a real brass neck—for the First Minister to try to suggest that not a penny has been wasted in Scotland in the past five years. Do not make us laugh. The Scottish Executive is a byword for waste and profligacy in this country. Administration costs are up £50 million since 1999, there are four times as many ministers interfering with the running of this country and there is a growing retinue of cars, advisers and spin doctors. However, we are supposed to believe that the leopard has changed its spots.

If the Executive claims have any real substance, and if the so-called savings are real, why will the First Minister not show us the money by giving some of it back to Scotland's taxpayers in the form of a reduction in business rates, which the Executive could announce next week, or a substantial cut—never mind Ms Sturgeon's pathetic little freeze—in the council tax that people pay? If the money is there and is real, why can the Executive not give it back?

As I have already said, in every single year of devolution, council tax increases in Scotland have been less than they were during every one of the final few years of the Conservative Government to which Mr McLetchie wants us to return. He does not want a Government or a devolved Parliament in Scotland. It is clear from his remarks again today that he wants to return to the old days when a small group of Conservative ministers ran Scotland by diktat and introduced the poll tax, cut back on transport, health and other important public investments and made sure that our schools languished at the bottom of the league tables instead of rising all the way to the top. The changes that are happening in Scotland today are those for which the people of Scotland voted when they voted for devolution and for Labour and Liberal Democrats to be in Government in this Parliament and driving efficiencies and investment in public services.

What the people of Scotland want is value for money, which is what they have not had for the past five years. I will tell the First Minister what could be done with all the money that is supposed to be available. We could reduce business rates in Scotland to the level they are at in England; we could scrap the Liberal Democrats' £2,000 graduate tax; and we could cut council tax by at least 20 per cent across the board. Why will the First Minister not even consider doing any of those things? Does that not demonstrate that this remains at heart a spend, spend, spend and squander Executive?

We take a reasonable and balanced approach. As the devolved Government in Scotland, we have said that, during this four-year period, we will not increase income tax as we have the power to do and we will consistently maintain low increases in council tax. We will drive through efficiencies in areas such as water services, where the level of efficiency that the devolved Government is achieving is admired in the rest of the United Kingdom.

People are coming here to see how we are delivering efficiencies and investment in public services right across the board. We are delivering those because we believe in public services. That is what the devolved Parliament is here to deliver for Scotland and we will continue to achieve that.

Mr McLetchie has made clear his alternative agenda today. Even one of the three examples that he gave would mean taking out hundreds of millions of pounds from our schools, hospitals, transport improvements or proposals to tackle crime. There would be fewer police on the street and fewer teachers in our schools; fewer people would be involved in improving our transport systems; and there would be fewer improvements in our health service. That is the Conservatives' agenda for Scotland, and that is why they are so consistently rejected by the people of Scotland.

When the First Minister meets the Prime Minister, will he tell him about another Scottish success story? Will he tell him about the excellent track record of the new futures fund initiative in providing employability programmes for those who are furthest from the labour market, such as those with addiction problems, the homeless and ex-offenders? Is the First Minister aware that more than half the members of the Parliament have signed a motion, in the name of Jackie Baillie, that expresses concern about the future funding of the initiative or a permanent replacement for it? Will he take a personal interest in the issue and agree to meet representatives of the charities involved and, more important, those whose lives they have helped to transform, to discuss a permanent replacement for that excellent scheme as well as interim funding, so that highly valued project workers do not have to be made redundant this Christmas?

I agree entirely with Keith Raffan that such investments are important. We are driving through our budget efficiencies precisely because that will allow us to allocate more resources to such important local projects. If there are projects that are concerned about their future, either I or another minister—depending on our diaries—will be only too happy to meet their representatives.

When the First Minister next meets the Prime Minister, will he raise the findings of the recent Joseph Rowntree Foundation report, which highlights some of the challenges that the city of Dundee still faces, in particular the fact that it has the worst record of mental health problems and teenage pregnancy in Scotland? Will he commit today to meet me and other representatives in the city to discuss how we can respond to some of those challenges?

I have discussed the situation in Dundee on many occasions recently with the leaders of Dundee City Council, local representatives and local people. On all those occasions, it has been clear that although Dundee still faces many challenges, the city is transformed from where it was only 10 or 15 years ago. Many of those changes were inspired by Kate Maclean when she was the council leader before she joined us here in Parliament.

Today, Dundee not only has a stronger economy and a brighter economic future than it has had in recent years, but it has made investment in education, which the Scottish nationalist party would have denied it; it has invested in health services and in improvements in Tayside NHS Board, which the Scottish nationalist party opposed; and, critically, it has two of the best universities in the whole of Europe, one of which has just won an award for being a world leader. Those successes in Dundee need to be recognised and supported at the same time as we take up the challenges to ensure that Dundee prospers even more in the years to come.

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Secretary of State for Scotland (Meetings)

To ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Secretary of State for Scotland and what issues he intends to discuss. (S2F-1253)

I expect to speak to the Secretary of State for Scotland tomorrow and I am sure that we will discuss issues of importance to the people of Scotland.

Among other matters, the First Minister might discuss the problem of troops returning from Iraq with combat stress. In the light of the continuing horrors of the illegal occupation of Iraq, what is the Executive doing directly to support soldiers returning to Scotland with combat stress?

I am afraid that I do not know the specific answer to that question, but I am sure that there will be plans in our health service, which I know works closely with the Army, to support those who are returning. I will ensure that the Minister for Health and Community Care writes to Mr Harper with a full and complete answer.

I inform the First Minister that Executive support for Scotland's only centre for combat stress—Hollybush House in Ayrshire—is just £54,000 over three years. That is shockingly inadequate. The centre faces growing demand for its services. Currently, it operates at a loss and it needs £1 million to build new accommodation to comply with the Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001. The First Minister's party supported sending troops to Iraq, which is now a civil disaster area. Will he support those troops now and re-examine the centre's funding needs as a matter of great urgency?

It is important to recognise that the centre does not represent the sum total of the support services that are provided for troops in Scotland. It is also important to recognise that there are important relationships between the health service and the Ministry of Defence that involve close working to ensure that those who work in our armed services receive the support that they need across a wide range of services. I am happy to ensure that the specific issue is addressed in the reply that Mr Harper will receive from Mr Kerr following this question session.

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Parole Board for Scotland

To ask the First Minister how the Scottish Executive will ensure that the Parole Board for Scotland upholds the rights of victims and their families. (S2F-1252)

We are absolutely determined to ensure that the interests of victims are taken into account whenever decisions are taken to release offenders from prison. The Minister for Justice has indicated to the Parole Board that she expects it to make improvements in public accountability to reassure the public that that is so.

I am sure that the First Minister agrees that it is unacceptable for victims to be afraid to go about their daily business for fear of meeting their newly freed assailant. New rights and information will be welcome. However, does the First Minister agree that we need to go further and bring to an end the attitude of authorities towards victims and their families in my constituency and elsewhere in Scotland that it is none of their business?

It is important to recognise that sections 16 and 17 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 provide new rights for victims to register a specific interest in the potential release of those who have offended against them and to receive information in advance of that release so that they can make representations to the Parole Board for Scotland about receiving information following any decision about release.

We must examine whether those rights are adequate in the circumstances and whether further improvements can be put in place. We must also ensure that the public are well aware of how the Parole Board makes its decisions and that the board can justify its decisions. That is precisely why the Minister for Justice has initiated discussions with the Parole Board on that subject, and I am sure that the Parliament will be informed of the outcome of those discussions in due course.

I associate myself with the concerns of my colleague across the chamber, Duncan McNeil.

In considering a prisoner's suitability for release, does the Parole Board take any account of the availability of programmes and support in the community for the prisoner when they leave the prison service? If it already operates such a policy, is it the lack of such services that causes the inspector of prisons to comment adversely on the number of prisoners who remain in prison?

I will make two points. First, the Parole Board certainly should take availability into account, and the improvements in public accountability that the Minister for Justice wants to see would reassure us all that that happens, because we would be able to see proof that decisions are based on the fullest range of information and advice from the different services.

Secondly, Stewart Stevenson's point raises the important advances that we require to make in offender management in Scotland. Currently, in too many parts of the country, there is at least a perception—if it is not the reality—that the service is not joined up. There is a lack of public confidence in community services and there are far too many problems in the prison service relating to reoffending and a revolving-door approach to prisoners. We must ensure that we have a joined-up offender management service in Scotland that brings the different elements together. I hope that the comments that have been made today indicate that the Scottish National Party is moving towards supporting us in that initiative.

I very much welcome what the First Minister has said about accountability. However, does he agree that any additional scrutiny of Parole Board decisions should remain faithful to the principle that was established in the first parliamentary session that ministers should not interfere in individual parole decisions?

It is important that politicians should not interfere in individual Parole Board decisions and that the Parole Board should make a proper, independent assessment of the situation. However, if the Parole Board has such independence and such rights, it must be publicly accountable for the way in which decisions are made and for the impact of those decisions. That is the right balance for us to try to strike and precisely the balance that the Minister for Justice hopes to achieve.

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Public Sector Jobs (Cuts)

To ask the First Minister how many public sector jobs will be cut under its efficient government strategy and how that will impact on services to the public. (S2F-1255)

Clearly, there would be many more under the SNP's proposal today than there were going to be yesterday. We know that efficient government will mean job changes—that is the inevitable consequence of reforming and modernising to streamline and become more efficient. However, we will not impose an arbitrary job-cut target, as many bodies will wish to retrain staff or redirect them to front-line service delivery. I say to Mr Adam that the objective of our efficiency savings is to ensure that we redirect resources from the back office to the front line to improve services to the public. If he has concerns about that, I suggest that he might want to raise them with Miss Sturgeon, following her earlier comments.

I am grateful to the First Minister and am glad that he is willing to answer questions today. Gordon Brown has identified the more than 80,000 jobs in the public sector south of the border that will go as part of the efficiency and effectiveness drive there. In the interests of openness and clarity, and as the ultimate employer of many public sector workers, will the First Minister tell us which posts are at risk beyond those that he has identified so far—the up to 80 administrative posts in the Crown Office and related areas?

I have made it clear that we do not have an arbitrary job-cut target. We have a target to ensure that the resources that are available in Scotland's public services, in national and local government, are used for front-line services in education, health, transport and tackling crime. Those are vital services on which the people of Scotland depend and we want to ensure that resources are redirected to them.

Where people in national or local agencies can be retrained or redirected to work at the front line, so that there is direct benefit to members of the public, that will be welcome. There will be instances in which people's jobs have to go and it is right and proper that we review those circumstances. However, to impose an arbitrary job-cut target, as the SNP apparently wishes to do, would be wrong and unfair.

It is obvious to everyone but the Executive that having fewer people employed in public services means cuts in public services. I would like the First Minister to comment specifically on remarks that Tom McCabe made on the television the other night when justifying the First Minister's programme of increasing and swingeing cuts. He cited the existence of 32 different human resources and payroll departments as a problem. Just a few months ago, the Executive refused to intervene to avoid 32 different pay rates for nursery nurses and to do anything to secure one national pay scheme for them. Do Mr McCabe's remarks indicate that the Executive supports national pay for nursery nurses and other workers, or is this a breathtaking example of the Executive's double standards?

I am probably in quite a good place today. On the one hand, we have the SNP and the Tories advocating massive cuts in public services, and on the other hand we have the Trotskyists at the back of the chamber saying that we are not employing enough administrators and bureaucrats. We are in exactly the right place. In Scotland today more people are working in the health service, our schools, our police services and the safety services in our community. More people are involved in the private and public sector investment that will be made in our transport and water services and in many other parts of our infrastructure. That trend will continue year on year. In all the areas that I have mentioned, there will be more investment and more staff members doing the things that are important. In achieving that, we will deliver more efficiencies behind the scenes to provide services even better. That is the right balance for Scotland and is exactly what the Parliament should be doing. We will continue to do it.

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Sectarianism

To ask the First Minister how the Scottish Executive is addressing sectarian abuse and violence. (S2F-1260)

Sectarian abuse and violence have absolutely no place in today's Scotland and we will work to eradicate them, wherever they occur. Our review of marches and parades will report in the new year. We are developing an anti-sectarianism education resource for use in schools. With colleagues in various sporting bodies, we are working to tackle sectarianism in sport. We are continuing to provide funding to bodies such as Sense over Sectarianism, the Scottish Inter Faith Council and Nil by Mouth. Last month I outlined a five-point plan to reduce knife crime as part of a wider strategy to tackle violence, including sectarian violence.

The First Minister has a welcome personal commitment to this issue. Will he use some of that commitment to press the football clubs that are part of the problem to take the lead, along with the police, in imposing on their supporters better standards of behaviour, so that we do not get abuse and violence from sectarian or other motives? Universal condemnation was visited on Spanish fans for jeering at a black English player. We want to create an atmosphere in which the same attitude is taken to people who jeer at players in Scotland for religious or similar reasons. Will the First Minister try to deliver that through the clubs?

I agree absolutely with Donald Gorrie on this matter and admire his long-term commitment to tackling the issue. It is just as unacceptable for white football fans in Scotland to hurl sectarian abuse of an anti-Catholic or anti-Protestant nature at players and other fans inside football grounds as it is for them to jeer black players or to pick on someone on the pitch because they are Jewish or Muslim. We need to make very clear in the Parliament that such behaviour is unacceptable in Scotland today and that we will continue to work to eradicate it.

We do not need exaggerated headlines on what the penalties might be, such as those that we saw earlier this week. However, we need seriously to consider football banning orders and the reasonable action that we can take. After a period of convictions or incidents, there could be more extreme sentences or cautions.

We also need to consider the action that the football clubs can take. Recently, ministers and I met representatives of the football clubs, who have been helpful. I intend to meet representatives of football supporters. I notice that there was an exchange this week between supporters of Rangers and Celtic, in which they both indicated a willingness to discuss the issue. It is time to bring the supporters' representatives on board. I intend to do that early in the new year, and I hope that we can get their full support to help us in our task.

Does the First Minister agree that, abhorrent as this type of behaviour is, it is only part of the wider growth of crime and disorder over which the Executive has presided, and that such behaviour will be deterred only when we have a much stronger, much more visible and much more practical police presence on the streets and in the proximity of football grounds? When will the Executive introduce proposals that will result in a substantial increase in police numbers?

If they ever rerun that old Askit advert, Bill Aitken would be one of the miseries. He cannot see anything good about Scotland today. We have the lowest level of crime in Scotland for years; we have the highest clear-up rate that there has been in Scotland for decades; and we have the highest number of police officers ever. The police are on the streets more now than they ever were in all the years of Tory Government. They are now supported and complemented by neighbourhood wardens—to which the Conservatives are opposed—who are helping them in the local community. The police have more powers than they ever had before, most of which the Conservatives voted against in this chamber. The police are doing an extremely effective job, and they will do even better with the support of this devolved Government. That is the action that we need to take for Scotland. That is action that we should be praising and supporting, Mr Aitken, instead of coming along here like a misery week after week and condemning the police for what they do.

Meeting suspended.

On resuming—