First Minister’s Question Time
Engagements
1. To ask the First Minister what engagements he has planned for the rest of the day. (S4F-00891)
I welcome the First Minister back to his place. I am sure that he and others will want to join me in congratulating Paul Lawrie and the whole European team on their stunning victory in the Ryder cup. [Applause.]
For the rest of the day, I will deal with issues on taking forward the Government’s programme for Scotland.
The victory in the Ryder cup was an exceptional achievement for the European team. Everyone in the chamber looks forward ever more to being in Gleneagles in two years’ time to see that victory repeated. [Applause.]
Absolutely.
How is the First Minister going to make the almost £3 billion of cuts that are to come without anyone noticing?
The Government has set out its plans in the budget, as we have done for the past five years. Despite the enormous pressure from the Westminster Government, which Johann Lamont correctly identifies, we have managed to balance that budget, secure Scottish public services and, in particular, introduce vital social gains such as free education in Scotland. When I left for America, I thought that those things were largely agreed across the chamber. When I left for America, Johann Lamont was just appearing on the same platform as Ruth Davidson; now I am having to adjust to the fact that Johann Lamont is leading her party to become the Conservative Party of Scotland.
The problem with the First Minister is not just that he is surprised when he leaves for America, but that, when he is in Scotland, he is in denial about what is happening in the real Scotland outside this chamber. He talks about securing public services and says that we have free everything, but he has already brought in £2.7 billion of cuts, and the poor, the vulnerable and the hard-working families in this country have noticed. They have noticed the pensioner who needs help to wash, to dress and to feed themselves suffering the indignity of having just 15 minutes of care visits in a day; the family paying more for childcare than for their mortgage; the 18,000 Scots who are being denied a place at college; and the thousands of working-class students who have had their bursaries cut by £900 a year. They see his cuts; they do not see his Scotland where everything is free and everything is fantastic.
Who is going to pay when he delivers the next £3 billion of cuts?
Johann Lamont is correct to say that the Scottish budget is under severe attack from Westminster—that is true. Incidentally, it was under attack from the previous Labour Government as well. However, the solution to that surely cannot be to abandon concessionary fares, free prescriptions and free personal care, to reintroduce tuition fees or to abandon the council tax freeze. How would the working families of Scotland benefit from our adopting the policies that the Tory party has adopted south of the border? Johann Lamont was deeply wrong to talk about a something-for-nothing society. That is exactly the language of the Tory party of 20 years ago.
Yes, the cuts that are being imposed on Scotland are severe—there is no doubt about that—but they were set out in the comprehensive spending review. There is no difference in those things than when we fought the election last year and fought the local elections this year. When the Labour Party fought the election last year and fought the local elections this year, it was in favour of retaining concessionary fares, free prescriptions, free personal care and free education, and it was in favour of the council tax freeze. Indeed, it was trying to outbid the Scottish National Party on those vital aspects of social progress. So, the question that Johann Lamont must answer is: how, all of a sudden, has she been converted to sweeping away not just the gains introduced by this Government, but the gains of having a Parliament for Scotland?
I do not think that the First Minister listened to what I said about what is happening to people throughout the country. He says that nothing changes, but the question that we should be asking is: who is paying the price for the benefits that we all get from his spending choices?
The First Minister says that we tried to outbid the SNP. One lesson that we have learned is that it is impossible to outbid the SNP on recklessness. Instead, we will demand a serious Government that makes the hard decisions so that people do not pay the price.
It is no wonder that the First Minister thinks that he needs to spend £1 million on spin doctors to try to spin his way out of this. That tells us all we need to know about him. Care workers are losing their jobs or getting their wages cut, but more SNP spinners are hired.
The cuts must be brought in by 2016. Already, John Swinney has delayed half the cuts that he must make. Will we know more before the referendum in 2014 about where that £3 billion-worth of cuts will be made or will the Government continue to try to con the people of Scotland and treat us all as fools?
Johann Lamont called for a quality debate, so let us see whether we can give her one. The argument against means testing—which is her direction of travel—was set out famously in a document almost 20 years ago. It said:
“There is ample evidence that systems with benefits paid to the majority are considerably more popular as well as more efficient than those which reserve benefits solely for the poor.”
That comes from page 249 of the report of the commission on social justice that the late John Smith set up—Johann Lamont was chair of the Scottish Labour Party at the time. I do not understand why Labour has moved away from that fundamental principle.
We have not.
I hear the cries from Labour members saying that they have not. If they have not moved away from that principle, why is Johann Lamont making speeches attacking the great gains in free education and free health for the people of Scotland?
I agree that the reintroduction of means testing would not be popular, and I also agree that it would not be efficient. One of the arguments is about holding society together. Certain things are so important—such as free education in Scotland—that we must ensure that the people who are lucky enough to be in a position to make a contribution to them through their taxation can see the social benefit as well. That is how we hold society together.
The introduction of sweeping means testing across those valuable areas of society would introduce inefficiency and social division. The Labour Party recognised and, by and large, stayed faithful to that point for many years but now is deserting totally to the Tory ground not only of Ruth Davidson but of Peter Lilley, who first introduced the phrase “a something-for-nothing society”.
The First Minister loves having straw men to cut down. The reality is that a much more serious debate is going on. He says that we should have a debate and then insults every family in the country that is worrying about its children in school, its young people in college and the care of its older people.
He talks about debate but forces his Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning to come to the chamber and recant a position that he held five years ago. We want to have a debate and test the evidence on where the balance, which the First Minister knows is needed, should lie.
I understand why the First Minister thinks that everything is free: he is on £130,000 a year, spends almost £2,000 a week on hospitality and then gets taxpayers to spend £1,300 a year for a television package to enable him to watch the films and sports events that he then gets them to pay for him to attend.
The First Minister does not live in the real world. He lives in a world in which it is fine to spend £400,000 to rent a gentlemen’s club in Pall Mall, but not to worry about the care worker who has had their wages cut by £4,000 a year. He is not an economist—he is a fantasist. No wonder that, from Hampden Park to the Ryder cup and from George Square to the Edinburgh tattoo, he is roundly booed wherever he goes.
So much for the quality debate that Johann Lamont wants.
I will make three points to Johann Lamont. The argument that we put forward was not only put forward in our election manifesto, on which we were elected; it was enunciated when we set out our programme for government. I set out the social wage argument in the chamber on 26 May 2011, when I said:
“Free university education, no tolls, no tax on ill health and one bill—the council tax—that will not soar: that is the concept of the social wage. For the sacrifices that all of us are and should be making, there is a reward in the form of a society that is geared to our values. We do things differently here, not because we can but because we want to, and we should be proud of that.”
Iain Gray was the leader of the Labour Party then. His response was:
“I agree that Scotland’s path should be different from that pursued by the Tory-Lib Dem coalition in Westminster. There is a fairer, better way, and we will hold the First Minister to his promises on the social wage, as he has characterised it: on free personal care, concessionary travel, free prescriptions and free education.”—[Official Report, 26 May 2011; c 69 and 78.]
In the space of a year, the Labour Party has been transformed from demanding that the Scottish National Party holds to these policies on the social wage to being hand in glove with the Tory party in attacking those gains for the Scottish people.
Johann Lamont should be worried not just about the SNP’s reaction to her; let us talk about other reaction to her speeches. On the LabourHame blog site, for example, Alex Gallagher said:
“The phrase ‘something for nothing’ is badly chosen. It’s a Tory shiboleth”.
George Anders said:
“What are we doing?
Did we learn nothing from the ‘New Labour’ nonsense.”
David Wells said:
“Labour used to endorse policies like: free prescriptions, free tuition fees and the council tax freeze.”
As the Labour Party becomes the new Tory party of Scotland, its support, which is already diminished, will vanish like snaw off a dyke.
Secretary of State for Scotland
2. To ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Secretary of State for Scotland. (S4F-00888)
I have no plans to do so in the near future.
Last year, the principal of the University of Glasgow, Anton Muscatelli, warned that the funding gap for the First Minister’s policies would cause long-term damage to Scottish universities. Alex Salmond not only refused to listen to him; he quite publicly slapped him down. We are starting to see the full effects of the Scottish Government’s higher education policy. All but one of Scotland’s top universities are slipping down the world rankings, and one has tumbled out of the top 200 altogether. University principals such as Professor Muscatelli were right all along. Will the First Minister now admit that his policies are creating a deepening crisis in Scottish education?
I think that there is general acknowledgment, including among all the university principals in Scotland, that the universities in Scotland are currently the best funded by far in these islands. Indeed, the Labour Party’s attack has been that we are overfunding university education in Scotland. As Ruth Davidson should know, in comparison with the 25,000 reduction in university students from England who are going to English universities, record numbers of Scottish, English and overseas students are going to Scottish universities this year.
I would beware of quoting the report that Ruth Davidson has just cited, which describes the situation in England as a “perfect storm” of underfunding. Every university principal in England would gladly change places with Scotland’s university principals, who are properly funded and can look forward with confidence to an excellent future.
Classic SNP playbook: attack the messenger, ignore the message, do not acknowledge responsibility and, for goodness’ sake, do not even think about answering the question.
Perhaps the First Minister has spent too much time lolling on the greens in America to pay any attention to schools. Let me take the First Minister on a journey through Scotland’s education system: one child in every five leaves primary school unable to read and write properly; our teachers are confused about what they are supposed to do in the classroom because, as Professor Lindsay Paterson pointed out, there is no
“clear leadership and focus in the implementation of curriculum for excellence”;
70,000 people are now denied a place at a further education college after tens of millions of pounds-worth of cuts to the budgets; and, shamefully, Scotland’s poorest and most disadvantaged students have seen vital bursaries cut by 34 per cent.
From primary 1 to postgraduate, that is a catalogue of failure. Will the First Minister now do what his Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning did and stand in the chamber and just admit that he was wrong?
At some stage, the Conservative Party will have to get over the contradiction between its constant calling for additional expenditure on things that it wants additional expenditure on and its Government in Westminster scything the Scottish budget and the spending in departments.
We have managed to maintain public services in comparison with what is happening in England and Wales. The position of colleges in Scotland is infinitely superior to that of colleges south of the border. We are maintaining student numbers and full-time equivalents, as evidence to the Education and Culture Committee demonstrated this week.
I really think that the attack on curriculum for excellence should stop, because curriculum for excellence has been greeted with huge enthusiasm by both the teachers and the parents of Scotland and is a fundamental, well-needed reform in Scottish education.
I have been looking at some of the quotes coming in on the position of Scotland’s universities. I was delighted to see, just a few seconds ago, a quote from Robin Parker, who talks about
“the huge investment the Scottish Government is making in our universities over this parliament from this new academic year ... In fact in Europe, Scotland is one of only a few countries that are investing in higher education.”
Unfortunately for people south of the border, one of the countries that are not doing that is England, where Ruth Davidson’s Conservative Party is unfortunately visiting its policies on the people of that country.
Today we learn that the former NHS Lothian chief executive James Barbour has been given a £100,000 golden goodbye on top of a very generous package that was awarded when he left office following the waiting times and bullying scandals in Lothian. What action will the First Minister take to end the blatant milking of public money by highly paid professionals who leave office following scandal, or who retire and are then re-engaged?
Professor Barbour received his normal pension benefits in line with contractual entitlements that are standard for all national health service employees. The member should consider what would have happened to the Scottish Government if we had decided to break that contract. The member should also consider that those contracts were entered into when the Labour Party was in government in Scotland.
Cabinet (Meetings)
3. To ask the First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the Cabinet. (S4F-00890)
The next meeting of the Cabinet will discuss issues of importance to the people of Scotland.
Good. Last week, I was pleased that the Deputy First Minister committed to do more for vulnerable young children. She talked positively, I have to say, about building a consensus. I was therefore disappointed to see, the very next day, a statement from the Government that it would not even be piloting an extension of free early learning for deprived two-year-olds.
I need the First Minister to clear this matter up. It is important, because Nobel laureate Professor James Heckman has worked out that the highest rate of return in education comes from investment before a child is three. He is one of many experts who support that view. Will the First Minister clear the matter up and commit to following the United Kingdom Government by extending early education to 40 per cent of two-year-olds—the ones who need it most—rather than sticking to the 1 per cent who are in his current plans?
As Willie Rennie knows, the plan to move three and four-year-olds to 600 hours of early years education and childcare is superior not just to the 412 hours that we inherited but to the plans in England, which are for less than that. The plans also include looked-after two-year-olds.
I watched the exchange between Willie Rennie and the Deputy First Minister last week and I repeat that we are willing to consider all plans for the future, as she said. However, Willie Rennie should look carefully at the exciting developments with family centres in Scotland—and the mention that has been made of them—and at the fact that in the budget, thankfully, we have decided to direct money into early years and early intervention as a part of policy. He should acknowledge that there are a number of ways in which we can effect our shared aims, even against the dramatic budget pressure that has been introduced by his Government at Westminster.
I accept that the work in relation to three and four-year-olds and the other work that the First Minister mentioned represent good progress. However, the best investment is made before a child is three. The First Minister is doing some of that, but £1 invested before a child is three can save £11 later.
I want to join in the consensus. A parliamentary motion has been lodged that calls for more provision for two-year-olds; the motion has been signed by members of all five parties in the Parliament, including members of the First Minister’s party. I welcome that and I want us to work together, but we need a bit more commitment on the matter. If a two-year-old misses out now, they miss out for ever. If the First Minister will not commit to help 40 per cent of two-year-olds, as the UK Government has done, will he at least agree to open up the budget and look for a radical change, so that we can do more for young children?
Perhaps at some stage we will get the acknowledgement that what we are proposing for three and four-year-olds is substantially above what the UK Government is proposing. Perhaps there will also be an understanding that there are a variety of ways to bring about the desirable aims, such as through the family-nurse partnerships and family centres.
As the member should know, this Government set up an early years task force, which includes a substantial number of experts in the field as well as members of the Parliament, to make recommendations on how to bring about the improvement that we all want to see.
One of the first things to do is to allocate money in the budget for early intervention for preventative spending, which the Government has done. That has been an enormously difficult task, given the budget pressures that are upon us, but Mr Swinney has done it. That has given us the basis for a debate and action on how we can effect improvements in the early years.
I agree that the early years are of enormous and profound significance in the context of the future development of our children and our society—hence the move to intervention in the budget. However, if we come to the debate saying that everything that takes place south of the border must automatically be matched in Scotland, we tend to overlook a variety of benefits and incentives, as well as the platform of education and health that is provided in Scotland, which of course is being denied to people in England.
Ryder Cup 2014
4. To ask the First Minister what the benefits will be of Scotland staging the Ryder cup at Gleneagles in 2014. (S4F-00895) [Interruption.]
Order.
The Ryder cup is one of the biggest sporting events in the world. Scotland is the next host nation and the Scottish economy is expected to benefit by up to £100 million over the week of the event. In addition to the 45,000 spectators who are expected to attend each day at Gleneagles, television coverage is expected to reach more than 500 million homes worldwide. That will provide a unique opportunity to promote Scotland on the world stage and to reinforce Scotland’s place as the home of golf.
As the local MSP, I am looking forward to the tournament coming to Gleneagles and to the economic benefits that it will bring. What steps is the Scottish Government taking to ensure that young Scots are given the opportunity to participate in golf and, who knows, perhaps to compete in a future Ryder cup?
The member raises a hugely substantial point. A key component of the Ryder cup host nation agreement is that the Scottish Government is committed to continue funding the club golf initiative through to 2018, to deliver a post-event legacy beyond 2014. I am supportive of that fantastic initiative—since its inception, more than 260,000 children have been introduced to golf at school. We are the home of golf; we are the history of golf. Initiatives such as club golf will ensure that Scotland is the future of golf, too.
Police Staffing
5. To ask the First Minister whether police officers will have to perform more administrative duties to cover proposed reductions in police staff. (S4F-00903)
We expect the Scottish police authority and the police service of Scotland to ensure that officers and staff are deployed in roles that utilise their expertise and experience effectively and efficiently.
We have given a commitment to there being no compulsory redundancies among police support staff. The reform of the police service, which was supported by the Labour Party, offers the unique opportunity to improve services. The new police service of Scotland will eliminate duplication by working more effectively, and will bring 10 national police organisations into one organisation.
That commitment is interesting, given Stephen House’s revelations last week. The First Minister has repeatedly told the Scottish people that 1,000 extra police officers are on their streets today. He has denied our reports that police officers are sitting in police stations across Scotland filling back-office duties, but a leaked document from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice’s police reform sub-group reveals a plan to release hundreds of police staff that will be delivered through
“police officers performing basic administrative duties themselves.”
Is it good economics to have police officers who earn a third more than police staff doing the police staff jobs? Will the First Minister admit that he has not put 1,000 extra police officers on our streets, but that he has given Scotland 1,000 backroom bobbies?
What total nonsense. The position is clear and is as outlined by Chief Constable Kevin Smith to the Justice Committee earlier this year, who said, in response to a question that was asked by one of Jenny Marra’s colleagues, that
“as a general policy, police officers would not be put in such roles. I am confident that, as a matter of policy, cops would not backfill posts. That would not be a good operational use of the resource, and making someone redundant then filling their post with a cop would be challengeable.”—[Official Report, Justice Committee, 28 February 2012; c 984.]
Jenny Marra is on unsafe ground in challenging the commitment to 1,000 additional police officers. After all, that commitment was questioned in Johann Lamont’s speech only last week. As a policy change, it lasted a matter of minutes: after the Scottish Police Federation tweeted that it would be a tragedy if Scots politicians became “as out of touch” as politicians are in England and Wales, it was reassured by one of the Labour Party’s spin doctors that that was not Labour policy and, about 20 minutes later, it was able to say that Johann Lamont’s questioning of the 1,000 extra police officers had lasted a mere 30 minutes. If the challenge to our commitment on 1,000 police officers lasts a mere 30 minutes, how long will Labour’s attempt to remove free education and health for the people of Scotland last?
Does the First Minister agree that Labour’s cuts commission, for which everything is on the table, could lead to a massive decrease in bobbies on the beat and other police staff, which could mean that our crime levels, which are at a 37-year low, rise again?
There should be some acknowledgement that the commitment to deliver 1,000 extra police officers on the streets and communities of Scotland was, of course, met—despite the pessimism of the Labour Party, which said that it would take 13 years to fulfil. [Interruption.]
Miss Boyack, that is enough.
I, along with the new police chief constable, believe that that initiative bears a large part of the responsibility for the reduction in recorded crime to a 37-year low. Given how society has benefited, what kind of party challenges the effective use of 1,000 police officers?
Free Prescriptions
6. To ask the First Minister whether the Scottish Government will fulfil its commitment to deliver free prescriptions. (S4F-00906)
Yes.
The First Minister will have noted that, earlier this week, his counterpart in Wales, the Labour First Minister, said:
“We believe it’s important that we have an NHS that’s free at the point of delivery. We are not going to change the policy on free prescriptions.”
Nye Bevan, the founder of the national health service, resigned from Government over the introduction of prescription charges; does the First Minister agree that free prescriptions are an integral part of the NHS, and that Labour in Scotland, in suggesting the reintroduction of prescription charges, has lost its social democratic principles by simply aping Tory policies?
It is the case that, only one day before Johann Lamont reinforced her cuts commission speech to the Labour Party conference, Carwyn Jones extolled the benefits of free health for the people of Wales. The question that the Labour Party must answer is twofold. First, if free prescriptions and free healthcare are good policies for the Labour Party to pursue in Wales, why are they not good policies for the Scottish National Party to pursue for the people of Scotland?
Secondly, there is the issue of electoral credibility. It is only a few months since the Labour Party extolled its commitment to free healthcare in Scotland. It also extolled its commitment to free education. I have Labour’s manifesto with me. Next to a photo of Johann Lamont, it says:
“No price tag on education”.
The way the Labour Party is going, it will make Nick Clegg look like a model of consistency.
The free prescriptions policy has consequences. Some 15,000 cancer sufferers in England have now benefited from life-extending drugs that are not available to cancer sufferers in Scotland. The First Minister wrote to pharmaceutical development companies to invite them to come and establish new bioscience facilities in Scotland, but they are asking why they would come to develop medicines in Scotland that cannot be prescribed in Scotland and why they would work with clinicians in Scotland whose experience of modern medicines is falling behind that of clinicians in England.
The objections that the First Minister raised to the cancer drug fund in England 13 months ago have now been overcome. Is it not time to offer cancer sufferers in Scotland the same hope and the same opportunity for their future as cancer sufferers in England have?
I have outlined the complaints about the special funding arrangements in England, which include complaints from Conservative members of Parliament, among others.
Jackson Carlaw asks why pharmaceutical companies would come to Scotland. Is he not aware that last Thursday, in Chicago, Sigma-Aldrich announced another significant investment in pharmaceuticals and life sciences in Scotland—the third major investment in that industry in this year alone?
The suggestion that Scotland is somehow not seen as a location for pharmaceutical development and life sciences is belied by the facts. If the Conservatives are to make wide sweeping comments against the Scottish economy, they should really catch up with the announcements that are being made.
Very briefly—Jackie Baillie.
The First Minister may be happy to talk about free prescriptions. Does he recognise that there are consequences to his policy choices? Does he recognise that nursing levels are at their lowest since 2005, and that—as told by the Edinburgh Evening News—nurses are working seven days a week for months at a time to fix NHS Lothian’s waiting-list scandal? Is not that the reality of the SNP’s choices in government?
The reality of the SNP’s choices in government is that we have protected the revenue budget of the NHS in real terms, which is one of the commitments that the Labour Party would not make in the election.
Jackie Baillie says that I am happy to talk about the SNP policy of free prescriptions. That is correct. There was a time when Jackie Baillie was pleased to talk about the Labour Party’s policy of free prescriptions, but that has all changed now.
The election commitments that Labour made last year and this year have to be dumped. Labour is in headlong flight to join the Conservative Party and follow the road of means-tested benefits. It has betrayed the generations-old tradition of the Labour Party. Why Jackie Baillie thinks that a new Conservative party in Scotland will do any better than the old Conservative Party in Scotland will be a mystery to the Scottish people. Let us talk about the policy of free prescriptions in the knowledge that it is supported by the overwhelming majority of people in Scotland.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I would be most grateful if you would look at the exchanges at the beginning of this item of business and compare them with the stated aim of this part of the working day, which is supposed to be for questioning of the Executive by back benchers. So much time is being taken up by ritualistic abuse from the front benches that there is no chance to get back-bench questions in. You did your best today, and we went five minutes over time. This is no criticism of the chair. It is a criticism, though, of how we are allowing this item to stray far too far from the original intention.
This is an opportunity to hold the First Minister to account. Although I always keep it under review, I am quite sure that Margo MacDonald will recognise that back benchers from every party were called today to question the First Minister.