First Minister’s Question Time
Engagements
1. To ask the First Minister what engagements he has planned for the rest of the day. (S4F-01524)
Engagements to take forward the Government’s programme for Scotland.
I thank the First Minister.
Nicola Sturgeon’s department told the Public Audit Committee that her five biggest transport projects cost £3.3 billion. The true figure is £3.8 billion—half a billion pounds more. Why did Nicola Sturgeon mislead Parliament and the people of Scotland in that way?
Johann Lamont should catch up with the evidence that the permanent secretary gave to the relevant committee yesterday, which made it quite clear that there were no mistakes and that there was no misleading. The question was whether we consider the cost of a project or the cost of things like buying land to prepare for a project. There are many arguments for considering the cost of a project, showing the economic value and showing what is actually done in building the project.
What Johann Lamont should be concentrating on is the extraordinary success of the non-profit-distributing programme, which is building schools, hospitals and colleges around the country. In Glasgow, in particular, the new colleges will help to revitalise further and higher education in the city.
I assure the First Minister that I did catch up with the evidence to the Public Audit Committee yesterday, which was described as insulting to this Parliament. I cannot believe that the Scottish Government thought that we could build a railway without needing to pay for the land on which it would go—I do not know whether Nicola thought that she was going to build a transatlantic monorail.
I think that the First Minister does not understand why people think that he is out of touch. When he is shown a £500 million discrepancy, he does not try to explain it. Instead, he tries to explain it away. That is simply not good enough.
Nicola Sturgeon seems to be running her department with the same competence with which she is running the yes campaign. She missed half a billion pounds. Let me explain what that buys: it buys nearly 14,000 teachers; it pays for 16,000 nurses; and—let me say so that the First Minister, in his world, can understand—it buys nigh on 1,000 trips to the Ryder cup.
Was Nicola Sturgeon being deliberately misleading, or is her eye off rising costs to the taxpayer because she is too busy watching the yes campaign’s support going down?
It is obvious that the long summer of inactivity over the past few months has not improved Johann Lamont’s temper. I could point out that half a billion pounds is one two-hundredth of the estimated lifetime cost of the Trident missile system, which is so beloved of Labour and the Tories.
I know that Johann Lamont and the Conservatives are welded together in the better together campaign, but her quoting a Conservative MSP, as definitive proof, really is evidence that the rest of Scotland would find rather tame and insubstantial.
The £500 million that Johann Lamont is pointing to is money that is spent to prepare for vital infrastructure projects, such as the money spent on the M74 and the M80, the money spent to buy the land for the peripheral route that is coming to the north-east of Scotland, and the money spent in acquiring the land for the vital hospital and other projects that are taking place around the country.
Johann Lamont wants to trade on capital spending. NPD replaced the private finance initiative, through which people ended up paying multiples of 10 of the original capital cost, because of the Labour Party’s total inability to negotiate with private financiers to get a good deal for the public. That is why the £2.5 billion NPD programme is revitalising the capital infrastructure of Scotland in the face of punitive cuts from the Tories and Liberals in Westminster.
I am glad to see that the squirrel is back, refreshed after its holidays.
In the real word, it is beyond belief that that is a suitable response from someone who is charged with not knowing where half a billion pounds is. You have found half a billion pounds missing and you need to take responsibility—[Interruption.]
Order!
Of course, in the First Minister’s world, that was an explanation. However, if his answer is true, why has the Auditor General for Scotland Caroline Gardner described the Government figures as “incomplete” and “inconsistent”? Why was Peter Housden hauled before the Public Audit Committee yesterday to be dealt with by all the parliamentarians, not just the convener? Was he to be a scapegoat?
Whether he is sneaking into primary schools the back way or fêting Rupert Murdoch at Bute house, the First Minister at the first sniff of trouble refers himself to Peter Housden, knowing that he will be cleared. Now Nicola Sturgeon gets to use Sir Peter as a human shield.
Perhaps they do not know this on the Scottish National Party benches, but we live in an era in which, for too many families, every penny is a prisoner and in which families are putting back on to supermarket shelves treats and even basic goods that they used to be able to afford. How, in that climate, can this Government have got its figures wrong by half a billion pounds?
The half a billion pounds has been spent on things such as site preparation. I say to Johann Lamont that it cannot be spent again on the list of things that she has put forward. If she does not think that that money should be spent, by definition she does not think that these capital projects should have gone ahead.
By any acknowledgement, the non-profit-distribution trust is far better than the PFI paraded by the Labour Party. Even George Osborne—belatedly, I have to admit—has started to slate PFI as a dreadful use of taxpayers’ money.
I do not think that Johann Lamont should be accusing civil servants who cannot answer back of a variety of things. As for visits to Aberdeen primary schools, I point out that the response to a freedom of information request totally vindicates our position, just as the people of Aberdeen Donside vindicated the SNP in the by-election.
The First Minister is not on good land when he talks about civil servants being unable to defend themselves. This is the First Minister who gave us the most accurate answer ever given to any Parliament and then had to come back at 5 o’clock to bravely blame the civil servants for making a mistake. This is about ministerial accountability and responsibility, not about scapegoating civil servants. Over the summer, Alex Salmond promised every Scot a £300,000 North Sea dividend after separation. Now we know that his figures have a half-billion-pound margin of error.
Here is why this matters and what people fear. In the increasingly unlikely event that Scotland votes to leave the United Kingdom, we will find out the day after the referendum that everything that the First Minister claimed before on the currency, on pensions, on welfare, on oil revenues and on corporation tax was possibly incomplete and inconsistent and he will tell the nation, “Sorry—it was the civil servants’ fault”. Is it not the case that ministers are spending their time on their separation obsession that most Scots reject, and that while their campaigning is failing to convince Scots this SNP Government is failing to run the country?
So, after two months of preparation, that is the exact extent of Johann Lamont’s questioning. Last year, the summer climaxed with the something for nothing society; this year, we had the summer of nothing from Johann Lamont, and her rehearsing of her questions did not improve them.
Johann Lamont said that I was misleading about the wholesale value of North Sea oil. The £1.5 trillion—incidentally, that is one thousand billion—is the estimated value of the resource over the next 40 years. I have to say that I find it interesting that she compared the figures with the Treasury paper on this issue—Johann Lamont and the Tories: better together. I had a wee look at that paper, which estimates the value of revenues over the next 18 years. Why are the Treasury and the Labour Party telling people that there are only 18 years of North Sea oil and gas production? I find that very interesting, because a couple of years ago the Prime Minister was declaring that the Clair field would last until 2050. Why on earth does the Treasury talk about the next 18 years when the Prime Minister talks about the Clair ridge development lasting until 2050?
The attempt by Johann Lamont and the Tories to underestimate the value of Scotland’s resources is not a recent phenomenon; it goes back to the 1970s and the 1980s. How do we know that? Denis Healey, thankfully still alive, blew the gaff when he said that there had been a deliberate underestimation of North Sea oil value in order to try to stop the Scottish nationalists.
Of course, Denis Healey said that it was mainly the Tories who did that. I think that it was both the Tories and the Labour Party. Better together means very little to the people of Scotland.
Prime Minister (Meetings)
2. To ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Prime Minister. (S4F-01509)
No plans in the immediate future.
Last week, Audit Scotland told us that, in 2011-12, Scotland’s colleges were forced to cut 1,200 members of staff and that 48,000 student places had gone, along with 5 million teaching hours. However, it did not tell us how many college courses have been cut. Can the First Minister?
The SNP’s manifesto commitment was to maintain full-time numbers in colleges—that is, people studying full-time courses. The reason why we do that is to prepare people for employment. We have met that commitment.
As Ruth Davidson perhaps knows, recent statistics show a record number of Scottish students in full-time higher education.
Members: That is higher education.
We do higher education in colleges. I do not know whether the Labour Party is aware of that.
That number contrasts with the nose-diving figures from south of the border, where the Tories are in control. That is why Scottish students are better off with this Scottish National Party Government.
I am sure that that is all very comforting to the 48,000 people who have missed out, but it failed to answer the simple question that I asked: how many courses have been cut from colleges across Scotland?
The First Minister clearly does not know, so I will tell him. It is 614 in the past three years. Although the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning has previously dismissed those courses as “hobby courses”, they include plumbing, veterinary nursing and information technology.
The record is that there are fewer teaching staff, fewer hours taught, fewer students in the classroom and fewer courses to choose from, and all because Alex Salmond has raided college budgets to the tune of £34 million.
Just yesterday, Michael Russell made the ridiculous assertion:
“Every young person in Scotland knows that progress is being made.”—[Official Report, 05 September; c 21983.]
If this is progress, how bad must things get before he accepts that there is a problem?
This cannot go on. With the budget due next week, can the First Minister confirm that there will be no more cuts to our colleges?
Ruth Davidson seems to have forgotten that the last time she read out a list of courses it was found that some of the courses that she said had ended were actually still in existence. I have never known of people going back to their previous mistakes.
Let us look at the exact figures. The record-high number of young people attending full-time courses at college—funded full-time—increased from 59,605 in 2010-11 to 61,304 in 2011-12. We have concentrated on full-time college courses. We have done that because it prepares people for employment.
On any measure, whether it be funding, number of students or full-time courses, or investment in the capital infrastructure of colleges across Scotland, from Glasgow to Kilmarnock and from Inverness to Forth Valley College, the record in Scotland is inconceivably better than the record south of the border. Looking at the decimation of the colleges and universities in England under the Tory-Liberal Administration, no one could possibly want anything other than for our colleges and universities to be under Scottish control.
Scottish control means a record number of full-time students. Tory control from London means a diminution of students, a diminution of prospects for young people and a policy of despair across the country.
Cabinet (Meetings)
3. To ask the First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the Cabinet. (S4F-01521)
Issues of importance to the people of Scotland will be discussed.
This week, 130,000 two-year-olds have been able to go through the doors of nurseries in England to start their free education. How many two-year-olds are receiving free education in Scotland?
As Willie Rennie knows, we have extended the provision to looked-after two-year-olds and we have expanded provision for three and four-year-olds to, from next year, 600 hours from 412.5 hours under the previous Labour-Liberal Administration.
I am puzzled by Willie Rennie’s continuing the argument, given the information that is coming to light about the much-vaunted scheme south of the border. Before the recess, we discussed at several First Minister’s question times whether there would be a diminution in the quality, standards and numbers in childcare provision south of the border. Willie Rennie told me that that was nonsense, but Nick Clegg then made that exact issue a major controversy in the coalition Government.
Willie Rennie should look at what is now being reported about the uptake and availability of places in England at present. Many people are saying that, because of nursery closures, there will be no nurseries for children to go to.
The First Minister does not seem to recognise that the child to staff ratios in Scotland are the worst on these islands, and have been throughout his whole term of office. It is surprising that he does not seem to know how many two-year-olds are receiving free education in Scotland, because I suspect that he knew that I was going to ask the question. This is something that he has the powers to do today. He does not have to wait for independence, but he is going to give two-year-olds what they need only when he gets what he wants. The First Minister has chosen to deny children in Scotland something that children in England are getting.
Members: Oh!
The SNP back benchers should listen, because that provision is changing the life chances of children in England but is being denied to children in Scotland. Will the First Minister change his mind, or is he going to continue to be the stubborn First Minister that he has always been, on the issue?
When we discussed the matter previously, Willie Rennie denied that there was going to be a diminution in the quality of childcare standards in England. Then, on 5 June, Nick Clegg
“confirmed that the changes to ratios for pre-school children that were consulted on earlier in the year will not go ahead.”
Why are they not going ahead, given my warning about the English situation? Why was there such an argument within the coalition Government?
Willie Rennie does himself less than credit not to acknowledge that the provision of 600 hours from next year is a substantial achievement in the extension of provision for three and four-year-olds from the 412.5 hours that we inherited. As I have already told him, we are extending the provision to looked-after two-year-olds, as well.
What worries me is that after the experience that Willie Rennie had following our previous debate about whether there was an attempt to diminish standards in England, he is now ignoring the reality that is being reported south of the border. The BBC has reported that nursery closures mean that there might not be enough places to deliver two-year-olds’ promised entitlement. The chief executive of the Family and Childcare Trust is quoted on the BBC website this week as saying:
“We are concerned that the loss of nursery provision in children’s centres is impacting on local authorities’ ability to find sufficient places for the offer. ... Cost savings have driven nursery closures and this approach reduces capacity in the system”.
Willie Rennie should look at what is happening under the Tory-Liberal Government south of the border. One thing that he can be sure of is that the commitment to 600 hours for three and four-year-olds—which is up from the 412.5 hours that we inherited—will be met, is properly funded and will be a substantial enhancement to childcare in Scotland.
Syria (Humanitarian Aid)
4. To ask the First Minister, in light of its providing assistance to non-governmental organisations supporting humanitarian projects in Syria, what recent discussions the Scottish Government has had with the UK Government regarding the provision of humanitarian aid. (S4F-01517)
I am sure that all members share the concern for the millions of innocent men, women and children who have had to flee their homes as a result of the conflict in Syria. The Minister for External Affairs and International Development, Humza Yousaf, is in regular contact with the UK Government on humanitarian issues, including the situation in Syria, and is due to speak with Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt later today.
As members will be aware, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, Mike Russell, announced in Parliament yesterday that the Scottish Government will provide a further £100,000 to the Disasters Emergency Committee’s appeal for Syria. That will bring our contribution to £200,000 in total. The announcement was welcomed by the Disasters Emergency Committee. The funds will be spent by some of the leading agencies that are working in the region that are funding food, shelter and the provision of clean water for the men, women and children who are fleeing the conflict.
I thank the First Minister for that answer and for the additional funding that was announced by the Scottish Government.
Will the First Minister join me and all members in the chamber in expressing our solidarity with the people of Syria, one third of whom have now been displaced in the conflict? Will he do all that he can, including discussing the matter with the UK Government, to ensure that agencies that are active on the ground, for example Oxfam, are given every possible assistance to ensure that they can provide the emergency aid that is so desperately required to address what has now become a major refugee and humanitarian crisis?
Yes, I can give that commitment. Let me say that it is really important that after the vote—which I supported—in the Westminster Parliament, there should not be a political vacuum. There should be concentration on reinforcing international diplomatic efforts and on humanitarian aid. Of course, we also need to ensure that anyone who is accused of committing a war crime such as using poison gas against civilian populations is arraigned, as they should be, before the International Criminal Court, which is the established tribunal in law that should indict suspects in such occasions. Those are the priorities that should be taken forward.
I am delighted that the Scottish Government has been able to make a contribution that is, although modest compared to the scale of the issue, nonetheless important in signposting the feelings of the people of Scotland on helping our fellow human beings in Syria at the present moment.
I welcome the Government’s pledge to provide £100,000 of extra aid, but will the First Minister encourage the UK Government and the international community to provide support to countries including the Lebanon and Jordan, which will offer refuge to an estimated 3 million Syrians by the end of the year, and support to the estimated 10 million Syrians requiring aid in Syria?
Yes, I will and, yes, we are. I am sure that the international development minister will make that very point in his discussions with the UK minister this afternoon.
Housing
5. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s position is on the statement by the chief executive of Homes for Scotland that the country is “mired in a housing crisis”. (S4F-01527)
Our position is to face up to the challenges posed by the economic downturn and by Westminster’s cuts to our capital budget. Unlike our predecessors, we aim to tackle the challenges of the housing industry head on. We have achieved a 31 per cent rise in the number of social housing completions in the past six years. We are working with the private sector to bring forward a range of new initiatives to support the wider housing market, including the national housing trust and the new home scheme. We look forward to the vital £120 million shared equity scheme, which is to start by next month.
Does the First Minister share the concerns of Homes for Scotland that, if the current—based on last year’s figures—25 per cent reduction in house building continues, it will result in a shortfall of 160,000 homes by 2035?
Further to the findings of the Jones Lang LaSalle report, which showed that the majority of house builders think that independence would deliver less housing development in Scotland, will the forthcoming white paper consider the risks for housing from Scotland separating from the United Kingdom?
The risk to housing has been from the slashing of capital budgets by the United Kingdom Government. I would have thought that, as someone who presumably cares about the housing budget, James Kelly would have realised that. Therefore, it is with some satisfaction that we can note, despite that range of capital cutbacks, that the rate of house building, both in the social sector and overall in Scotland, is substantially higher than in England and in Wales at the present moment.
However, I agree that more must be done and the initiatives that I cited are, therefore, the approach that we are taking.
Does James Kelly not understand that, in the past five years, we have completed 3,724 council homes? In the last four years of the previous Labour Administration only six homes were completed. When Johann Lamont was Deputy Minister for Communities between 2004 and 2006, no council homes were built whatsoever. Iain Gray, the lost leader recently returned to the front bench, put it well in August 2008, when he said that Labour had
“the best homelessness legislation in the world, but we didn’t build the housing to make it work”.
James Kelly will accept that the Scottish National Party, with its record on housing, will take absolutely no lectures from a Labour Party that failed on social housing and a Labour leader who did not manage to build a single house in the two years when she was the Deputy Minister for Communities.
Welfare Reforms (Women)
6. To ask the First Minister, in light of its report, “The Gender Impacts of Welfare Reform”, what impact the Scottish Government considers welfare reforms are having on women in Scotland. (S4F-01520)
The publication of the report—I am glad that Alison Johnstone is commenting on it—reflects the Government’s serious concerns about the impact of the United Kingdom’s welfare reforms on women.
A single woman is predicted to lose on average 4.5 per cent of her net income due to the coalition Government’s actions. That is largely driven by the particular loss for lone parents, 90 per cent of whom are women, who are set to lose as much as 8.5 per cent of their net income. Furthermore, the introduction of universal credit will pay benefits to households rather than individuals, which may result in a loss of financial independence for women and therefore less money spent on children. The so-called reforms seem to me to be deeply unfair. They are uncaring and will force some of the most vulnerable households in our society to pay for the mistakes of the United Kingdom Government.
Unfortunately, we do not control welfare in Holyrood, so we must mitigate the cuts in other ways. The Government has chosen to invest in construction to kick start the economy, but there is a massive gender divide, with only 2 per cent of construction apprenticeships going to women.
The proposed extra hours of childcare are welcome, but investing in truly transformative, affordable childcare systems, such as the Nordic models, would provide hundreds of jobs and enable thousands of women to pursue work and education, boosting the economic recovery. What will the First Minister do to ensure that efforts to develop the economy are specifically designed to help women back into work?
That is a very good question, and the point about apprenticeships is well made. We inherited approximately 16,000 apprenticeships; that figure has increased to more than 25,000. I know that Alison Johnstone will concede that there has been a disproportionate increase in the number of modern apprenticeships going to women. That substantially improved percentage is to be very much welcomed.
Alison Johnstone’s point about construction apprenticeships is fair, hence the substantial drive to attract young women not only into construction but across the range of professions that have previously been the overwhelming preserve of males. I know that she and others approved of the conference on women in work that the Scottish Government held with the Scottish Trades Union Congress and other partners. That identified some of the things that we can do to assist in that process.
We should acknowledge that, among the vast increase in the number of apprenticeships, it is particularly welcome that there is an overall percentage rise in the number of women going into modern apprenticeships.
The First Minister will be aware that the Scottish welfare fund—the provision of community care grants and crisis grants is now devolved to Scotland—has the potential to impact positively on women. Does he agree that it is a matter of concern that the fund is underspent by almost five times the amount that was expected to be spent? What action will he take to ensure that women, who are indeed struggling, get the urgent assistance that they require?
I heard that claim made during the debate on the programme for government for 2013-14. The welfare fund, which is newly established, is about to be put on a statutory footing. Members are commentating on the first few months of the scheme, during which local authorities have accommodated and disbursed the funds, and then extrapolating from that that there will be an underspend.
Jackie Baillie should understand that, as the impact of the welfare reforms of the UK Government—which is her partner in the better together coalition—come through, there will be many people in Scotland who will want access to that welfare fund. Along with the action that Scotland’s local authorities and Government have taken to protect people from council tax benefit cuts and the action that we have taken to reinforce the charities in Scotland so that they can cope with people in despair and distress, she really should bring herself to welcome the welfare fund, the statutory footing on which it is being put and the additional funds that are going into it, and recognise that extrapolating from the first few months is not giving the real picture. The need that will be caused in Scotland by an estimated £270 million being withdrawn from the income of people in Glasgow alone will pose substantial challenges. Believe me, the welfare fund will be fully subscribed.
The UK is currently the fourth most unequal country in the world. Will the First Minister tell us how an independent Scotland will reverse such an iniquitous situation?
We will point to many of the initiatives taken by many of our neighbours and friends in Scandinavia, who have managed to build more prosperous and more equal societies. If we look, for example, to their transformational attitude towards childcare, we can point forward, to future social equality in Scotland.
Given the UK Government’s track record under Labour, the Conservatives and Conservative-Liberal coalition over the past 25 years, the belief that staying under the control of Westminster Government will do anything other than produce continuing generations of poverty and inequality in Scotland is belied by the evidence. We do not need a crystal ball to work out the consequences of Westminster rule; we can look at the past 25 years of failure. That is why independence offers the prospect of a more prosperous society and a more equal country.
That ends First Minister’s questions.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I am sure that the leader of the Opposition did not mean this, but she may have given an indication that the permanent secretary, Peter Housden, would present some sort of front or cover for the First Minister. I hope that she takes some opportunity to ensure that the Official Report does not give that impression.
That is not a point of order, Ms MacDonald.