First Minister’s Question Time
Engagements
1. To ask the First Minister what engagements he has planned for the rest of the day. (S3F-2617)
Monday will be the 10th anniversary of Donald Dewar’s death. As that will fall during the recess, I thought that members might like to join me in recognising the vision and intellect of Scotland’s first First Minister. [Applause.]
As to my duties for the rest of the day, I will be joining the leaders of the other devolved Administrations in speaking up for jobs and families and, by means of a joint declaration, protesting at the depth and ferocity of the coalition’s cuts and the threat that they pose to economic recovery.
On behalf of the Labour Party, I thank the First Minister for his kind recollection of Donald Dewar.
The First Minister’s rates bombshell is costing the national health service £5 million. NHS Grampian alone will be hit for more than £750,000, but it has a great plan to get back £400,000 of that cost. It is asking nurses to work an extra shift for nothing. In June, those same nurses got a nice letter from Nicola Sturgeon saying
“none of you will ‘lose’ your job ... it is job security I think you deserve.”
She did not mention that they would have to work for nothing to keep their jobs. Does the First Minister think that that is what our nurses deserve?
Before talking about the national health service, Iain Gray should check his facts. It is simply not true that nurses in Grampian are being asked to work for nothing. What is true is that when this Administration took office it pledged to spend more on the national health service than the Labour Party, which, it should be remembered, was going to make the NHS cut its cloth. Also, Iain Gray recently declared that he would not guarantee to allocate the Barnett consequentials to national health spending in Scotland.
Whatever Labour’s position on the national health service, we can be sure that more money will be spent more effectively by this Administration than would be spent by any other party in the chamber.
The First Minister needs to check his facts. What Labour has said about the NHS budgets is identical to what John Swinney has said. There is no difference whatsoever.
I think that the First Minister will find that surgical nurses in Grampian are being asked to work an extra shift and, in return, they are being given unpaid 15-minute breaks throughout their other shifts. In my book, that is being asked to work extra for nothing. I suppose they should be glad of it, because if they accept that proposal they will have jobs. The fact is that the NHS is cutting 4,000 jobs, of which 1,500 are nursing jobs. At the same time, health boards plan to spend £30 million on agency nurses to fill the gaps. Does the First Minister accept that we cannot cut 1,500 nurses from the health service without impacting on patient care?
Iain Gray’s second question gave away the inaccuracies in his first one. Those nurses will be working the same number of hours for the same salary; that does not sound to me like working for nothing. If Iain Gray was paid per question, nothing would be overpayment for him.
The guarantee that we have given the national health service is clear. There will be no compulsory redundancies in the national health service and more people will be working at the clinical end of the national health service at the end of the current Administration than there were when we took office in 2007. The reason that we are able to give that guarantee is our commitment to pass on the consequentials to protect national health spending in Scotland.
Iain Gray might think that that is inconvenient. I happened to be watching “Newsnight Scotland”, when he was asked that very question, and he refused to give that guarantee. If he has changed his mind under the tutelage of Andy Kerr, perhaps he should tell the chamber.
The nurses in Grampian will be delighted to hear that the First Minister believes that they are making up what they have been asked to do because, as far as they are concerned, they are being asked to work more for no more money.
Let us talk about patients and guarantees. Let us talk about Janet Adams, who is living in pain while waiting for surgery in Grampian. Her general practitioner referred her to the orthopaedic clinic on 14 July. The Scottish Government guarantees her an appointment by this week, but she has been offered an appointment by Christmas. She does not have that guarantee. Is the First Minister’s NHS waiting time guarantee just another promise that he cannot be bothered keeping?
Let us be clear about the start of that question: I would never accuse nurses in Scotland of giving misleading information; I suggested that Iain Gray was not in command of his facts. The reason why I suggested that is that nurses are not being asked to work extra hours; they are being asked to work for the same salary. Those are the parameters of the NHS Grampian consultation.
Iain Gray should bring forward the facts on individual cases within the national health service and they will be answered case by case. However, let us remember that waiting times in the national health service in Scotland are at an all-time low under this Administration. The reason for that is the record investment that we have made in the NHS in Scotland. The Labour Party did not guarantee such investment at the previous election, which is one of the reasons that it lost in 2007, just as Iain Gray’s refusal to guarantee consequentials is a reason that it will lose in 2011.
Here is what the Royal College of Nursing says:
“This change in working arrangements is clearly to the detriment of our hard-working and overstretched members who are bearing the brunt of the cuts that are being made by NHS Grampian.”
The First Minister is making it up as he goes along, and so is Nicola Sturgeon. Yesterday, she cancelled a new health centre in Mull and, today, she uncancelled it in a hastily arranged radio interview. John Swinney plundered £5 million from her hospitals while her back was turned. [Interruption.] Nurses are being asked to work for nothing. Nursing jobs are being cut and millions wasted on agency replacements. Kirkcaldy accident and emergency—[Interruption.]
Order.
Kirkcaldy accident and emergency unit is closed by staff shortages. Procedure rooms in half of Scotland sit idle most of the time. The Scottish Ambulance Service call centre has crashed twice in the past few months. The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing is asleep at the wheel. When will the First Minister tell Nicola Sturgeon to get a grip?
For the fourth time, I clarify that nurses are not being asked to work for nothing. The terms of the consultation are the same hours for the same salary. It could not be clearer than that. Of course, the quotation that Iain Gray used from the RCN did not allege that nurses were being asked to work for nothing. At some point during or after this question session, he will have to retreat from his position yet again.
I would have thought that Iain Gray would welcome the fact that we are able to go ahead with the capital investment for the health centre on Mull. That seems a good thing to me. We are able to do that despite the fact that, although we might think that the coalition Government’s statement that it would protect real-terms spending on health would include the capital budget and the revenue budget, we have been unable to get any clarity about that over the past few months. The coalition Government’s confusion about whether the protection of real-terms spending on health includes the capital budget is similar to Iain Gray’s confusion about whether the consequentials would be passed on to the health service in Scotland.
The position with the national health service is that patient satisfaction is at a record high and waiting times are at a record low, thanks to the investment of this Government.
Before Iain Gray talks about accident and emergency, he should remember that if it had been up to the Labour Party, accident and emergency wards would not exist all over Scotland.
Secretary of State for Scotland (Meetings)
2. To ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Secretary of State for Scotland. (S3F-2618)
I have no plans to meet the secretary of state in the near future.
Nearly half a million methadone scripts are being given out every year in Scotland. That figure has soared over the past five years. Let us be clear what that means: every minute of every hour in every day, a methadone script is issued in Scotland. Of course methadone can have a role to play for some addicts on their road to recovery, but the BBC reports today that Scottish pharmacists now want that number cut. We know that many addicts never wanted to go on methadone in the first place and many who are on it want off. We simply cannot switch people from an illegal drug and park them on a prescribed one. Does the First Minister agree?
The direction of travel in addressing the drugs problem in Scotland has been agreed several times by this Parliament and has carried substantial support throughout the chamber, which I think has been a strength in comparison to the previous situation.
As Annabel Goldie knows, under Fergus Ewing’s leadership—this is endorsed by the Parliament—the accent is on recovery. The methadone supervision arrangements are local schemes between NHS boards and certain pharmacies in the area. However, the accent of our approach to the drugs situation in Scotland is to put an emphasis on recovery, as opposed to the prescription of methadone.
I welcome the First Minister’s commitment to putting recovery at the heart of the strategy. That strategy, to which we both agreed, was a watershed in the approach to drug abuse in Scotland. However, a new strategy and political will are not enough if the change is not being delivered on the ground. The simple truth is that every month 1,000 people join the Scottish drugs misuse database. Put that together with the methadone prescription levels and it is clear that the sea change in policy two and a half years ago has not become a sea change in practice on the ground. Will the First Minister set up an independent review to report to this Parliament on why, for too many addicts, the road to recovery is still not a reality?
The role of pharmacists is laid out in the prescription guidelines and the drug misuse and dependence guidelines of clinical management. We will welcome further considerations of those guidelines on the advice of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.
The Parliament confirmed its endorsement of the Government’s direction of travel on 15 September. That has been backed up by record funding for drug treatment, something that Annabel Goldie and others called for and that she will now acknowledge. Health boards have received £28.6 million for front-line drug services in 2010-11—an increase of 20 per cent that exceeds this party’s manifesto commitment. That funding is spent on recovery-focused services, in line with the drugs strategy, to help people recover from drug problems.
When we have discussed this issue as a Parliament over the past few years, no one has believed that there is quick and easy answer, but one prerequisite for success in combating the drugs menace in Scotland was to get agreement, unanimity and a collective purpose among politicians. The Parliament has achieved that. Certainly the emphasis should be on delivery. Certainly I am prepared to examine any action that can increase the impact of the direction of travel, but let us not at any price go back to a situation where Scotland’s drug problems were used as a political football between political parties as opposed to being treated as a major social problem that we must address collectively.
Cabinet (Meetings)
3. To ask the First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the Cabinet. (S3F-2619)
The next meeting of the Cabinet will discuss issues of great importance to the people of Scotland.
Tavish Scott should know—I suspect that he will endorse this—that the last meeting of the Cabinet gave particular acknowledgement to the contribution of our Lord Advocate, Elish Angiolini. She has spent 10 years as a law officer, is the first woman to hold the high office of Lord Advocate and is a radical reformer who has made a huge contribution to the Scottish judicial system in her term of office. [Applause.]
I entirely endorse those words and support the theme of the First Minister’s acknowledgement of the Lord Advocate’s contribution to her role in our judicial system.
Today Her Majesty’s chief inspector of constabulary said that the number of police forces in Scotland should be cut. At the same time, the First Minister’s Government has been interfering in chief constable appointments—slowing them down, creating obstacles and getting in the way. The Northern Constabulary is just one example of that.
In July Mr Salmond’s spokeswoman said:
“We have no plans to move away from eight police forces but neither do we have a blueprint for policing in the future.”
Three months on, a bit nearer the future, does the Government have a blueprint for policing in Scotland?
The blueprint for policing in Scotland during the past few years has been to have a record number of officers on our streets, a 32 per cent reduction in the crime rate and historic record clear-up rates for crime in Scotland. That is a particularly effective demonstration of the implementation of justice in Scotland.
I know from Tavish Scott’s questions in previous weeks that he has focused his concern on the importance of local police boards. For most people, however, the measurement of the effectiveness of the police service is the visibility of a police presence on our streets—we did not get the Liberal Democrats’ support for moving in that direction—and the record fall in crime rates in Scotland, which is partially a result of that effective instrument.
People look upon crime and the approach to crime in terms of the record on delivery. That is hugely important to people, and perhaps more important than the precise organisation and number of police boards in Scotland.
That is a pretty clear illustration of what will happen if the Scottish National Party continues. I do not believe that having a single police force for Scotland will reduce crime or improve the detection of criminal activity.
On the First Minister’s point about delivery, Northern Constabulary solves two thirds of crime in its area, while some areas do not manage to solve half of the crime in theirs. A single chief constable for Scotland would know that he or she owes their contract and their future entirely to the justice minister. It will be a highly political post and a highly political appointment. Such a police chief would never be out of the justice secretary’s office, and would never be in the local communities that he or she should be serving.
The conveners of the police boards for Northern Constabulary and Grampian Police are against the centralisation. The north, the north east and the south west will not be well served if the police force is centralised and run from Glasgow.
The First Minister is also a north-east MSP. Will he today rule out a single police force for Scotland, which his local police board opposes?
I am in discussion with partners in the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, and that is how the work is being carried forward.
Will you rule it out?
Before Tavish Scott rejects any proposals for change, let us look at the work by ACPOS, which indicates for the first time that—
You will not rule it out.
Mr Rumbles.
—around 25 per cent of the policing budget is spent on headquarters functions across the eight forces.
Will you answer the question?
At a time of huge pressure on public spending, is it not appropriate that, with our partners in COSLA and the chief constables, we look at whether that figure can be cut so that we can continue to protect the front line of policing? That seems to me to be a reasonable position.
All that I will say to the sedentary interjections from Mr Rumbles is that if he is so convinced—
You were asked to rule it out.
Mr Rumbles, I warn you.
—that the Liberal Democrats have the right approach to policing, why are his colleagues south of the border consulting on abolishing police boards and introducing police commissioners on the American model? Is that just another sign that the Liberal Democrats are saying one thing in office south of the border and another thing in opposition north of the border?
Mr Rumbles, I am aware of your discomfort but, as the first Presiding Officer used to say, this is question time, not necessarily answer time.
National Health Service (Alcoholic Parents)
4. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s position is regarding the claim by Children 1st that the NHS is not doing enough to tackle drinking among the alcoholic parents of 80,000 children. (S3F-2622)
The Government recognises the serious toll that alcohol misuse by parents and carers takes on our children. One child affected is one too many, which is why we have outlined a package of bold measures that seek to address the problem.
We are working to improve support services for those children and families who are already affected by parental substance misuse. That has been backed by a record investment of almost £100 million in those services.
It is crucial that we prevent problems from arising in the first place. Alcohol awareness week—which runs until Sunday—and alcohol brief interventions can help people to make better decisions about their drinking for their own and their children’s benefit.
The national health service is tackling alcohol abuse in Scotland, but public services cannot manage the problem alone. It is time that members in the Parliament took a stand and supported all the provisions in the Alcohol etc (Scotland) Bill.
I share the First Minister’s concern about the adverse effects that excess parental consumption of alcohol has on dependent children. I also share the opinion that the problem of alcohol in this society cannot be dealt with by the national health service alone; that price is the major factor; and that the health of adults and children would be greatly enhanced if opposition parties agreed to support minimum unit pricing, which has the overwhelming support of professionals in the field. Does the First Minister agree?
Over the past two years, the health service has made 82,000 alcohol brief interventions to help those drinking at hazardous and harmful levels to cut down. In his question, Ian McKee mentioned Children 1st. Given that some members on the opposition benches in the chamber do not appear to like the direction of my answer, I should point out that on minimum unit pricing that organisation said:
“we welcome minimum pricing as one means to begin to address parental alcohol misuse. We believe that minimum pricing will represent a step towards reducing heavy drinking by parents, currently a common feature of children’s lives.”
Children 1st, like the variety of professional, expert and compassionate opinion in Scotland, supported the Government’s direction of travel. What a pity that some members of this chamber failed that challenge.
Children 1st has also suggested intervention in early years to help parents deal with their substance abuse and to prevent children from entering the cycle of abuse. Does the First Minister agree that, if we are to protect the children of drug and alcohol-abusing parents in Scotland, we need more health visitors providing a consistent service to all families and focusing on those in need?
I know that everyone in the chamber supports the work that health visitors carry out the length and breadth of Scotland and that we would all like to be in a public spending situation that would allow further investment to be made. However, the member should remember that the roll-out of alcohol brief interventions was designed to ensure that early interventions were made to help people to reduce their drinking before it became a serious problem. Although we all aspire to improving public services, members of parties that are moving in the opposite direction will at some stage have to recognise that calls for public investment are incompatible with measures to reduce spending.
Does the First Minister agree that part of the problem of excess parental consumption of alcohol might be down to the fact that only 15 per cent of Scots can estimate correctly the number of alcohol units in a normal-strength bottle of wine?
That is a very reasonable point. Indeed, that is why we must put our efforts into providing information and spreading the message throughout society.
The First Minister will have our support when he suggests action that is effective and legal. Minimum unit pricing is not the key issue. Does he agree that the biggest problem is that, contrary to what he outlined, very little has been done since the publication by the previous Scottish Executive of “Hidden Harm” to identify children living with parents who are addicted to drugs or alcohol? Does he also agree that instead of simply estimating the numbers he needs to take action to find out where those children are and what intervention is required with a degree more urgency that he has displayed?
I refer to the 82,000 early interventions that the health service has carried out to identify and confront problem drinking before it becomes a problem and also point out that among the many organisations and people who supported the Government’s approach to minimum unit pricing was Tam Baillie, Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People.
I know how the Labour Party chooses to interpret its failure to support a key social policy that would have done a lot of good in Scotland in a whole variety of ways. However, I say to the member that it is extraordinary to claim that pricing is not an issue in alcohol consumption, to refuse to support measures to reduce consumption through pricing and to oppose any move to give this Parliament any powers over, for example, excise duties that would allow us to address the issue in other ways. Such a position is extraordinary and will be to the eternal shame of the Labour Party in Scotland.
Rate Revaluation (Successful Appeals)
5. To ask the First Minister what percentage of business rate appeals was successful after the 2005 revaluation and how many the Scottish Government expects to be successful this year. (S3F-2634)
Successful business rate appeals after the 2005 revaluation reduced the rateable values of those who appealed by just under 4 per cent. Appeals that are lodged following the 2010 revaluation will be dealt with in a timely manner and must be disposed of by the valuation appeals committees before December 2013, although in practice the vast majority will be resolved through negotiation with the assessors before that date.
Since the 2005 revaluation, we have introduced groundbreaking measures to support Scottish businesses. The latest figures show that, under the Government’s measures, almost half of all properties in Scotland, particularly in the small business sector, pay no business rates at all.
I thank the First Minister, although I did not ask him by how much the rates bill had been reduced. I asked him what percentage of businesses had been successful in appeals. Perhaps he will reply in due course to that question, of which he had notice.
Does the First Minister agree with the comments of the deputy assessor at Grampian valuation joint board that the 40 per cent increase in appeals this year reflects the fact that many small businesses no longer benefit from rates relief because of this year’s revaluation? Does he acknowledge that 86,000 businesses are worse off? Will he now, finally, respond to the calls from the chambers of commerce and many small firms up and down the country for the Government to provide transitional relief for the businesses that are worst affected?
Sixty four thousand small businesses throughout Scotland no longer pay business rates. If it had been up to the Labour Party, that figure would be zero, since Lewis Macdonald opposed the small business bonus scheme.
On the precise ability to cope with appeals, I have been doing a little bit of research into a little bit of history, and I have been looking in particular at Aberdeen. It is true that there has been a sharp rise in appeals against valuations this year, but I have compared it with the 2000 valuation, when Lewis Macdonald was the planning minister and, lo and behold, in Aberdeen there were 4,221 appeals against the revaluation in 2000 compared with 3,645 this year. [Interruption.]
Order.
Why is that the case, one wonders? Of course, back in 2000, when the Labour Party was in office, there was no small business bonus scheme, so many more people in small businesses were forced to pay rates. There was no renewables rates relief, for example, and the rural scheme was inadequate compared with what it is now.
However, the key feature of the situation when Lewis Macdonald was the planning minister is that the poundage rate in Scotland in 2000 was 45.8p compared with the English level of 41.6p. Under the current Administration the Scottish and English poundage rates have been equalised, which means that every business in Scotland has received that benefit and that bonus.
Managed Diagnostic Imaging Clinical Network (Emergency Teams)
6. To ask the First Minister what action the Scottish Government is taking in response to the report by the managed diagnostic imaging clinical network showing that specialist emergency teams are not on call in many major hospitals. (S3F-2627)
The Scottish Government commissioned the review and welcomes the report, which describes the many areas of good practice in radiology. It also points to the opportunities for national health service boards to collaborate in providing out-of-hours care for such specialist treatment. We expect NHS boards and clinicians to take the report into account in planning their services.
Half of Scots who suffer internal bleeding have no out-of-hours access to state-of-the-art interventional radiology treatment. Doctors have warned that dozens of patients are dying because 10 health boards, including NHS Highland, fail to provide that service out of hours. Hospitals have been fitted with specialist treatment rooms, yet many of them are sitting unused outside normal hours. Given that such medical emergencies affect about 7,000 Scots every year, will the First Minister assure me that he is doing everything in his power to end the postcode lottery of access to potentially life-saving treatment?
I say again that we commissioned the review and we welcome the report. Jamie Stone should be careful before taking press reports at face value.
Dr Iain Robertson, lead clinician on the managed diagnostic imaging clinical network, and one of the report’s authors, has said:
“The recent press article misrepresents the report content and purpose. It would be a great pity if this article was to impair the collaborative work that we should undertake to further improve access to this service.”
It is not just a commitment on radiology in the future that I can give to Jamie Stone; I can tell him what has happened over the past few years. At March 2009, NHS Scotland spent £230 million on radiology services compared with £178 million in 2007—an increase of 22 per cent.
I return the First Minister to the report and quote the following:
“We could not within the report, and should not make any estimate of mortality for centres without formal access as a number of potential outcomes could occur including successful conservative management, provision of an ad hoc/informal service or transfer to a neighbouring centre.”
Does the First Minister agree that the headline in Scotland on Sunday that said “Patients dying”, was, to put it politely, not only misleading but scaremongering?
I refer again to what one of the report’s authors said about the newspaper report. We commissioned that report precisely because we wanted to see where improvements could be made. The thrust of the report is about using skilled staff and equipment imaginatively, but working across traditional health board boundaries to provide out-of-hours care in an improved fashion. The report recognises that after the increases in expenditure on radiology the issue is not fundamentally one of resource and that access could be improved without major resource investment. It was precisely to get that sort of informed dialogue and information that we commissioned the report. We welcome the report’s findings, albeit not all the press coverage that surrounded them.
12:31
Meeting suspended until 14:15.
14:15
On resuming—